Theories about Human nature are part of every culture, the larger dilemma is to determine which fundamental human traits and dispositions are natural and which are the result of some form of learning or socialization. Learn more about this topic in this post!
What is Human Nature?
La Human nature is a set of stable and immutable characteristics, general inclinations and properties that express the Characteristics of living beings, which are inherent in a reasonable person at all times, regardless of biological evolution and historical process.
The idea that a person has a certain immutable nature did not initially provoke specific discussions in the history of philosophy, it was important to guess what this nature is, however, the idea of the stability of the Nature of the human being it was undermined from within: philosophers and politicians put diametrically opposed content into this concept.
When a politician or social thinker tries to justify the prevailing order, he naturally starts from the belief that Human Nature is immutable, for example, speaking of the inevitability of economic competition, the ideologues of early capitalism assumed that man by nature strives for profit, enrichment.
Features
Among the Characteristics of Human Nature it's that it's mysterious, interesting, majestic and not completely understandable, it tells us who we humans are by nature and shows us what we can become if we use all our power and the potential for human development is really huge.
Therefore, the more we learn about ourselves, the wider the scope of our possibilities becomes, knowing the nature of man, we can understand many of our own and others' needs, motives, desires, feelings, interests, opportunities and objectives.
Thanks to this understanding, we can competently manage our own behavior and that of other people, with the help of thoughtful actions, that, you see, is a very useful skill for our life.
Origin
The 1870s were a turning point in the worldwide debate on the Origin and Evolution of the Earth and human evolution, with profound implications for science, colonial expansion, industrial progress, religious belief, and ethical and philosophical debate, Darwin's correspondence from this period is of fundamental importance in understanding both the development of his theory of human origins as their relation to prevailing assumptions about Human Nature.
In several Nature Articles it is said that when Darwin resumed systematic research on the emotions around 1866, began to collect observations more widely, and composed a list of queries on human expression, the list was printed for ease of distribution sometime in late 1867 or early 1868. Darwin reviewed his questions and refined them, as we can see in this copy of the printed list with minor corrections in Darwin's hand.
Darwin's work on emotional expression, from observations of his own children, to questionnaires and photo experiments, was an integral part of his extensive research on human evolution, it provided one of the main bodies of evidence for the descent of humans from animals.
Between March and November 1868, showing a succession of visitors a set of photographs of human faces, some with the muscles artificially contracted by electrical probes, and asking them what emotion they thought the photographs conveyed, Darwin's research has striking parallels with contemporary facial recognition experiments.
chinese philosophy
Many Chinese schools of philosophy have addressed the question of Human nature, several important traditional perspectives on Human Nature include the Confucian theory of acquired habits and the Mohist theory of the originals.
In addition to analyzing Human Nature, the implications of these traditional values for current educational practice in Taiwan are presented, amidst these complicated and sometimes contradictory traditions, changing Human Nature is confirmed, the autonomy of teachers and students is recognized, and deliberation about the learning process is encouraged.
Human Nature has played a central role in traditional Chinese philosophy in the past and will continue to be relevant in the future, East Asian culture is generally perceived as being deeply influenced by Confucianism.
However, the educational philosophies practiced in this region today differ as much from the ideas espoused by the sages as they do from the west, this difference occurring as the culture developed through various stage, the understanding of the theories of Human Nature helps to find their application and mechanisms in cultural practices, as well as to open possibilities for understanding and involvement in education.
Confucianism
The Confucian restoration that occurred during the Tang and Song dynasties was based on the establishment of a Confucian theory about the heart and nature. From a broad perspective, before the Tang dynasty, Confucianism was divided between several conflicting theories about Human Nature. .
Like the theories of acquired habits, the original goodness of Human nature, evil of Human Nature, the three kinds of human nature (ie, superior, middle, and inferior), temperament, and the nature of talent.
With the rise of Neo-Confucianism in song, the original goodness theory of Human Nature dominated the ideology for a significant period of time, during which Confucianism split.
Although particular scholars advocated a reform of Neo-Confucianism, the original goodness theory of Human Nature persisted, however, the emphasis placed on Human Nature shifted toward the development of knowledge, practice, and the perspective of human and cultural evolution.
Legalism
Legalism was based on mistrust of the Human nature, a concept first proposed by Shen Buhai, a politician in the state of Han who warned the king against the ministers, who deceived him and encouraged him to seize royal power.
Based on this theory, legalism was developed to supervise subjects and people, for example, the king he must not express personal likes and dislikes or trust a single person, instead, he must listen to various opinions to prevent the subjects from colluding to seize power.
However, Shen Buhai was generally considered the person who could best read his lord Han Zhaohou's mind.
Shang Yang, a Qin statesman who enacted numerous reforms, was another well-known legalist, implemented rigid rewards and punishments to control officials and civilians, enacted numerous statutes as mandatory codes of conduct for the people, simultaneously ordered people to learn the provisions of laws and comply with the instructions.
They were ordered to learn the provisions of laws and comply with the instructions, because the hereditary political power possessed by the nobility had been substantially reduced and the avenues to enjoy personal wealth were restricted, the only way for people who wished to improve their lifestyle and raise their social status was to fight battles, engage in agricultural production activities, and abide by the laws.
Consequently, personal development was determined by national goals, and the Qin state became the first example of totalitarian politics in Chinese history.
Philosophy of the Western Modern Age
Philosophy in the modern world is a self-conscious discipline, it has succeeded in defining itself narrowly, distinguishing itself on the one hand from religion and on the other from exact science, but this narrowing of focus occurred very late in its history, certainly not before the eighteenth century. .
The first philosophers of ancient Greece were theorists of the physical world, Pythagoras and Plato were both philosophers and mathematicians, and in Aristotle there is no clear distinction between philosophy and the natural sciences, the Renaissance and the early modern period continued this breadth of conception characteristic of the Greeks.
Galileo and Descartes were mathematicians, physicists and philosophers at the same time and physics retained the name of natural philosophy at least until the death of Sir Isaac Newton, if the Renaissance thinkers had worked carefully on matters of definition (which they were not), they could have defined philosophy, on the basis of its actual practice, as "the rational, methodical, and systematic consideration of mankind, civil society, and the natural world."
Therefore, the areas of interest of philosophy would not have been in doubt, although the issue of what constitutes "rational, methodical and systematic consideration" would have been extremely controversial, because knowledge advances through the discovery and defense of new ideas. philosophical methods and because these various methods depend for their validity on the prevailing philosophical criteria of truth, meaning, and importance, the crucial philosophical disputes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were at the bottom of disputes over method.
It is this issue, rather than any disagreement on subject matter or areas of interest, that divided the great Renaissance philosophers. The great new fact that confronted the Renaissance was the immediacy, vastness, and uniformity of the natural world, but what What was of primary importance was the new perspective through which this fact was interpreted.
To the schoolchildren of the Middle Ages, the universe was hierarchical, organic, and ordered by God, to the philosophers of the Renaissance, it was pluralistic, machinistic, and mathematically ordered, in the Middle Ages, scholars thought in terms of divine purposes, goals, and intentions , in the Renaissance, they thought in terms of forces, mechanical agencies and physical causes, all this became evident at the end of the fifteenth century.
Hannah Arendt's vision
The philosophies of existence think about human reality by refusing to define man and maintaining a scientific discourse about him, at first sight, Hannah Arendt shares this orientation, however, she distances herself from existentialism and beyond the rejection of all anthropological knowledge , is committed to maintaining a discourse of the human condition that does not aim at a definition of man, but rather takes the content in another way from well-known ancient or modern definitions.
He often spoke of the definitions of man, but in a scattered way, a thoughtful and orderly study of his words constitutes one of the possible ways of measuring the difference between his anthropological discourse and that of existentialism.
The Earth, like the Origin of the universe in which it is inscribed, it is mentioned as empirical spatial entities whose scientific knowledge makes it possible to build representations, in particular using specific tools of thought: such as the space of geometry in particular and technical instruments, such as the Galileo telescope.
For Arendt, it is this objectification of terrestrial and cosmic spaces and the use, to conceive them, of the space of geometry, which made possible the invention of numerous techniques, in particular the techniques of movement (airplanes, railways, spaceships, etc. .)
His interest in the earth and cosmic space participates above all in his project to deal with the "human condition" and not, as a certain philosophical tradition demands, the "human condition".Human nature«, the human condition refers to his own postulate that humanity, like the individuals and groups that compose it, can only be understood if we relate them to the material and spatial conditions of their existence.
Process of understanding in the political space
They actively work to isolate individuals from each other and destroy the political space by virtue of which they could at the same time differentiate themselves and relate to each other, this is what the law allows in totalitarian regimes, what perverts the very idea of the law in ancient and modern democracies.
More importantly, these spatial terms are rarely used metaphorically, certainly one might be tempted to see in Arendt's phraseology and in particular her conception of political space, of the space of appearance, of the space between men, an immense metaphor. that, in fact, the distance would be equated with the difference, the distance with the social differentiation and the extreme approach with the denial of individualities.
This doubt about the metaphorical character is fed by the absence of precise protocols for empirical observations and the small number of developments related to the concrete modalities according to which men deal with space, nor does it borrow from the social sciences and psychology, which explicitly distrusts this type of empirical material.
The Ethological Analysis of Konrad Lorenz
Classical ethology, represented in the works of Konrad Lorenz, John Bowlby, and Robert Hinde, can make an important theoretical contribution to relationship research. Lorenz discussed group processes and interpersonal relationships and emphasized that personal relationships and bond formation are closely related to aggression.
Bowlby tried to integrate concepts and methods from psychoanalysis and classical ethology. The Hinde tried to integrate our knowledge about human relationships based on some principles of classical ethology.
Biologically oriented research on animal and human behavior in recent decades has advanced in various aspects, ethology, sociobiology, behavioral ecology, neurophysiology, behavioral genetics are some of the areas that have contributed to the advancement of our knowledge about social processes and relationships.
Present and Future of Human Nature
Talk of the Human nature it is to speak of a universal essence of man, that is to say that there is a certain number of characteristics common to all men without restriction, this means that there is a definition of man that would apply to each and every one of them without residue.
However, when we look at men, what we see is not identity, what they have in common, but differences, a diversity that seems to destroy the very idea of Human Nature.
Therefore, the problem is the following, on the one hand, we speak of Human Nature, of the essence of man and it seems that this idea of a definition of what man is is legitimate because nothing that exists seems that it cannot have nature, but on the other hand, it seems that this idea is useless because the observable differences between individuals are such that they seem to have nothing in common.
Aristotle, therefore, highlights three differences between man and animals that not only distinguish him from them, but also reveal what characterizes man in his own right, defining is always distinguishing, discovering identity almost always implies highlighting the differences .
Man is a political animal, endowed with a discourse thanks to which he can communicate, of course, but above all express ideas that animals do not have, those of good and evil, those of the just and the unjust, therefore, we are not far from man as a reasonable animal.
What is the reason for this current urgency for Human Nature?
In the last four decades, research has increasingly focused on understanding whether there is a link between the changing relationship of Human nature and its impact on people's health, however, to examine whether there is a link, it is necessary to investigate its extent and the underlying mechanisms from an interdisciplinary approach.
It is anticipated that by drawing on these different fields of knowledge, a deeper level of understanding can be brought to the growing problem of humanity's relationship with nature and its impact on health, this is because examining Human Nature from a single disciplinary perspective could lead to partial findings that neglect other important sources, as well as the complexities that exist between links, causal directions, processes, and relationships.
Evolutionary psychology is a recently developed field of study, which has grown exponentially with interest since the 1980s, focusing on the adaptation of psychological characteristics said to have evolved over time in response to social and ecological circumstances within individuals. ancestral environments of humanity.
Which concept is promising?
That is why men are so different from each other: they only become men within a society, therefore within a culture, however, cultures are different from each other and determine individuals in their language, their way of being, behaving, thinking, feeling, in such a way that not all are distinguished from each other.
Vulnerability, dependency and autonomy
Vulnerability has emerged as a fruitful concept of lto Human Nature In recent political discourse, although care theorists have sometimes framed the ethics of care in terms of vulnerability, more often than not they have oriented it towards dependency.
Today he analyzes the differences between dependency and vulnerability and advocates a reconceptualization of the ethics of care in terms of vulnerability, by reformulating the ethics of care around vulnerability, care theorists can not only broaden the scope of the problems that the ethics of care can address and clarify ambiguities in the theory, but also strengthen the justification for the responsibility of care.
A drastic change of Human Nature
Evolution has enabled us to indicate that we have a better time to survive by favoring others, corresponding and being humanitarian, as masses we can originate more food, build safer shelters and protect each other reciprocally.
Attraction, seduction, and sexual desire are among the most obvious manifestations of our need to connect, by making them pleasurable, evolution has increased the chances of us reproducing and surviving.
Likewise, we can connect with other people, in order to feel relevant to the world around us, with what we do in it, with what things symbolize, with who we are and with whom we can become, that is why feelings and traditions, not facts and numbers, resonate so intensely in the human being.
