This paper focuses on the philosophical perception of human beings in three distinctive time periods. On account of this, the paper captures different philosopher and the piece of work they engaged in within their respective paradigm to understand human beings and their organization. These periods are ancient, medieval and the contemporary periods. Furthermore, it also tries to place emphasis on the various variances on the thematic concepts as time changed with different philosophers at singular moment in time episode.
According to a primordial axiom on human, the intense study of human beings is human beings. This implies that, to understand the problem of human, you must take a deep internal perception since it is everlasting and greatest of all. Social development aims at the creation of human qualities that enhances self expression. The fundamental nature of man consists of three distinctive spheres: spirit, mind and the body organization but not in isolation. Human behavior is shaped and guided by history of their development. Human engage in activities embedded in their cultural settings, language, social norms and labor. Humans are biosocial being who assumes the highest level of cranial capacity among all living organisms in the globe subject to his expressed abilities.
Some of the Finding by Individual Philosophers about Human: Modern.
Rene Descartes is perhaps the “˜father of the modern philosophy’. He has a sharp break from the ancient Aristotelian philosophy. In his work, he embraces and promotes the modern science as a ground for reasoning. His main differences from the scholastic philosophy are two fold. First, he faulted the scholastic philosophy in that it relied heavily on sensation for all accounts of its understanding. Secondly, he wished to replace the prehistoric end causal model of explaining technical facts with the contemporary mechanistic model. In his mission to identify epistemological foundation, he wanted to clear any bargain able issue that possessed a tip of doubt. As he set forth, he identified “˜I exist’ which was unfeasible to doubt and therefore, absolutely true and further shows that God exists and can never lie.
Besides this, Descartes resolved that human beings are certainly the creature with all the favorable features that best isolates them from the core of other organisms. In addition, he pointed that human beings do not only conform to the culture through instincts but rather shape up according to the environment surrounding them in immediacy. As opposed to Aristotelian traditions, Rene described the human beings as emanating from the immaterial sense of the body and inaugurates the shape of the devices as brought forth from his physics mechanistic model.
Additionally, Descartes expressed the framework of the operation of the model with the exact operation of human bodies and animals. The mind and the body are actually divergent, according to Descartes; the mind is wholly unimportant thing in isolation. Conversely, the body is wholly independent without any attachment to it. In this sense, he concludes that each can only express certain specific qualities to itself and never others, for instance, the mind can only comprehend, will and perhaps express ambiance. On the other hand, the body can only express certain qualities such as size, quantity and shape, but cannot understand as the minds do.
However, he considered that at times, the will compels the body to act in a certain manner or to express itself in a way prompted by the willpower. For instance, the urge to take a glass of water prompts the action to walk to the reservoir to draw some; consequently, the strong feeling of pain from an injury prompts one to visit the nurse among other scenarios. In such situations, two different aspects with different nature causally act together. Indeed, the end result is basically the result of the previous different aspect.
In an attempt to explain this, Princess Elizabeth in concurrence with Descartes and Pierre Gassendi expressed this problem as a concept of touch and movement. Certainly, they were concerned with the movement of the body must emanate from the mind. In this sense, for the body to dislocate, it must be exposed to mind first to where the impulses are sent to the part in question. Undeniably, contact exists between two bodies. Since the mind lacks a surface, the movement is propagated in the same manner as the particle in the eye transits through the optical nerve and to cause the necessary movement on the body of which remained unclear to both Pierre Gassendi and Princess Elizabeth. To affirm that the human mind is different from the body while the two work hand in hand, then Descartes though didn’t come to a clear indulgence of the mind and body found that the mind of humans must be an extension of the body if the two has had to be in synchronization. However Descartes was not very perturbed or concerned neither about the mystery posing the problem. Instead, he expressed his conviction to both Gassendi and Elizabeth that the misapprehension rest had a strong hold of the unity between the human mind and body.
In addition, Descartes distinguishes between different primal concepts. First, is the concept of mind or spirit. This encompasses the concept of acuity of intellect and proclivity of the will. Secondly, is the concept of the body which entails the shape and movement. Thirdly, is unity of body with the soul, which eventually depends on the power of the soul to propel the body and the power of the body to trigger sensations and fervor in the latter. Of these primitive notions, belongs to their particular modes.
Philosopher’s Findings in the Medieval Period on Human Beings.
During this particular period, Augustine of Hippo, a renowned philosopher existed, a follower of Manichaeanism and a North African rhetorician. In his work, he cited a slag “˜credo ut intellegiam’ meaning, I accept as true in order to comprehend. In fact, Augustine remained redundant about the epistemological censures raised by the academicians. He said, “˜si fallor, sum’ that is, “˜if I am mistaken, I exist. However, this became an important phase for Descartes later to establish the meaning of the expression, “˜cogito ergo sum’
Human life according to Augustine.
In his approach towards the human life, Augustine said that stoics were enthusiastically confident in their test for human temperament. He contributed greatly to the growth and development of the Christian mysticism as he strongly acknowledged and portrayed the reality about human wickedness. He believed that every human is aberrant in nature on account of his past sinful lifestyle that does not exempt him from the bracket. Augustine believed that the globe and all that it contains is a formation of the “˜good gods’. He further argued that evil is not everything in existence but rather the lack of good. Besides this, he argued that the formation of the human beings with the power of choice between the good and evil is paramount with regard to the sacred plan for the earth and overshadows the dire consequences of the people violation of the right.
On account of human behavior, Augustine added that, human behavior can’t be streamlined effectively and perfectly through the imposition of a tracked discipline or schooling. Indeed, he says that the only option is to wait for the gods to work with us; otherwise any attempt to streamline humans is bound to founder. In conclusion, he said that the merciful action by the grace of god is the only solution best place to offer hope to the sinners and indeed the whole
Freedom of human beings
In accordance with Augustine, god has the power and knowhow on all aspects of the human kind. In this regard, god can cause one to act in a given way by his volition and knows in advance what he has got to do in the future, but remains a mystery to human. However, this does not scare away the essence of responsibility in human. He ascertained that human beings must be responsible for each and every action they do as opposed to placing personal responsibility at the custody of god.
On account of social responsibility, Augustine focused on god with regard to the realm of time. It then followed that time is real, but its passage, direction of knowledge and temporal relations are simply the characteristic of limitations of our mind. He added that a person feels free and is solely responsible for their actions, as opposed to the inclination to god. Indeed, god’s knowledge of the future in our lives pegged on the outside order of time has no play with human’s ethical responsibility.
Human beings, a perception from the ancient philosophers.
The great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, conceptualized that in the ancient; man was perceived as just a “minute world” with all the major features of the universe and the sign of the cosmos as spiritualized life forms. In addition, he expressed man as a social creature gifted by means of a “reasoning soul”. A man could figure out and make temporal decision pertaining to his lifestyle. This also made it clear for the demarcation between man and other organisms in the entire globe. The renaissance period owe great inspiration. Indeed, human was identified with the cognition capacity. The great philosopher, Descartes, examined, ‘cogito, ergo sum’ that is “I think therefore I am” he wished to understand the specific feature of a man. In his work, human body was perceived like a contrivance; the soul by its ability to reason and make decisions described by consciousness. Furthermore, he projected the idea with regard to human nature and perception.
Man’s organization of the body is less specialized unlike that of other animals. To conform to the world of existence, man has to reform himself by adopting himself to a given aspect of culture. This reflects on a dualistic perception of human beings as existing in two separate worlds of moral freedom and natural necessity as brought out by Aristotle. According to German classical philosophy, the point of demarcation is the spiritual activism aspect of man to foster the space of culture as the vehicle of reckoning. On the contrary, Feuerbach realigned the philosophy of a human being subbing it on human beings.
Besides this, in his treatise, Aristotle knocked off the approach exhibited by Plato in the Phaedo. Instead, his attention was on the everlasting trait of the human soul and the human themselves. Furthermore, he discredited the fact that Plato had only focused on one part, and thus his argument was faulty. Instead, he advocated for the wholesome approach through analysis in order to flow from the whole realm down to the parts. In his point of view, he focused on the souls and said that live object, in this sense, human have an internal feature that isolates them from the lifeless objects in nature.
Aristotle also focused on the scientific reference to human nature. In his account, what distinguished his reference to the soul is “˜scientific’. In this regard, it involved the understanding of the facts and the “˜why’ about the facts. Therefore, he asserted that for one to make a thorough description of something, one has to gather a considerable number of facts about the object or person. For instance, he found that there are different ways of describing the Socrates. However, he identified the best ways to describe them or any other thing. According to him, Socrates’ humanity is a varying feature from the truth of their audacity and this virtue is hardly detachable from him. As a result, Aristotle grouped together concepts on the basis of their exact feature.
Based on the two criteria, Aristotle categorized, he arrived at a number of categories of Socrates. First, he termed it ousia which means “˜being-ness’. The latter answers the question, “˜what is it?’ secondly, relations. In his view, understanding relations in the human being and other object need a preface on the objects with a relation to the subject matter. In addition, he further supplemented it with the dynamic categories namely: “˜action’ and “˜passion’. In essence, humanity elaborates Socrates, but pallor is not related the nature of Socrates but only as a result of sufficient sunlight. To end with, the Socrate’s ability to chuckle does not explain his vital nature but rather his actualized humanity.
In line with Aristotle, he said that human comprised of four distinct causes: soul which is the form; body, the matter; happiness, final cause and parents, as the efficient cause. In particular he cited out that the distinctive characteristic of human that isolates them from the other animals is their ability to make self eminent decisions that directs and guides them all the times. He therefore said that the philosophical knowhow of the humans must be systematic.
In conclusion, the philosophical view of human beings have chronologically upgraded from the ancient reasoning to the most modern reason and continuously grow to understand the mystery in the human being as manifested through their inductive and deductive reasoning as they interact with the nature and other inanimate objects in nature. The philosophical approach therefore, focuses on the various reasoning and the diverse perception about the human being with respect to nature and the environment in particular.