What is a person - the philosophical aspect. Man from a biological point of view

1. Concept of man

2. Main problems of philosophical anthropology

3. Ideas about man in the history of philosophy

1. Concept of man

The section of philosophy that studies the specifics of human existence is called philosophical anthropology (from the Greek anthropos - man), or anthroposophy.

Modern philosophical anthropology is closely connected with other sciences that study human problems - anthropology, which studies the natural historical origin of man and human races; sociology, which examines the peculiarities of human existence in society; pedagogy - the science of human education; physiology, which studies the vital functions of the human body, etc.

The difference between philosophical anthropology and other human sciences is that it explores the most general problems of human existence, reflecting the specifics of human existence as such. Among them, the most important are questions about the origin of man, about the meaning of human existence as a species and the meaning of life of an individual, about freedom and necessity in human actions, etc.

One of the fundamental problems of philosophical anthropology is the definition of the very concept of “man”.

Man has many facets of existence. As a biological being, he belongs to the natural world, his bodily existence is subject to its laws. However, unlike other natural objects, man has consciousness - the ability to think and create. The spiritual content of human life is no less significant than the physical. Man is a type of meaningful (spiritualized) existence of matter. This is the essence of man as an object of philosophical understanding.

From his very birth, a person lives in a society of his own kind. The social nature of human existence is another most important facet of human existence.

“All people who have so far been discovered in the most savage and terrible countries live in societies, like beavers, ants, bees and many other species of animals... Each animal has its own instinct. Man’s instinct, strengthened by reason, attracts him to society , as well as to food and drink. The need for society not only does not corrupt a person, but, on the contrary, removal from society spoils him. Anyone who lived completely alone would soon lose the ability to think and express himself. He would become a burden to himself himself. He would go so far as to turn into an animal,” wrote Voltaire.

The philosophical concept of “man” is distinguished from the concept of “personality”, which reflects only the social content of human life. Personality is a set of social traits and qualities of a person. The social sciences also use the concept of individual (from the Latin individuum - indivisible). It is used when they want to emphasize the isolated actions of a person among other people.

The philosophical concept of “man” includes all aspects of human existence - biological, spiritual, social. Man is a generic concept, on a par with the concepts of “nature”, “society”, and in certain philosophical systems - with the concepts of “objective reason”, “God”. Possession of material and ideal types of existence is the most important specificity of human existence. The presence of consciousness distinguishes a person from spiritless nature, the presence of a body distinguishes a person from objects in the sphere of “pure spirit”.

Man has undergone a process of complex biological, cultural and social evolution. Its essential feature is activity that involves awareness of personal and social needs, setting goals and their implementation. In various types of activities, a person’s transformative skills are honed, knowledge of the surrounding world and oneself is deepened, and science, technology, and technology are developed.

Man creates all the riches of civilization, but he himself finds himself dependent on them, faced with worsening global problems. Awareness and practical steps towards preserving and developing the main thing - the spiritual culture of man and society, ideas about benefit, truth, goodness, beauty, justice - come to the fore. In understanding the highest values, the deep essence of man and society is revealed, their relationships are outlined, and the meaning of being is revealed.

Essence of Man

The set of features and characteristics that distinguish it from other living beings is called human nature. The list of such special qualities can be endlessly long. Freedom, spirituality, faith, imagination and fantasy, laughter, awareness of one’s mortality and many other properties and qualities are often added to reason, work, language, and morality. The main quality of a person, his “deep core” is called the essence of man. Let's consider some essential definitions of a person.

Social animal. This is what the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) called a person, who believed that a person realizes his essence only in social life, entering into economic, political, cultural relations with other people. Moreover, not only a person is a product of society, but also society is a product of human activity.

A reasonable man. This definition also goes back to Aristotle. Man, in his opinion, is distinguished from the animal kingdom by his ability to think logically, to be aware of himself, his needs and the world around him. After the advent of the biological classification, Homo sapiens became the standard designation for modern humans.

A creative person. An animal creates something in accordance with a program given by instinct (for example, a spider weaves a web), and a person is able to create something completely new according to programs created by himself. A person actively produces, creates, and his activity is purposeful and has a value meaning. In this understanding, man became a man when he made the first tool.

A man playing. Not a single type of cultural activity is complete without gaming components - justice, war, philosophy, art, etc. It was not only work that made a person human, but also free play time, where he could realize fantasies, develop imagination, create artistic values, communicate, and voluntarily accept general rules.

A religious man. A person has the ability to give sacred meaning to surrounding phenomena, endow them with special meaning, and believe in the supernatural. All known societies, including the most primitive ones, have belief systems of one kind or another.

Some theories see human inferiority and insufficiency. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) called it sick animals, emphasizing the weakness of man, his lack of initiative, gregariousness, the need for submission and false ideals. Nietzsche viewed the history of society as the gradual degeneration of man. Some social scientists talk about the irrationality of man, since his behavior leads to the destruction of the habitat, the accumulation of weapons, overpopulation, and man-made disasters.

Human nature is so multifaceted that it is necessary to talk about the fundamental uncertainty and indefinability of man. In this regard, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) best described the essence of man: “ Man is a mystery..."

Development of views on the essence of man

Man as a thinking and active being originated and developed in unity with other people, being a member of society. Outside society, the existence and development of man and the satisfaction of his material and spiritual needs are impossible. But every person and any society as a whole lives not only according to social laws. They grew out of nature, are part of it, obey its laws, and must take care of its conservation. Coordination, unity, harmony of social and natural principles are the immutable laws of the existence of man and society.

Understanding the meaning of human history, the current state of society and the prospects for its further evolution is impossible without insight into the essence, natures) of man himself.

Man is studied by various sciences: biology, anthropology, physiology, medicine, psychology, logic, political science, ethics, economics, jurisprudence, etc. But none of them individually, nor their sum can determine the essence of man as a special representative of nature, the world, Universe. The essence is revealed through analysis and generalization of all the main sides and aspects of human existence. That is why the problem of man appears as one of the main, if not the central problem, existing throughout the history of world philosophical and sociological thought. It is especially actualized during critical periods in the development of society, when the most acute question arises about the meaning of existence of both society and each person. This is exactly the period our national history is going through today.

The thinkers of Ancient India imagined man as a part of the cosmos, connected with him both physically and spiritually, subject to general laws dictated by world mind(Brahmin). Man and his soul submit to the order of the cycle of life (samsara), the law of retribution (karma). For the great Chinese thinker Confucius, human development was determined by the divine sky, guiding people’s morality along the path of humanity, respect, deference, justice, fulfilling the requirements of etiquette, etc.

Many philosophers of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome connected the life path of a person with cosmic predestination. The destiny of man was considered to be the conquest of the world the order of things. Fatalistic ideas sounded most clearly in the philosophical works of the Stoics (Zeno, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius). Turn to knowledge own essence man is associated with the ideas of the sophists. Their representative Protagoras stated that “man is the measure of all things.” Socrates proclaimed the principle “know thyself.”

In ancient times, different approaches were outlined to understanding the relationship between the physical and spiritual nature of man. If in the East the body and soul of a person were considered organically connected, for example, spiritual development presupposed special physical exercises, a lifestyle, etc., then in Ancient Greece the soul and body were considered as special forms of being. According to Plato, the human soul is immortal, it lives in the world of ideas, settles in the body for a certain period, and after the death of the body returns to its ideal abode. Aristotle tried to “reconcile” both sides

we of human existence, declaring man a “rational animal.”

Under the conditions of the medieval dominance of religion, man was viewed as a special being, created “in the image and likeness” of God, elevated above the world and endowed with free will(Augustine the Blessed, Thomas Aquinas). But a person, using free will, commits sins, and a sinful person must constantly worry about the upcoming higher judgment, considering his earthly existence as temporary, not the main thing, as just preparation for an ideal eternal life. Submission to Divine law was declared a necessary form of social life.

The Renaissance raised the question of self-worth, self-worth human existence, its physical and spiritual beauty, creative purpose (N. Kuzansky, M. Montaigne).

Modern times brought philosophical reasoning to the forefront educational human abilities (F. Bacon, R. Descartes). The human mind and science were considered the main engines of social progress.

The ideologists of the Enlightenment (Voltaire, D. Diderot) tied together the mind and morality of man, brought to the fore humanistic approach to resolving social problems.

In German classical philosophy, man became the central object of study. I. Kant tried to establish man as independent the beginning, the source of one’s own cognitive and practical activity. The initial principle of his behavior in society was considered to be an innate moral command - to act in such a way that a person’s actions could serve as a standard of universal legislation. In the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel, man is subject to the action of the all-encompassing absolute reason dictating laws to nature and society. L. Feuerbach asserted the intrinsic value of human existence as a natural being, guided love to other people.

However, already at that time the dangers associated with an uncritical attitude to the growth of the possibilities of knowledge and science were realized. The essence of man began to contact irrational“extra-rational” factors: the will to live (A. Schopenhauer); will to power (F. Nietzsche); life impulse (A. Bergson); intimate and mystical self-knowledge (J. Gilson, J. Maritain, J. P. Sartre); unconscious instincts (3. Freud); and etc.

Marxism (K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin) brought to the fore the socio-economic, class side of the person. The economic position of a person in society, determined primarily by the form of ownership of the means of production, was declared to be decisive for the social, political, and spiritual preferences of the individual. The meaning of human life was seen in defending certain class interests, serving the ideals of socialism and communism.

In the history of Russian philosophy, there are two main approaches to the problem of man. The first approach has a materialistic and revolutionary orientation, associated with the ideas of a radical transformation of Russian reality (V. G. Belinsky, A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky). The second approach is of a religious nature, aimed at improving the world in accordance with the ideals of Christianity (F. M. Dostoevsky, L. II. Tolstoy, V. S. Solovyov, II. A. Berdyaev). In modern conditions, philosophy shtset options associations efforts of different philosophical views on the nature of man and his relationship with society in order to determine the most effective strategies for the survival of mankind in the face of global threats - environmental, moral, military, etc. The problems of the cosmic, universal essence of man and humanity are of concern. In this regard, attention to scientific research on anthroposociogenesis is increasing.

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The concept “man” denotes the highest level of living organisms on Earth. Man is the subject of study in various fields of scientific knowledge: medicine, psychology, anatomy, sociology, history, political science, etc., which study particular manifestations of the essence of man. Philosophy strives to understand human essence in integrity, in the unity of all aspects of its existence. And at the same time, there is no more complex subject for philosophy, since man is a mystery for man himself. Especially when it comes to problems such as:

the difference between humans and other living organisms,

Human Origins,

the relationship between biological and social in a person.

Even the ancient Greeks understood that a person can only begin to philosophize from himself, since the answer to existence for a person is hidden in the person himself. “Know yourself” is the main credo of the Sophists and Socrates.

In the knowledge of man, according to Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948), the following is clearly revealed: “man is not a fractional part of the world, he contains a whole riddle and solution to the world.” None of us doubt these words.

There is another side to the issue. Philosophy is a sphere of knowledge, which itself is clothed in certain human values. After all, philosophy is interested in the human world; all philosophical questions “revolve” around the meaning of human life, his cognitive capabilities, his social structure, etc. I. Kant very accurately expressed this essence of philosophizing in his famous three questions (and, accordingly, three answers):

What do I know? (by answering this question, man generated philosophical knowledge). What can I hope for? (answering this question, a person came to religion, faith). What should I do? (answering this question, man created culture - material and spiritual)

As we have already said, man is the most difficult object for philosophical study. A philosophical understanding of a person presupposes studying him in his entirety, identifying his essence. That is, it explores “man in general,” regardless of the historical stage and conditions of social life, his nationality or race, etc. But in everyday life it seems to us that a person does not contain a secret, that everything is quite simple, and we immediately and unmistakably distinguish a person among all living organisms. We can easily recognize a person even in an extremely disfigured body. But this is not enough for philosophy. Philosophy strives for logically formulated concepts and definitions.

There are a lot of definitions of the fundamental philosophical category “man” (and none of them can be considered complete). And if in the “Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary” (1983) we read: “Man is the highest level of living organisms on Earth, the subject of socio-historical activity of culture,” then in the “Newest Philosophical Dictionary” (1999) there is no such unambiguous definition. It only states the fact that “man is a fundamental category of philosophy.” And if we talk about the definitions that have been given to man in the history of philosophical thought, they number in the hundreds.

Thus, at the XV111th World Philosophical Congress (summer 1988, Brighton), one of its participants made a report on the topic: “Eccentric views on what a person is,” in which he built a whole series of contradictory definitions, starting with “Aristotle’s rational animal” , and ending with the statement of one of the modern scientists that “a person is a creature that has the tools to destroy a person...”. There are comical definitions (“man is a two-legged rooster, only without feathers” - Plato), and pessimistic (“man is nature’s hack” - A. Schopenhauer).

So how can we explain this difficulty in defining a person? It is quite understandable.

Firstly, the category “person” cannot be unambiguously subsumed under a broader generic concept, like all other concepts (for example, nature, society, etc.). Man is, at the same time, a microcosm, a micro-society, and a micro-nature. Therefore, the words of Max Scheler (1874-1928) are more appropriate here - German. idealist philosopher, one of the founders of philosophical anthropology as an independent science: “Man is, in a certain sense, Everything.”

Secondly, a person combines many opposing principles (biological - social, soul - body, natural - cultural), which do not allow a one-sided and categorical definition of a person.

Thirdly, the human problem can be approached from different angles, choosing one or another research method, one or another starting point.

Now let’s try to highlight the essential characteristics of a person.

Undoubtedly, man is a rational being (homo sapiens). But an insane person does not cease to be a person and does not go beyond the boundaries of the human species.

Conscience? This is a quality that is truly inherent only to man. But there are plenty of unscrupulous people.

Speech? But the lack of the ability to communicate verbally does not deprive anyone of the right to be human.

Religion? Indeed, only man is capable of realizing the divine. But there are also many atheists among us.

R. Descartes also looked for these criteria, but came to the conclusion that a person only with God’s help distinguishes a person from “non-humans.” I. Kant also admits that man is the secret of God, which he did not reveal to man, since man would not understand it anyway.

Thus, man remains a mystery to philosophy. And the first of these secrets is the impossibility of identifying its essential characteristics and giving it an exhaustive definition.

What is a person? The question of the existence of man on Earth, his essence and origin has occupied the minds of people for many millennia. There are many theories of human existence, and each of them presents its own point of view on what man is in the Universe. Science defines humans as a separate species from the order of primates. Humans differ from monkeys in their anatomical features, development of material and spiritual culture, articulate speech and abstract thinking. The closest human ancestor is the Neanderthal, and the closest living ancestor is the chimpanzee.

What is a person and his characteristics

Humans are considered the only mammals that are distinguished by bipedal walking (some monkeys can walk bipedally, but only for a short period of time).
People differ from animals in the way they absorb food (food is varied and thermally processed).
People are able to speak clearly, while animals can only imitate sounds (exceptions include some representatives of primates).
Humans have the most developed brain (the parts of the brain responsible for coordination of movements and balance are the most developed).
People are defined as socialized beings with a complex system of behavior (each person has his own traditions, cultural values, worldview, religious views). Only in humans can one distinguish an education system, social connections, and such characteristic actions only for humans as suicide and celibacy. Humanity is rapidly increasing: the world population is currently 7 billion people, and according to expert forecasts, by 2050 the figure will exceed 9 billion.

Man from the point of view of philosophy

In philosophy, the problem of man is considered one of the cornerstone issues, which in different eras was solved in its own way. Alas, humanity realized that a person is a person not so long ago. What are the main philosophical theories of human existence that can be identified?

In the philosophy of the Ancient World (Indian, Chinese, Greek), man was defined as a part of the cosmos: he contained all the basic elements of nature and consisted of body, soul and spirit. Thus, in Indian philosophy, a person had a soul that moved when dying, and the border between plants, animals, Gods and humans was generally very blurred. In Ancient philosophy, man was endowed with spirit, reason and social abilities.
In Medieval Christian philosophy, man represented the image and likeness of God, who tasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, which ultimately formed a split essence in him. At this time, the doctrine of the union of the Divine and human essences (in the image of Christ) was developed, which was necessary for every person who wanted to be accepted by God after death to strive for.
During the Renaissance, a person is finally established as a person with a beautiful body, which is glorified not only in the treatises of that time, but also in the works of artists and sculptors (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo).
In the philosophy of modern times, a person is assigned the title of a subject of spiritual activity, who creates the world of culture and is the bearer of reason. At this time, a person is directly associated with the statement “I think, therefore I exist,” that is, thinking is placed at the basis of the existence of humanity.
In Modern philosophy, the problem of the human personality is considered central: Nietzscheanism defines man as a play of vital forces and drives, existentialism treats man as a contrast between the social and the spiritual, and in Marxism man is part of social labor activity.

Thus, the essence of man is very multifaceted, he is equally characterized by both body and spirit, therefore the struggle between man’s base passions and high spiritual impulses is just the prerogative of philosophical debate.

Man from a biological point of view

The following biological characteristics of a person are distinguished:

the average size and weight of a person’s body fluctuates between 50-80 kg and 164-175 cm (acceleration has been observed over the last 150 years);
the human body is covered with hair in the head, groin, armpits;
human skin can change pigmentation (tendency to tan);
the average human life expectancy is 79 years;
a woman is capable of fertilization throughout the year due to the presence of menstruation;
pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, and the offspring, as a rule, are not able to take care of themselves in the first years of their development;
human development is determined by a long period of childhood with a low growth rate, and a pronounced jump during puberty;
Human aging plays a big role in psychological, social and economic aspects;
The main way of interpersonal communication is articulate speech.

Man from the point of view of chemistry and physics

From the point of view of chemistry, a person is a set of chemical reactions, the result of the interaction of organic molecules. Among chemists there is one half-joking definition of a person, according to which a person is a collection of the following chemical substances:

fat (7 pieces of soap);
lime (enough to whitewash the chicken coop);
phosphorus (2200 matches);
iron (1 nail);
magnesium (1 flash);
sugar (about 0.5 kg).

From the point of view of physics, a person is a powerhouse, since in every human cell there are small energy generators (mitochondria) that constantly produce static electricity.

Thus, the problem of man has always been of interest to scientists and philosophers, but today the main factor characterizing a human being is considered to be the definition of man as a separate individual with his own physiological and spiritual needs.