The essence of a person is a philosophical concept that reflects the natural properties and essential characteristics that are inherent in all people in one way or another, distinguishing them from other forms and kinds of being. There are different views on this problem. To many, this concept seems obvious, and often no one thinks about it. Some believe that there is no certain essence, or at least it is incomprehensible. Others claim that it is knowable, and put forward a variety of concepts. Another common point of view is that the essence of people is directly related to the personality, which is closely intertwined with the psyche, which means that having known the latter, one can understand the essence of a person.
Highlights
The main prerequisite for the existence of any human individual is the functioning of his body. It is part of the natural environment around us. From this point of view, man is a thing among other things and part of the evolutionary process of nature. But this definition is limited and underestimates the role of the active-conscious life of the individual,without going beyond the passive-contemplative view characteristic of the materialism of the 17th and 18th centuries.
In the modern view, man is not just a part of nature, but also the highest product of its development, the bearer of the social form of the evolution of matter. And not just a "product", but also a creator. This is an active being, endowed with vitality in the form of abilities and inclinations. Through conscious, purposeful actions, it actively changes the environment and, in the course of these changes, changes itself. Objective reality, transformed by labor, becomes human reality, "second nature", "human world". Thus, this side of being represents the unity of nature and the spiritual knowledge of the producer, that is, it is of a socio-historical nature. The process of improving technology and industry is an open book of the essential forces of mankind. By reading it, one can come to understand the term "essence of people" in an objectified, realized form, and not just as an abstract concept. It can be found in the nature of objective activity, when there is a dialectical interaction of natural material, human creative forces with a certain socio-economic structure.
Category "existence"
This term denotes the existence of an individual in everyday life. It is then that the essence of human activity manifests itself, a strong relationship of all types of personality behavior, its abilities and existence with the evolution of human culture. Existence is much richer than essence and, beingthe form of its manifestation, includes, in addition to the manifestation of human strength, also a variety of social, moral, biological and psychological qualities. Only the unity of both these concepts forms human reality.
Category "human nature"
In the last century, the nature and essence of man were identified, and the need for a separate concept was questioned. But the development of biology, the study of the neural organization of the brain and the genome makes us look at this ratio in a new way. The main question is whether there is an unchanging, structured human nature that does not depend on all influences, or whether it is plastic and changing.
US philosopher F. Fukuyama believes that there is one, and it ensures the continuity and stability of our existence as a species, and together with religion, constitutes our most basic and fundamental values. Another scientist from America, S. Pinker, defines human nature as a set of emotions, cognitive abilities and motives that are common to people with a normally functioning nervous system. From the above definitions it follows that the characteristics of the human individual are explained by biologically inherited properties. However, many scientists believe that the brain only determines the possibility of the formation of abilities, but does not determine them at all.
Essence in itself
Not everyone considers the concept of "the essence of people" legitimate. According to trends such as existentialism,there is no specific generic essence of a person, since he is an "essence in itself." K. Jaspers, its largest representative, believed that such sciences as sociology, physiology and others provide only knowledge about some individual aspects of human existence, but cannot penetrate into its essence, which is existence (existence). This scientist believed that it is possible to study an individual in different aspects - in physiology as a body, in sociology - a social being, in psychology - a soul, and so on, but this does not answer the question of what is the nature and essence of a person. because he always represents something more than he can know about himself. Close to this point of view and neopositivists. They deny that there is anything in common in the individual.
Ideas about a person
In Western Europe, it is believed that the works of the German philosophers Scheller ("The Position of Man in the Universe"), as well as Plessner's "Steps of the Organic and Man" published in 1928, marked the beginning of philosophical anthropology. A number of philosophers: A. Gehlen (1904-1976), N. Henstenberg (1904), E. Rothacker (1888-1965), O. Bollnov (1913) - de alt exclusively with it. The thinkers of that time expressed many wise ideas about man, which still have not lost their defining significance. For example, Socrates urged his contemporaries to know themselves. The philosophical essence of man, happiness and the meaning of life were associated with the comprehension of the essence of man. Socrates' appeal was continued by saying: "Know thyself and thou sh alt behappy!" Protagoras reasoned that man is the measure of all things.
In ancient Greece, for the first time, the question of the origin of people arose, but often it was decided speculatively. The Syracusan philosopher Empedocles was the first to suggest an evolutionary, natural origin of man. He believed that everything in the world is driven by enmity and friendship (hatred and love). According to the teachings of Plato, souls live in the world of the empyrean. He likened the human soul to a chariot, the ruler of which is the Will, and Feelings and the Mind are harnessed to it. Feelings pull her down - to gross, material pleasures, and Mind - up, to the realization of spiritual postulates. This is the essence of human life.
Aristotle saw in people 3 souls: rational, animal and vegetable. The plant soul is responsible for the growth, maturation and aging of the body, the animal soul is responsible for independence in movements and the range of psychological feelings, the rational soul is responsible for self-awareness, spiritual life and thinking. Aristotle was the first to understand that the main essence of man is his life in society, defining him as a social animal.
The Stoics identified morality with spirituality, laying a solid foundation for ideas about it as a moral being. One can recall Diogenes, who lived in a barrel, who with a lit lantern in the light of day searched for a person in the crowd. In the Middle Ages, ancient views were criticized and completely forgotten. Representatives of the Renaissance updated ancient views, put Man at the very center of the worldview, laid the foundation for Humanism.
Ohhuman essence
According to Dostoevsky, the essence of man is a mystery that needs to be unraveled, and let the one who undertakes this and spends his whole life on it, do not say that he spent his time in vain. Engels believed that the problems of our life will be solved only when a person is fully known, offering ways to achieve this.
Frolov describes him as a subject of the socio-historical process, as a biosocial being, genetically related to other forms, but distinguished by the ability to produce tools of labor, possessing speech and consciousness. The origin and essence of man is best traced against the background of nature and the animal world. Unlike the latter, people appear to be creatures that have the following main features: consciousness, self-awareness, work and social life.
Linnaeus, classifying the animal kingdom, included man in the animal kingdom, but classified him, along with the great apes, to the category of hominids. He placed Homo sapiens at the very top of his hierarchy. Man is the only being that has consciousness. It is possible thanks to articulate speech. With the help of words, a person realizes himself, as well as the surrounding reality. They are primary cells, carriers of spiritual life, allowing people to exchange the content of their inner life with the help of sounds, images or signs. An integral place in the category of "the essence and existence of man" belongs to labor. This was written by the classic politicaleconomy A. Smith, predecessor of K. Marx and student of D. Hume. He defined man as "the working animal".
Labor
In determining the specifics of the essence of man, Marxism rightly attaches the main importance to work. Engels said that it was he who accelerated the evolutionary development of biological nature. A person in his work is completely free, unlike animals, in which labor is hard-coded. People can do completely different jobs and in different ways. We are so free in labor that we can even … not work. The essence of human rights lies in the fact that in addition to the duties accepted in society, there are rights that are granted to the individual and are an instrument of his social protection. The behavior of people in society is regulated by public opinion. We, like animals, feel pain, thirst, hunger, sexual desire, balance, etc., but all our instincts are controlled by society. So, labor is a conscious activity, assimilated by a person in society. The content of consciousness was formed under his influence, and is fixed in the process of participation in industrial relations.
The social essence of a person
Socialization is the process of acquiring the elements of social life. Only in society is assimilated behavior that is guided not by instincts, but by public opinion, animal instincts are curbed, language, traditions and customs are accepted. Here, people adopt the experience of industrial relations from previous generations. Since Aristotle, social nature has been considered central to the structurepersonality. Marx, moreover, saw the essence of man only in social nature.
Personality does not choose the conditions of the external world, it is simply always in them. Socialization occurs due to the assimilation of social functions, roles, the acquisition of social status, adaptation to social norms. At the same time, the phenomena of social life are possible only through individual actions. An example is art, when artists, directors, poets and sculptors create it with their own labor. Society sets the parameters of the social certainty of the individual, approves the program of social inheritance, and maintains balance within this complex system.
A person with a religious outlook
Religious worldview is such a worldview, the basis of which is the belief in the existence of something supernatural (spirits, gods, miracles). Therefore, human problems are considered here through the prism of the divine. According to the teachings of the Bible, which forms the basis of Christianity, God created man in his own image and likeness. Let's dwell on this teaching.
God created man from the mud of the earth. Modern Catholic theologians argue that there were two acts in divine creation: the first - the creation of the whole world (the Universe) and the second - the creation of the soul. In the most ancient biblical texts of the Jews, it is stated that the soul is the breath of a person, what he breathes. Therefore, God blows the soul through the nostrils. It is the same as that of an animal. After death breathceases, the body turns to dust, and the soul dissolves into air. After some time, the Jews began to identify the soul with the blood of a person or animal.
The Bible assigns a big role in the spiritual essence of a person to the heart. According to the authors of the Old and New Testaments, thinking takes place not in the head, but in the heart. It also contains the wisdom given by God to man. And the head exists only for hair to grow on it. There is no hint in the Bible that people are capable of thinking with their heads. This idea had a great influence on European culture. The great scientist of the 18th century, researcher of the nervous system, Buffon was sure that a person thinks with the heart. The brain, in his opinion, is only an organ of nourishment of the nervous system. The authors of the New Testament recognize the existence of the soul as a substance independent of the body. But the concept itself is indefinite. Modern Jehovists interpret the texts of the New Testament in the spirit of the Old and do not recognize the immortality of the human soul, believing that existence ceases after death.
The spiritual nature of man. The concept of personality
A person is arranged in such a way that in the conditions of social life he is able to turn into a spiritual person, into a personality. In the literature, you can find many definitions of personality, its characteristics and signs. This is, first of all, a creature that consciously makes a decision and is responsible for all its behavior and actions.
The spiritual essence of a person is the content of the personality. The central place here is occupied by the worldview. It is generated in the process of activity of the psyche, in which 3 components are distinguished: thisWill, Feelings and Mind. In the spiritual world there is nothing else but intellectual, emotional activity and volitional motives. Their relationship is ambiguous, they are in a dialectical connection. There is some inconsistency between feelings, will and reason. Balancing between these parts of the psyche is the spiritual life of a person.
Personality is always the product and subject of individual life. It is formed not only from its own existence, but also from the influence of other people with whom it comes into contact. The problem of human essence cannot be considered one-sidedly. Teachers and psychologists believe that it is possible to talk about personal individualization only from the time when an individual has a perception of his own Self, personal self-awareness is formed, when he begins to separate himself from other people. A person "builds" his line of life and social behavior. In philosophical language, this process is called individualization.
The purpose and meaning of life
The concept of the meaning of life is individual, since this problem is not solved by classes, not by labor collectives, not by science, but by individuals, individuals. Solving this problem means finding your place in the world, your personal self-determination. For a long time, thinkers and philosophers have been looking for an answer to the question of why a person lives, the essence of the concept of "the meaning of life", why he came into the world and what happens to us after death. The call to self-knowledge was the main fundamental setting of Greek culture.
"Know thyself" - called Socrates. For this thinker, the meaning of human life lies in philosophizing, searching for oneself, overcoming trials and ignorance (search for what good and evil, truth and error, beautiful and ugly) mean. Plato argued that happiness is achievable only after death, in the afterlife, when the soul - the ideal essence of man - is free from the shackles of the body.
According to Plato, human nature is determined by his soul, or rather soul and body, but with the superiority of the divine, immortal beginning over the bodily, mortal. The human soul, according to this philosopher, consists of three parts: the first is ideal-reasonable, the second is lustful-volitional, the third is instinctive-affective. Which of them prevails determines human destiny, the meaning of life, the direction of activity.
Christianity in Russia adopted a different concept. The highest spiritual principle becomes the main measure of all things. By realizing one's sinfulness, smallness, even insignificance before the ideal, in striving for it, a person opens up the prospect of spiritual growth, consciousness becomes directed towards constant moral improvement. The desire to do good becomes the core of the personality, the guarantor of its social development.
In the Age of Enlightenment, French materialists rejected the concept of human nature as a combination of material, bodily substance and an immortal soul. Voltaire denied the immortality of the soul, and on the question of whether there is divine justice after death, he preferred to keep"reverent silence". He did not agree with Pascal that man is a weak and insignificant creature in nature, "a thinking reed." The philosopher believed that people are not as pathetic and evil as Pascal thought. Voltaire defines man as a social being striving to form "cultural communities".
Thus, philosophy considers the essence of people in the context of the universal aspects of being. These are social and individual, historical and natural, political and economic, religious and moral, spiritual and practical grounds. The essence of man in philosophy is considered multilaterally, as an integral, unified system. If you miss any aspect of being, the whole picture collapses. The task of this science is the self-knowledge of man, always a new and eternal comprehension of his essence, nature, his destiny and the meaning of existence. The essence of man in philosophy, therefore, is a concept that modern scientists also turn to, discovering its new facets.
