Lesson 5: What is Human Nature

Human Nature (Aristotle)

"A human being is by definition a social creature and a rational animal"

Aristotle quotee

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire."

Essence

A property or set of properties that define what a thing is

Rene Descartes

Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)

Human nature

Generally, that which is distinctive, significant, and serves to define what it is to be human

A priori

Innate knowledge

A posteriori

Knowledge depedent upon sensory experience

Tripartite Soul (Plato)

Rational/Logical, Spirited/Emotional & Appetitive/Physical Desires

Phenomenology

Study of the structures of consciousness as experiences from the first-person point of view

Soul

Substance of a form that determines a particular sort of body

Existence

To be, actuality

equal society

Unacheiveable, humans by nature are selfish, competitive and hierarchical

Thomas Hobbes

believed that people are born selfish (egotistical) and need a strong central authority

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

human beings are free, our basic drive is self-preservation, leads to self-love modern world- individuals tend to construct their sense of self from their opinion of others

John Locke

tabula rasa ([humans are born with a]blank slate) Humans are family oriented social creatures that form collectives.

Sonare (Person)

to sound through