PHILOSOPHY 101 - HILTON TEST 2 HUMAN NATURE QUESTIONS

Scientific View Quotes (Gilbert Ryle, John Watson, Richard Dawkins)

-Gilbert Ryle - "Human nature differs only in degree of complexity from clockwork." -John Watson - "A person was simply an assembled organic machine ready to run." -Richard Dawkins - "we are survival mechanisms."

The non-physical characteristics that differentiate human beings from other animal species.

-Self-consciousness: Distinct self-sense, an ego-self with which we identify -Language: Grammatically and syntactically complex (animals have systems of signals) -Conceptual thought & Free choice: Imagine possibilities and actualize them -Culture: the totality of socially transmittable products of human intelligence both material and mental

List stages of human (techno-economic) cultural development.

1. Hunting and gathering 2. Horticulture 3. Agriculture 4. Industrial 5. Information

List stages of development in human consciousness and culture (worldviews).

1. Magical 2. Mythical 3. Rational 4. Rational scientific 5. Pluralistic-Integral

When did anatomically modern Humans appear on the planet?

100,000 or more years ago

Enlightenment View

17 th and 18 th centuries = development of experimental science and political democracy relevant empirical evidence human = rational autonomous agent Isaac Newton - nature operates by strictly natural law in a machine-like fashion

Human Nature and Socio-Political Order

17 th century Thomas Hobbes - humans by nature are selfish, greedy, power seeking, and aggressive in need of political authority 18 th century Jean Jacques Rousseau - human by nature are good corrupted by social, political, and economic conditions

Scientific View

19 th and 20 th centuries science studies nature objectively science can only study "its" and activities and relationships of "its" to be complete = view must deny fundamental reality of human subjectivity lies outside its domain of evidence adopt purely material and mechanistic understanding of human nature

Classic Greek View

6 th century BC first to discover ability to reason understand our self and the natural world through reason

How does this condition of living simultaneously in these two realms affect the human condition negatively in terms of our experience of the past, present, and future?

A consequence of this dual mode of being is that the self-conscious human being often feels anxious and fearful about the future, incomplete and inadequate in the present, and guilty or regretful about the past.

What was the most distinctive feature of human nature according to the Greek philosophical view?

Ability to reason

Why is the present state of mankind on this planet is the result of cultural development and not just biological evolution?

Cultural evolution has used the mind to develop a humanly created environment (the anthro-sphere ) to enhance our well-being. This development can be traced through a series of techno-economic transformations.

Explain why it would be reasonable to say that biological evolution is a fact, and the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is a theory?

Fact - a state of actuality; can be observed directly or indirectly Theory - a rational and coherent means of accounting for or explaining a given set of facts

What does GRIN stand for?

Genetic, Robotic, Information, and Nano

Contrast Hobbes' and Rousseau's view of human nature.

Hobbes - argued that human nature and society led to the conclusion that humans by nature were selfish, greedy, power seeking, and aggressive. In the absence of strong political authority, "the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." (more pessimistic) Rousseau - argued that humans by nature are generous, cooperative, and caring. Social, political, and economic conditions that corrupted human nature. Humans don't need an authoritarian political state to make them be good. Humans were "good seeds" that simply need the right social conditions in order for their innate goodness to flower

Given the fact that evolution in the broadest sense must account for the movement from the big bang to the present state of the cosmos as represented by advanced human culture, why might we say "Even at best, the Neo-Darwinian theory is incomplete?

I believe that the relevant evidence shows that the Neo-Darwinian theory offers an adequate account of micro-evolution within a given species, but its account of general evolution of the bio-sphere is coming to seem to be less than adequate

What two mechanisms drove evolution according to the Neo-Darwinian theory?

Mutation - random and selected for survival at that time; when sexual reproduction results in off-spring that is genetically different from parent stock Natural Selection - better adapted to physical and social environment and more likely to survive to reproduce better-adapted off-spring

In the broadest sense the evolutionary process that brought us to our present state would include what three spheres?

Physio-sphere - development of the physical universe Bio-sphere - appearance of life on life-supporting planets (ex: Earth) Anthro-sphere - development of human culture

How does a strictly scientific understanding of human nature restrict the understanding of what a human is to an "it," and hence see humans as simply complex mechanisms?

Takes away subjectivity Advertisement

What does it mean to say that to be human is to be in nature (realm of the actual) and yet to transcend it (realm of the possible)?

To be human then is to exist in these two realms simultaneously

Religious View

spiritual reality that is non-ordinary humans are sort of part of this reality humans can have authentic experience of this non-ordinary, spiritual reality