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PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1.1

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PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 1.1

Figures:

  • Homer (Archaic animal perception)
  • Plato (education, Forms, theological anthropology)
  • Aristotle (entelechy, biological anthropology, telos)
  • The Sophists (first humanists, man-centrism)

The multiplicity of Ancient Greek views on the man-animal divide

Archaic Period: HESIOD & HOMER

  • before the concept of a singular Other (THE animal)
  • man vs THIS animal; man vs THAT animal
  • no fundamental, metaphysically grounded superiority
  • HOMER: neither man, nor animal is a God, thus, there’s a greater closeness between the two
  • any property man has over animals (cognition, civilization) is God-given [we are all at the whims of the Gods]
  • HOMER: understanding of animals (horses) as perhaps understanding speech

Animal-Man parallelism (Homer up to Aristotle)

  • houses, cities: bees, ants, spider webs, bird nests
  • PLATO: bees, ants, wasps are seen as being state-forming animals (being in the ‘political genus’)
  • ARISTOTLE: man is only a greater political animal, not special

Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics are the first to be properly formalized, but nevertheless develop parallel to each other

THE SOPHISTS:

  • new human self-awareness (firsts humanists)
  • divine power is less important
  • knowledge & culture are no longer God-given, but man-achieved
  • ANTHROPOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE: crafts, technology, law, language, politics
  • ‘animal’ defined as that lacking these predicates
  • man-animal proximity, but only in so far as animals represents a primordial version of man
  • Greek-centrism in defining other cultures as barbaric (bar-bar-bar)
  • LOGOS: the distinctly human property. Originally language; later → reason, logic

How we define Logos (i.e. the distinctly human capacities of our brains) is insanely important. We are essentially defining that which animals lack.

  • man/animal dichotomy becomes a rational/irrational dichotomy

PROTAGORAS:

  • mas as a deficient being
  • all other animals have gifts from the Gods (claws, furs), which humans lack
  • yet we have a mental advantage
  • for him our intellectual advantage is not NATURAL, but SPIRITUAL
  • it’s a virtual advantage, requiring education to develop (not coming pre-made from birth)
  • our physical superiority forces us to develop further (thus our advanced cultures/states/technologies)

PLATO:
[astronomical and theological anthropology]

  • we become human (gain Logos) through education
  • you need education to instantiated the Forms in the real world, but many remain on a lower, sensual level (uneducated)
  • realizing your human essence is rare
  • only men are capable of reflection on their perceptions
  • reflection still needs education to be developed
  • only some men can be rulers, in democracy most sink lower than animals

Plato’s soul:

  • dual: divine aspects (Form-instituting, rationality); finite aspects (animality)

ARISTOTLE:
[zoological and biological anthropology]

  • Aristotle’s souls are derived from observing animals
  • Aristotle: soul is inside the living being (i.e. immanent to it, its grounding, its essence)
  • men and animals share organic components
  • two forms of life: BIOS [linear life; telos] (human life, political action, language, logos) and ZOE [cyclic life] (animal life, pure organic reproduction)

Aristotle’s soul:

  • principle of life
  • not a separate thing from the individual, but their essence, individual being, a structuring agent (for behaviours and strivings)
  • life, vitality, PERFECTION
  • [!!!] ENTELECHY: literally having your own end within yourself
  • having an end is what seperates the living and the non-living
  • essence: form (shaping of matter); telos (end)
  • since Aristotle’s soul is not seperable from the individual this goes against Plato (Forms in a transcendent realm)
  • NUS: the special human soul - reason itself

Dimensions of Aristotle’s soul:

  • the soul has levels
  • the level of one’s soul predetermines their potentialities
  • the soul builds up complexity with each level (floor 1’s properties are preserved on floor 2, etc.)
  • his idea is complex: man is special, but is special only in degrees
  • man, however, is special because of: moral action, striving for a good life, reflect, develop epistemology, cognition, philosophy, politics
  1. Nourishment & Growth (plants)
    2.1. Sensing, Tasting (lowest animals)
    2.2. Locomotion, Perception (slightly higher animals)
  2. Memory, Experience (higher animals)
  3. Spirit, Intelligence (humans) → requires all prior floors

Graph View