Aristotle And Heidegger 's Views On What A Human Or Beings Are

I see three parts to what make up a human; the mind, the body and the soul, and I seek to show with acceptable certainty that each exists, albeit in a different way than both the classical and contemporary models suggest. I will attempt to keep my terms as close to their commonly accepted definitions as possible but there exists no consensus on the definitions of these terms. Existence is composed of matter and ideas, but we can only know for certain that ideas exist. The universe as we know it is composed of the ideas that happen to show themselves to our body. The ideas that contribute to our universe will be labeled Monads.

The Question of Identity- (What does it mean to be human? Are humans more important than animals?

In John Locke’s argument for personal identity, he believes that we are not substances or mere souls. In his argument, Locke stresses to convey that there is a crucial difference between distinguishing a “man” and a “person” (Locke 221). According to Locke’s definition, a man is a living body which is homogenous to an animal’s body. Therefore, any living body of a particular shapes refers to a “man.” Locke emphasizes that a “person” is a sensible being that is aware of its own

Methods and Meditations on First Philosophy is a discourse by Rene Descartes, which largely focuses on the nature of humanity and divinity. This essay is a discussion of this discourse, and will summarize, explain and object to various parts of his work. The majority of this essay focuses on Descartes Sixth Meditation, which includes his argument that corporeal things do exist.

Martin Heidegger stated, criticizing the “wrong” path that western philosophy deviated to, that people understood “being” only in the superficial sense. The advancements in mathematics and natural sciences along the millennia always pre-assumed that being was a known phenomenon and never bothered to explore its true nature; bypassing the herculean task, we never delved into what “Ontos” really

A human being is described as being a creature capable of questioning concepts such as “who am I” and “why am I here” in order to give meaning to their existence. (Creech Ph.D., 2015)

Aristotle has a different view on the make-up of the soul. In Aristotle discussion On the Soul he talks about the kinds of souls possessed by different living things such as plants, animals and, beings. Aristotle then goes on describing the substance that makes up the soul, the first is matter which is not this in its own right, the second is form which makes matter this and the third form is the compound of matter and form. Every living body is a substance and the soul is the actuality of the body. The soul

One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.

Metaphysics is a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being, which includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology. John Dewey was an American philosopher and psychologist, he believed our inquisitive nature is part of what makes us human. He is the author of “Why Study Philosophy”. Plato is one of the world's best known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, and he wrote in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E, “Allegory of the Cave”. What makes people human beings, are we part of a cycle or did god just create us? I believe life itself is a hard concept let alone defining what is really being human. In this paper, I will present key ideas by each writer, and then state how the texts affected my understanding of the greater good.

Aristotle discusses the nature of the soul of not only humans but all living things, and as to why they are considered living. The question surrounding the work is what makes the soul? To answer this Aristotle concludes that the soul is natural and entelecheia or "being-at-work-staying-itself".

Philosophy, arising from its Greek tradition of a “love of wisdom”, seeks to critically examine those questions most fundamental to humankind; it is concerned with essential concepts (or rather, questions) of being (metaphysics), rightness and goodness, knowledge, truth and beauty. As a branch of metaphysics, ontology seeks, in particular, to understand the nature of being (or existence) by placing objects within categories and organized totalities, while always assuming God as the first cause (causa sui). (Rebidoux) Yet as most philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Descartes each attest to their distinct definition of “being”, there is an exception to these ontological contenders: Emmanuel Levinas. By

Aristotle came to this conclusion because the soul for him means potentiality and actuality. He starts by explaining the three types of substance, the first one been the matter which he describes as potentiality (being alive), secondly the form which he calls first actuality and thirdly is the second actuality which is the matter and form that he says it engages in having action. Aristotle uses the axe as an example to describe the two concepts. The axe needs potentiality to have all materials ready in order to gain an identity. First actuality of the axe is to be properly configured (identity) and its functions to be discover as yet. The second actuality is for the axe to be actually used to cut. The second example that Aristotle uses is the eye because it gains its identity, in which the eye has the capacity of eyesight. He says that the components of the eye are present and it does not mean that the eye will gain its identity, because it does not necessary has to see. This shows that the eye does not have a soul because it depends of the organism. This just means that the eye does not have a soul because what controls it is the body because it is a natural organized body. This is why Aristotle came to this

This quote by Aristotle was taken from ‘Aristotle: a Very Short Introduction’ and there is no-one of whom this is more true than Aristotle as he was dedicated to every possible discipline he could sink his teeth into making him one of the utmost key figures within philosophy, not only in classical philosophy but he is still regarded as influential in modern philosophy.

ABSTRACT: Today the connection between "person" and the "I" is acknowledged in many respects but not always analyzed. The need to relate it to the reality of the human being has sparked the present investigation of the philosophical anthropology of four thinkers from the late ancient, medieval, and contemporary periods. Although it may seem that the question of the role of the "I" with respect to the human being hinges on the larger problem of objectivity v. subjectivity, this does not seem to be the case. Many topics, however, are necessarily entailed in this investigation such as individuality and universality, soul and body, consciousness and action, substance and history, the

Heidegger's question of Being, is a question which concerns human facticity, i.e. our actual being-in-the-world in its temporal and enigmatic character. As he stated in the 30s, for him this question arose out of the experience of the "forgetfulness of Being" [Seinsvergessenheit] and of the "abandonment of Being in beings" [Seinsverlassenheit des Seienden], that is, out of the possibility of not being at all. With the question of Being, Heidegger struggled to uncover the original historical ground to which humans belong, a ground from which modern society tends to uproot itself through the dominance of calculative and representational thinking. What is most dangerous for Heidegger in this process, is that the original ground of humans and beings in general might be covered and forgotten, to the extent that humans loose completely the sense of what they truly need. For Heidegger, the task of thinking (of philosophy) is to help to bring back humans and beings in general to the place to which they originally belong, i.e. to their originally, most fulfilled way of being which is their proper or own [das Eigene, eigen].