Definition Essay: What Makes Us Human?

Both Aristotle and Plato believed in these shared principles: harmony, organic approach (society functions as an organism), natural approach, politics and morals, they believed that humans are social creatures, and they believed in the functioning of the state and its citizens.

Aristotle is not a sort of Plato’s sort, but the philosophical ideas cannot be ignored. There is a belief in God in Aristotle. He consider god as creator of everything and this show a spiritual outlook of him. According to him every phenomenon has two aspects- form and matter. Aristotle gives significances to what constitutes matter whereas Plato believes in everything that what is visible is the shadow of the form. Aristotle also believes that man’s soul has two parts- logical and illogical and through ethical virtues, man attains rationality, the logical part of the soul. If in his Ethics, Aristotle discusses he nature if individual happiness in the Politics he treats of the state as one of the chief aims through which individual attains

Hello, my name is Maria Doe and I will be talking about a frequently asked question, as there isn’t a specific answer to it. What does it mean to be human? It seems like a really easy question, but its not. The definition I found for human is “A man, woman, or child of the species Homo-sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance” but our meanings don’t have to sound so confusing, since

What makes us human? This question has been asked over and over by many scholars and people alike to try to identify us as one. Many people have sat, stood, even laid down trying to understand what the answer to this question is. I may not know the exact answer

To get a sense of what it is to be human, at least in the evolutionary world, we need only to compare our modern selves to our ancestors such as the Neanderthals. The Neanderthals were our closest hominin relative and died out thousands of years ago. Like us, they walked on two legs, hunted , made fire and tools, and lived in shelters (caves). They were more advanced than many of us imagine they were thanks to the way they are portrayed in the media. They had brains similar in size to ours, they stood fully upright (not hunched over), and had a surprisingly complex culture. When asked what it means to be human, you can compare many different aspects of our lives, such as biology, culture, and even religious beliefs. We obviously have

There are many different meanings to being human. Being human means being a mundane that tries to make sense of its spiritual existence. We are not human, we are simply being human. If we were not to be born as humans, we may have been born as animals. In Book I of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle introduces his argument by distinguishing between two types of ends which human beings strive for. He states, “For the end is sometimes an activity, sometimes a product beyond the activity; and when there is an end beyond the action, the product is by nature better than the activity” (1).

Humans are different from other members of the animal kingdom, varying greatly from even the closest relative in the genus homo, the chimpanzee. Both physical and nonphysical differences are easily noticed: chimps don’t have opposable thumbs, humans have less body hair, walk erect, have an articulate language and developed emotional capacity, etc. The collection of these distinguishers comprises human nature, which is defined as “the psychological and social qualities that characterize humankind, especially in contrast with other living things,” (Dictionary.com). Phrased another way, it is a sort of essence that contains traits shared by all humans and only humans that separates us from all other species. Human nature is considered so sacred,

What does it mean to be human? Humanity, a concept that has existed since the beginning of time; a characteristic of people as opposed to God or animals or machines, especially in being susceptible to weaknesses (dictionary.com). An idea that was first introduced during the colonization of societies that has ultimately been implemented into our way of life through a specific set of rules and laws. The idea of humanity has been a question that has been left unanswered for centuries. What does it truly mean to be a human? Is it based on the idea of being an empathetic being or does it strictly come down to the obvious makeup that every living creature is made of; biology.

Even though Plato and Aristotle differed on this, they both did believe in a psyche, which was a mind and soul combined.

The scales on which both philosophers regard the human soul on are consequently determinate to the whole political structure and system more so in Plato’s utopia. To be able to recognize the difference of perspectives, looking at what qualifies one to become a ruler is essential. Plato claims that the

“What makes us human?”, is an unanswered question asked by many. Is it because of our ability to have empathy for others? Or is it because of our cognitive ability which allows us to look into the future? One of the main arguments made that separates humans from animals is our communication style; our language. Is language inherently unique to human? To answer such a question, we first operationally define language as; “a system of communication based upon words and the combination of words into sentences” (University of Oslo). The purpose of language is for us to be able to convey an infinite amount of ideas to one another. Sign language in general also falls under this definition as it has a complex system of rules and syntax that allow the signed figures to function as words. Animal communication on the other hand, is operationally defined as, “the transmission of a signal from one animal to another such that the sender benefits, on average, from the response of the recipient” (Pearce 1987). With this in mind, current research has shown that the answer is that language is inherently unique to humans.

Everything created has specie specific qualities. Human beings are closely linked to animals because of the similarities of these specie specific qualities, but these alone do not make humans animals or animals humans. While there are quite a few characteristics that are similar there are enormous differences. One is

When we look forward and anticipate the future through the means of science fiction, it seems that contributing largely to our contemporary definition of “human” is our imperfections. The very fact that we posses these imperfections is the reason that writers imagine a future where those imperfections may be eliminated; knowing that there is room for improvement drives human curiosity and ingenuity forward. So now we imagine a future where humans are perfect, ageless, precise. Would these things really still be human or closer to real life cyborgs? Maybe this question is too ethical, lacking in empirical evidence to give a non-angled answer. But for myself, what makes a human different from a machine is that we are not built off of automatic judgments, we are not ageless, and we all carry collective, as well as our own individual imperfections. For it is these imperfections that remind us that we were not constructed in factories, but are rather shaped by our biology and given environments.

Aristotle was opposed to the notion of Plato’s “Theory of the forms,” which stated that the idealized nature of an object existed apart from that object. Plato thought that physical things were manifestations of idealized perfect forms that existed on another plane of reality. Aristotle thought that the true essence of an object existed with the thing itself. In this way, he also opposed the notion of a soul that existed outside of the physical body, instead believing that human consciousness resided completely with the physical form. Aristotle thought simply that the best way to acquire knowledge was

Plato and Aristotle both heavily contributed to the study of philosophy. Plato and Aristotle were both known for being brilliant but saw the world in two different lights. According to Plato the soul is immortal and way more valuable than the body. He believed that once the ties from the