People are often confused about the multiplicity of philosophical views and schools. Why do so many philosophers talk tangentially to each other? Why is it that Ambedkar and Gandhi are not taught as philosophers? Or those working on the ground who mobilise the poor and fight for dignity in society? Is philosophy defined by a style of writing? Is philosophy only about providing arguments and forms of thinking?
We can begin with a simple proposition that might lead us to understand this multiplicity of philosophies: The way we understand the notion of the “human” influences the way we understand the world. To understand the different streams of philosophy is to first take note of the different views of “being human” across cultures and societies.
What is human? Should we understand the human by isolating its essential qualities, those qualities that make it human? The human body cannot be used to differentiate humans from animals. Many animals and humans share similar bodily structures and functions. So if we believe that there is some value to the human that is more than an animal, then we have to isolate those qualities that humans have but animals don’t. These qualities become the defining mark of being human. The number of narratives in Western thought that define a human in opposition to something or the other (such as animals, machines, AI etc.) is a striking illustration of this larger project of defining what is special to a human. One of the famous distinctions is Aristotle’s claim that humans are rational animals. Rationality becomes a defining mark of being human in comparison to animals. Although this view is often repeated, it is highly problematic since there are other philosophical traditions that offer a completely different picture about the relationship between humans and animals, as we will see below.
The ideas of human and human nature have been deeply discussed in many traditions of philosophy. I will summarise a few of them here not as information bits but as an incentive to make us reflect on our own perceptions of being human. So the first act of philosophising that you can do is to ask yourself what your conception of the human is, and then reflect on why you hold these views. Continuing this exercise will eventually lead you to some of the dominant categories of philosophy depending on your starting point. I will illustrate this with some examples below, but that one moment of reflection, as you read, is necessary. What really is the idea of the human?
All of us, whether we have studied philosophy or not, have opinions and views on human nature. Most of our actions are dictated by these views. The way we treat people, talk to others, support or oppose somebody, decide on what our children should do – these are all dependent on strongly held positions on what it is to be a human being. These may not be articulated specifically as “being human” but through ideas such as what it is to be an individual, to be a member of family, of society, what we should do, and how we should act.
Before I begin with the philosophers, let us look at some common conceptions of what it is to be human. Today, we are often told that it is human nature to be selfish, to take care of our own interests. It is the nature of men to be violent and women to be nurturing. Violence as an intrinsic nature of man has often been used to justify not only violence within society but also the unending wars. Economics as a discipline is foundationally dependent on this selfish, transactional mode of being human. Stereotypes about women, men and children are derived from their assumed “nature”. Stereotypes based on religion are prevalent across the globe today, and the language used in these contexts is primarily in terms of “their nature”. The colonial discourse was replete with descriptions of Asians and Africans as inferior to the white European males, in terms of intelligence and various other attributes such as the capacity for reason and creativity.
Philosophers have their own views on what human nature is. For most of them, this is a fundamental preoccupation as well as a starting point for their own reflections. They too produce their views on human nature in the way others do, but they go a step further. They try to make sense of why they hold those views, and explore their consequences. Through this act, they produce the concepts that are central to philosophy.
However, the great failure of modern philosophy, after producing so much thought on what it is to be human, is its inability to transform these insights into the making of a more humane world. Paradoxically, this domain has produced enormously complex books on ethical thinking, yet that always seems applicable to “others” rather than themselves. Would it be an exaggeration to say that the major source of violence in the last century has its epicentre in the “Western civilisation”? Not just in terms of the two world wars, but in catalysing countless conflicts across the globe for political and economic benefits? How do we square this with the immense production of many dominant philosophies in parallel during this time?
It is almost as if the aim of analysing the world and making sense of it was more for the purpose of “understanding” humans and human nature. Knowledge about objects, such as knowledge about the table in front of me, has value of various kinds, including utilitarian value. I can do something with that knowledge. But what is knowledge about human nature for? What kind of knowledge is it? In the case of humans, is it enough to say something about what we are rather than change who we are? The failed task of modern philosophy is the failure to produce better human beings instead of producing monumental texts on the idea of humans. Some prominent modern philosophers whose work was deeply concerned with the philosophical study of human nature were nevertheless blind to their own regressive views towards women, people of colour, and those belonging to oppressed classes and castes. Basically, an attitude of disrespect towards others who were not like themselves.
While the modern world has transformed scientific knowledge into awe-inspiring technologies that have changed every person’s everyday life, why have humans at the same time become more violent, more hateful, more greedy, more selfish?
Some philosophers might respond by saying that producing better human beings is not the task of philosophy. For example, they may say that even though they work in the field of ethics, it is not necessary that they should be more ethical than others who do not work in that field. Producing knowledge in academic philosophy has become decoupled from the moral pressures of living a life in a philosophical manner.
This was not always the case, either within Europe or in most non-western traditions. Many of the latter still tend to connect practice and thought in more intimate ways than the academic practice of philosophy has been able to. One can look at examples such as Ambedkar, Gandhi or Fanon to understand how the practice of thought can be deeply influential, and thus in a sense more “authentic” to that thought. Feminist philosophers who look at philosophy as a resource to change behaviour, both at the individual and social level, are also powerful examples.
This relation between thought and action is particularly true of the study of human nature. While there may be some aspects of philosophy, say certain themes in epistemology or metaphysics, that may not be amenable to such an easy connection, the discourse of human nature has an inherent moral dimension to it. In describing what humans are and what makes them behave in certain ways, philosophers have to bear a certain responsibility. It is that which differentiates their views from lay beliefs in human nature. Equally significant is the question of whether knowledge as a category should be the dominant mode for “understanding” humans, and if so, what the nature of that knowledge should be.
We can begin with some simple, selective summaries of the description of human nature articulated by philosophers over the ages. The Buddhist tradition is a good starting point since the hypothesis behind the idea of human influences their critical philosophical positions. Buddha’s powerful insight was that desire is a defining mark of the human and is a cause of suffering. The goal of humans then is to escape this suffering. The Samkhya tradition too sees the goal of philosophy as removing the suffering of humans. The primary text of Samkhya, the Samkhyakārika, begins with the verse that identifies three-fold suffering and the means of eradicating them in order to finally achieve happiness. It goes on to state that the known ways of alleviating suffering are not enough, and that it is only the path of philosophy that can succeed in this task. In both these cases, the human condition is defined by suffering and the task of human life is to liberate oneself from it.
The Upanashidic traditions from which later Vedantic schools arise, point to the dichotomy between the individual self and the universal self. The implication is that humans are part of a larger universal reality, and the aim of humans should be to become part of the universal. Thus, the aim is a form of liberation from the empirical self to the universal self. The task of philosophy is to discover the vocabulary and arguments to uphold this view. Here, the notion of death is not the essential core of being human (as it will be in other approaches, such as in Heidegger, that we will consider later). It is only one manifestation of the constant cycle of lives that humans are in. Even though this is something that is common to the Buddhist and Upanishadic views, the philosophical vocabulary needed to justify their views can be quite different. The Buddhists refute the existence of a stable entity called the self, and this becomes a method to deny the independent existence of many commonly accepted terms taken to be real, such as space, time or the soul. Nagarjuna’s Mūlamādhyamakakārika is an excellent illustration of this process of reasoning.
As mentioned above, there is a sustained attempt to distinguish humans and animals through categories such as reason, rationality, or even creativity. In the Indian case, such a distinction is not so easily found, as the capacity for reason (and “knowledge”) is available for both humans and animals. Rebirth complicates this relationship to a much more intimate degree since humans could always be reborn as an animal. Powerful narratives of morality in the Buddhist, Jaina and Hindu texts have been presented as stories in the voices of animals, such as in the Jataka tales and the Panchatantra.
However, there is a particular kind of difference that captures the uniqueness of being human: the nature of the human self and all that it can accomplish. A concept like self helps philosophers to make sense of human experiences and has many explanatory virtues such as explaining the unity of the senses, bridging the past and present, imagination of the future, and so on. The self is not a passive agent and is the source of morality. It is also important to note that for the larger corpus of Hindu philosophy (a confusing term but one that is often used), pure knowledge for its own sake is rejected. Descriptions of humans often are coterminous with the goals of humans, notably, the four goals corresponding to wealth, desire/pleasure, right living, and finally liberation. One way to understand this is to say that the fundamental nature of humans is their propensity to move towards actions that are finally liberating.
It is worthwhile to note that these views on what it is to be human ultimately stress not on essential qualities that characterise humans but on the set of actions that really define who they are. It is the doing that distinguishes humans. In a contemporary version of this view, we can consider Marx’s argument that the essential human quality is to be found in the act of labour. Humans are defined by what we do rather than what we are. Interestingly, such a view is one that is present in early discussions on caste before it gets consolidated into hereditary qualities. The movement of Existentialism as a philosophical doctrine is very much in this spirit of defining the human through how they act and not through prior given essences. In Karnataka, a practice of philosophy within the “subaltern” oral tradition is primarily through songs (Tattvapadas) that capture the importance of labour and action. The form of philosophy here is different; instead of texts it is performed through songs. Similar expressions of philosophy occur quite commonly through ‘folk’ theatre in the southern coastal region.
In the modern Indian context, two of the most important philosophical ideas are ahimsa (non-violence) and maitri (fraternity). Gandhi’s emphasis on non-violence is well known. It is reasonable to argue that, for Gandhi, non-violence is intrinsic to human nature and it is violence that has been taught and imposed by the external world. Similarly, when Ambedkar draws upon Buddha’s notion of maitri (which Ambedkar refers to as fraternity), it is not merely in a normative sense but in an essential sense of discovering this propensity within ourselves. These views too are about defining humans in terms of action and not in terms of static qualities. In the remaining part of this section, we will explore how the idea of the human in other cultures like the Chinese, as well as in modern Western philosophers like Kant, Heidegger, and Hannah Arendt influences the structure of their philosophies.
Other articles in this series
Sundar Sarukkai on how philosophy can be a living tradition in our lives today
‘Do we perceive the world or do we think it?’ Sundar Sarukkai on thinking in philosophy
‘Philosophy is an act of illuminating the invisible’: Sundar Sarukkai on human perception
What is the original impulse to a philosopher’s questions? It is ‘doubt’, contends Sundar Sarukkai
Another Story of Philosophy will be published by Westland Books. Sundar Sarukkai’s recent books include Philosophy for Children, The Social Life of Democracy, and the novel Following a Prayer. For more details, see the author’s website.
