NATURAL AND SOCIAL IN MAN. MAN AS A RESULT OF BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-CULTURAL EVOLUTION.
Plan.
- Differences between humans and animals.
- Tasks.
Theories of human origin.
Man is
A unique being (open to the world, inimitable, spiritually incomplete);
A universal creature (capable of any type of activity);
A holistic being (integrates physical, mental and spiritual principles)
The problem of man is one of the main ones in philosophy. Of great importance for understanding the essence of man and the paths of his development is clarification of the question of his origin.
The theory of human origin, the essence of which is to study the process of its emergence and development, is called anthropogenesis (from the gr. anthropos - man and genesis - origin).
There are several approaches to solving the question of human origins.
Thus, only assumptions can be made about the reasons that determined the formation of man himself.
The influence of cosmic energy, electromagnetic waves, radiation and other influences on his psychophysical state is enormous.
Man is the highest stage of development of living organisms on Earth. Biologically, humans belong to mammal-eating hominids, human-like creatures that appeared about 550 thousand years ago.
The influence of nature and society on human development.
Man is essentially a biosocial being. It is part of nature and at the same time inextricably linked with society. The biological and social in man are fused together, and only in such unity does he exist.
The biological nature of a person is his natural prerequisite, a condition of existence, and sociality is the essence of a person.
Man as a biological being belongs to the higher mammals, forming a special species, Homo sapiens. The biological nature of a person is manifested in his anatomy and physiology: he has circulatory, muscular, nervous and other systems. Its biological properties are not strictly programmed, which makes it possible to adapt to various living conditions. Man as a social being is inextricably linked with society. A person becomes a person only by entering into social relations, into communication with others. The social essence of a person is manifested through such properties as the ability and readiness for socially useful work, consciousness and reason, freedom and responsibility, etc.
Absolutization of one of the aspects of human essence leads to biologization or sociologization.
1. Biologization approach. Emphasizes only the evolutionary-biological preconditions of human nature
2. Sociologizing approach. Explains human nature based on socially significant factors. Man is a “blank slate” on which society writes the necessary words
The main differences between humans and animals
1. A person has thinking and articulate speech. Only a person can reflect on his past, actually evaluating it, and think about the future, dreaming and making plans.
Some species of monkeys also have communicative capabilities, but only humans can convey objective information about the world around them to other people. People have the ability to highlight the main thing in their speech. In addition, a person knows how to reflect reality not only with the help of speech, but also with the help of music, painting and other figurative forms.
2. A person is capable of conscious, purposeful creative activity:
Models his behavior and can choose various social roles;
Has the ability to foresee the long-term consequences of his actions, the nature and direction of the development of natural processes;
Expresses a value-based attitude to reality. The animal in its behavior is subordinate to instinct, its
actions are initially programmed. It does not separate itself from nature.
3. A person, in the process of his activity, transforms the surrounding reality, creates the material and spiritual benefits and values he needs. Carrying out practically transformative activities, a person creates a “second nature” - culture.
Animals adapt to their environment, which determines their lifestyle. They cannot make fundamental changes in the conditions of their existence.
4. Man is capable of making tools and use them as a means of producing material goods.
Highly organized animals can use natural tools (sticks, stones) for certain purposes. But not a single species of animal is capable of making tools using previously made means of labor.
5. Man reproduces not only his biological, but also his social essence and therefore must satisfy not only his material, but also his spiritual needs. Satisfaction of spiritual needs is associated with the formation of a person’s spiritual (inner) world.
If you ask questions about how a person differs from an animal and what place he occupies in nature, then you should first determine what their similarities are.
According to one of many theories, Homo Sapiens descends from animals. At the primitive level, there are definitely similarities between humans and animals: a skeleton, a functional system of vital organs, the presence of reflexes and instincts.
Science has already collected a large amount of information confirming the unity of origin of all living creatures on the planet. For example, the proof of this statement should be the fact that the structure contains identical elements that perform similar functions.
Many similarities have been found between humans and monkeys. Human and macaque deoxyribonucleic acid have more than 65% similar genes. Human DNA is more closely similar to chimpanzees - 93%. Monkeys also have different blood types and Rh factors. By the way, the Rh factor was originally discovered in Rhesus monkeys, hence the name.
Well, the similarity of all representatives of life on Earth, including humans, leaves no questions. But how does a person differ from an animal?
First of all, different from animals is a special form of thinking, characteristic exclusively of humans - this is conceptual thinking. It is based on logic, coherence, awareness, and specificity. Thus, a person differs from an animal in the ability to build logical chains and complex thinking algorithms.
Animals can also carry out intricate actions, but such behavior can be traced only in manifestations of instincts that are inherited along with genes from their ancestors. Animals perceive the situation as it appears, because they do not have the ability to abstract.
A person is close to such concepts as analysis, synthesis, comparison, which come from the initially set goal.
How does a person differ from an animal, according to the great scientist I.P. Pavlova? He believed that a pronounced feature is the presence of a second signaling system, which is responsible for both animals and humans being able to detect sounds, but only humans are able to use speech. With the help of language, he informs other people about the events of the past, present and future, thereby conveying to them social experience. A person can even put his imagination into words, which is completely inaccessible to other living beings.
Words are a kind of signal to an external stimulus. Observations show that it is the second signaling system that has the ability to improve, and only when a person communicates with his own kind.
From this it follows that the development of speech is social in nature. It is the conscious mastery of speech that is the main difference between a person and an animal. Indeed, thanks to language, every person uses the body of knowledge acquired in the practice of society over many centuries. He is given the opportunity to experience phenomena that he has not encountered before.
As for animals, they gain knowledge and skills only through personal experience. This also determines the dominant place of man in the animal world.
Erich Fromm once noted that “Self-awareness, imagination and reason have long destroyed the connection inherent in animal life. The appearance of these categories turned man into a quirk, a complete anomaly. Man is a part of nature, but at the same time he is separate. The man is reasonable. The creation of the mind doomed it to constant striving and new solutions. Human life is dynamic, it never stands still. But at the same time, he must realize the meaning of existence - this is precisely how a person differs from an animal.”
Animals are different
So, what? According to scientists, there are no significant differences in the external or internal organs of primates and humans. Previously, it was believed that the specific difference between humans, chimpanzees and gorillas, which developed from a common ancestor, was determined by the fact that in the course of natural selection, humans became an upright creature, freed their hands and began to make tools. However, it is obvious that a deeper difference has arisen between man and the species genetically closest to him, comparable in scale to the most revolutionary previous changes in the biosphere. If man was the embodiment of a new evolutionary step of nature, then what did it consist of? Analysis shows that the main difference between humans and biological predecessors is non-experimental thinking, namely the human ability to foresee. The evolutionary meaning of the acquired ability was to test the survival of the organism not only in the direct collision of its needs with the environment, but through foresight to provide a means for gifted individuals to avoid unfavorable situations and thereby introduce another opportunity into the selection mechanism.
As is known, meaningful behavior is inherent in higher animals, but drawing a logical consequence from observations is not yet foresight. Like animals, in his daily life, a person performs most actions guided by logic, based on direct observations or experience. The difference between a person and an animal at this level consists only in a disproportionately greater volume and variety of experience.
The difference between humans and animals is their ability to construct a mental picture.
Fundamental quality difference between man and animal, which realizes only his inherent gift of foresight, consists in the ability to draw logical consequences from previous logical conclusions. As a result, an image of reality is created in which the facts observed and introduced by the imagination form a logically connected picture. A person’s new ability consists of logical processing of experience and the construction of a mental situation that has not occurred, but is possible. Creating a mental image of action is a way of thinking inherent in man by his very nature. When it is necessary to make a choice, when an action requires a decision, a person thinks by creating and going through many mental situations. The ability to build a mental picture led to consequences unrelated to competitive selection. A person has acquired the ability to experience the same feelings in the imaginary world as in the real one. This contributed to the emergence of the arts. Imagining objects that do not exist in the real world, man began to create them.
Association of individuals into communities
Human Ancestors
The ability to foresight lies at the basis of social organization. In principle, the desire of individuals to create communities is a biological property. It is observed at all levels, from the cellular level to the formation of packs by animals. Uniting individuals into communities is biologically beneficial. The emergence of multicellular organisms along the path of the evolution of life is the result of the unification of cells into increasingly complex communities. This is a biological reflection of the fundamental law of the evolution of matter. At the same time, the highest coordination of actions is achieved between the cells in the body. A multicellular organism contains all the signs of controlled systems: division of functions, coordination of actions, hierarchy. The same characteristics are inherent in communities formed by individuals - flocks of animals, birds, anthills, and so on. Only, unlike biological organisms, they are social organisms.
Imagination makes it possible to conduct a thought experiment
The evolutionary emergence of reason (the ability to foresee) introduced a completely new element into the creation of managed communities and the organization of management. In the “pre-rational” period of the development of life, each new step in each element of the organization of the community was achieved empirically: a failed test led to death, defeat or loss; a successful test added something new to the collection of evolution and experience. The ability to foresight made it possible to construct a mental scenario for organizing a community, imaginary testing of this scenario in expected situations, improving the original plan and choosing its optimal option depending on the results of the thought experiment. And all this without the painful, long-term path of empirical improvement of community organization associated with inevitable losses. This factor became the main reason for the extremely rapid evolution of the organization of human society. So, what is the main thing difference between man and animal? Unlike an animal, a person has the ability to think without experience, the ability to logically process experience and construct a mental situation that has not occurred, but is potentially possible.
Differences between humans and animals.
1.Adaptations for upright walking(S-shaped spine, dome-shaped foot, big toe has the function of supporting the pelvis is wide)
2. The cerebral part of the skull predominates over the facial part. There are no brow ridges; jaws and chewing muscles are less developed.
3. Well developed muscles - gluteal, quadriceps, calf.
4. The presence of a flexible hand - an organ of labor.
5. The temporal, frontal and parietal lobes of the brain are significantly developed. Speech (the second signaling system), abstract thinking, and consciousness appeared.
4. The skin is devoid of hair and has become a giant receptor field capable of bringing additional information to the brain. This was a factor in the intensive development of the brain.
2) . Evolution of primates and genus Homo .
The first traces of primate activity have been known since the end of the Mesozoic. They came from insectivorous mammals. Early primates formed the suborder prosimians (Anthropoid, humanoid). At the beginning of the Paleocene, this group of primates divided into two sections: broad-nosed and narrow-nosed monkeys. Οʜᴎ had a number of anthropoid features: significant development of the brain, grasping limbs; presence of nails, one pair of nipples, etc.
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The group descended from the narrow-nosed monkeys parapithecus, who lived 25-45 million years ago. Their skeletal remains were found in Egypt. Parapithecus led an arboreal lifestyle, but could also move on the ground. Later there appeared propliopithecus(35 million years ago), which gave rise to gibbons, orang And Dryopithecus, whose remains were found in Africa, India, and Europe. Monkeys evolved from one of the species of Dryopithecus 14 million years ago - Ramapithecus. They were omnivorous, walked on their hind legs, had a height of 110 cm, lived in various geographical areas, and their brain volume was less than 350 cm 3 . The reduction in forest area due to climate change led to the emergence of a new method of movement among anthropoids - bipedal walking, and the freed forelimbs began to be used for picking up stones, sticks and getting food.
Ramapithecus gave rise to several species Australopithecus, whose remains were discovered in Africa. They lived 4 million years ago. In the Australopithecus skull, the facial region was less developed; the jaws had large molars, short canines and incisors. The brain volume was 450-550 cm 3, height 120 cm, weight 35-55 kg. We walked vertically. They ate plant and meat foods. For hunting they united in herds. One of the species (Australopithecus massiveus) gave rise to the first man - Homo habilis, who lived 2-3 million years ago. These primitive people differed from australopithecines in the increase in brain volume to 700 cm 3, in the structure of the pelvic bones, and in the shortening of the facial part of the skull. During excavations, primitive stone tools made of pebbles (pebble culture) were discovered near the skeletal remains of Homo habilis.
About 2 million years ago, Homo habilis spread across Africa and Asia and separate isolated forms were formed, which replaced each other and lived from 2 million to 140 thousand years ago. They were classified as a species Homo erectus(homo erectus). To this group ancient people (archanthropes) include Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Heidelberg man. The remains of Pithecanthropus were discovered on the island of Java, Sinanthropus in China, and Heidelberg Man in Germany. Their brain volume reached 800-1000 cm 3, and the structure of the femur indicated upright posture. Height 170 cm, weight 70 kᴦ.
The most ancient people had a low, sloping forehead, with a pronounced brow ridge, and a massive jaw. The people prepared tools from stone (Shchel culture), lived in herds in caves, used fire, and ate meat and plant foods. They successfully hunted buffalo, rhinoceroses, deer, and birds. The evolution of archanthropes was directed by biological factors, including strict natural selection and intraspecific struggle for existence. The most promising directions in the evolution of archanthropes are: 1) increasing the volume of the brain 2) developing a social way of life 3) improving tools 4) using fire for protection from the cold, predators, and cooking.
The oldest people were replaced ancient People - paleoanthropes (Neanderthal man), who lived 300-40 thousand years ago. Neanderthals were a heterogeneous group and their evolution went in two directions. Subspecies Homo sapiens neanderthalensis appeared as a result of the powerful physical development of archanthropes. They had powerful supraorbital ridges and a massive lower jaw, more like a human jaw than an ape, with the rudiment of a mental protuberance. Neanderthals lived in caves, hunted large animals, and communicated with each other using gestures and slurred speech.
At all sites, traces of fires and charred animal bones were found, which indicates the use of fire for cooking. Their tools are much more advanced than those of their ancestral forms. The brain mass of Neanderthals is about 1500 g, and the departments associated with logical thinking received strong development. Height 160 cm. Bony remains of a Neanderthal from Saint-Césaire (France) were found along with tools typical of Upper Paleolithic man (Mousterian culture), which indicates the absence of a sharp intellectual line between Neanderthal and modern man. There is evidence of ritual burials of Neanderthals in the Middle East.
At the end of the 60s of the twentieth century, scientists identified a second subspecies H.s. sapiens(neoanthropes). A representative of this subspecies is the Cro-Magnon, whose remains were discovered in the south of France in the Cro-Magnon grotto. Its most ancient fossil remains, 100 thousand years old, were also discovered in Northeast Africa. Numerous finds of paleoanthropes and neoanthropes in Europe, dating back 37-25 thousand years, indicate the existence of both subspecies for several millennia. Neoanthropes had a tall height of up to 190 cm, a brain volume of up to 180 cm3, delicate facial features, a narrow nose, and a straight forehead. The lower jaw had a large chin protrusion. Cro-Magnons were hunter-gatherers, skillfully made stone and bone tools, sewed clothes, painted animals, hunting scenes, built permanent dwellings from tusks and mammoth skins. Cro-Magnons formed families, tribal communities, they had their own religion, articulate speech.
During the same period, neoanthropes no longer lived only in Europe and even in America. These data indicate an unusually rapid process of settlement of modern humans, which should be evidence of the “explosive”, spasmodic nature of anthropogenesis in this period, both in the biological and social sense. H.s. neanderthalensis is not found in the form of fossil remains later than 25 thousand years. The rapid disappearance of paleoanthropes must be explained by their displacement by people with more advanced techniques for making tools and interbreeding with them.
With the emergence of man of the modern physical type, the role of biological factors in his evolution was reduced to a minimum, giving way to social evolution. This is clearly evidenced by the absence of significant differences between fossil man, who lived 30-25 thousand years ago, and our contemporary.
Driving factors of anthropogenesis:
I. Biological:
1) struggle for existence,
2) natural selection, sexual selection
3) hereditary variability,
4) mutation process
5) population waves
6) genetic drift
7) insulation
II.Social:
2) social lifestyle
3) consciousness
4) thinking
7) meat food
3).The relationship between the biological and the social in modern man .
In the organic world of the planet, people occupy a unique place, which is due to their acquisition in the process of anthropogenesis of a social essence, which “... in its reality is a set of social relations.” This means that it is society and production, and not biological mechanisms, that ensure the survival, worldwide and even cosmic distribution, and prosperity of people. The patterns and main directions of the historical development of mankind also flow from the social essence of people. Man is included in the system of the organic world, which took shape throughout most of the history of the planet, regardless of the social factor and gave rise to this factor in the course of its development. Man and humanity constitute a unique, but obligatory and integral component of the biosphere: “Man must understand ... that he is not a random, free-acting natural phenomenon independent of the environment (biosphere or noosphere). It constitutes an inevitable manifestation of a large natural process that naturally lasts for at least two billion years. Thanks to animal origin, the life activity of the human body is based on fundamental biological mechanisms that constitute the biological heritage of people.
Features of the development of life in one of its branches led to the combination of the social and biological in man. Such a connection reflects the objective result of biological prehistory and the real history of the species Homo sapiens. The nature of the interaction between the social and the biological in a person cannot be represented as their simple combination in some proportion or the direct subordination of one to the other. The peculiarity of the human biological is that it manifests itself under the conditions of the laws of a higher, social form of movement of matter.
Biological processes occur with utmost importance in the human body, and they play a fundamental role in determining the most important aspects of life support and development. However, in human populations these processes do not lead to results common to the rest of the world of living beings. As an example, let us consider the process of evolution, which is ultimately subject to mechanisms that function at all basic levels of the organization of life - molecular genetic, cellular, ontogenetic, etc.
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The gene pools of human populations up to the present day are under the pressure of mutations, combinative variability, selective crossing, genetic drift, isolation, and some forms of natural selection. At the same time, due to the action of social factors, natural selection lost the function of speciation. This makes it impossible to achieve a natural biological result - the emergence of new species of the genus Homo. One of the unusual consequences of the action of elementary evolutionary factors in such conditions is the pronounced hereditary diversity of people, which is not observed on such a scale among animals.
The acquisition of a social essence and the preservation of biological life-support mechanisms changed the process of individual development of people. In human ontogenesis, information of two types is used. The first type represents biologically useful information that was selected and preserved during the evolution of ancestral forms and recorded in the DNA of cells in the form of a genetic program. Thanks to it, individual development develops a unique set of structural and functional characteristics that distinguish humans from other animals. The emergence of this complex serves as an extremely important prerequisite for the formation of man as a social being. The second type of information is represented by the sum of knowledge that is created, stored and used by generations of people during the development of society and production activities. This is a program of social inheritance, which a person masters in the process of his upbringing and training.
4). The position of man in the animal world.
5).Concept of races
Races– historically formed groups of people in certain geographical conditions that have common hereditary-determined morphological and physiological characteristics.
Within humanity there are three basic large race:
1) Caucasian
2)Australian-Negroid
3) Mongoloid
Racial types differ in skin color, hair structure, and eye shape. They do not differ in other characteristics, since they belong to the same species - Homo sapiens sapiens.
The Caucasian race is characterized by: light skin pigmentation, soft hair (straight or wavy), abundant development of a beard and mustache, eyes from blue to brown and black.
The Mongoloid race is characterized by; coarse dark hair, dark eyes, yellowish skin, flattened face with prominent cheekbones, flat nose bridge, scoop-shaped incisors, epicanthus.
It is worth saying that the Negroid race is characterized by: dark curly hair, dark skin and eyes, full lips, a wide nose, weak or average hair development, the front part of the skull protrudes in the vertical plane.
Some anthropologists believe that racial differentiation developed among the most ancient people who lived in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Others believe that racial types arose later in the Eastern Mediterranean. In the Middle Paleolithic, when the Neanderthals lived, two centers of race formation arose: western and eastern.
Many racial characteristics arose initially due to the appearance of mutations. Under the pressure of selection at different stages of raceogenesis, these characteristics, which have adaptive significance, were fixed in generations.
As a result of socio-economic and cultural relationships between peoples, the role of mixing of races (mixed race) increased, and the role of selection and isolation decreased. The boundaries of racial areas became blurred.
Proof of the unity of humanity can be the localization of skin patterns such as arcs on the second finger in representatives of all races, the same pattern of hair on the head, the ability to marry representatives of other races and give fertile offspring.
Differences between humans and animals. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Differences between humans and animals." 2017, 2018.
Man is a rational being who is capable of thinking, consciously working and influencing the world around him. Are animals capable of doing everything that humans do today? In this article we will try to understand in detail how a person differs from an animal.
Differences between humans and animals
Man has a mind that is very different from the mind of animals. In people it can not only develop, but also improve in the learning process.
The main differences between humans and animals:
1. A person has speech and thinking.
2. Humans are upright walking creatures. Such walking greatly changed the structure of the skeleton.
3. A person is capable of conscious creativity.
4. A person can foresee the long-term consequences of his actions, but animals cannot; they obey their instincts, and their actions are programmed.
5. People can create various structures, tools, etc.
6. Animals satisfy only biological needs. People, in turn, satisfy social, spiritual and biological needs.
7. Humans have more developed hands. He can touch his thumb to his little finger and ring finger. This allows us to use limbs to create tools and other objects.
8. If you compare a person with an animal, it turns out that we are practically naked. Animals have a lot of hair on their bodies, although the human body has the same number of hair follicles as, for example, a chimpanzee.
- This is interesting -