This week we will turn to the questions that arose near the conclusion of last week's discussion; namely, what do we make of the explanations of human behavior premised on analogies to animal behavior?Please post your questions and your 20-minute attempt at an answer here. It would be helpful if you include your name in your comment. Also, it might be helpful for you to begin working out ideas for your papers here.
Until Wednesday.
1/26/09
ReplyDeletePhilosophy 493
Jack Christiansen
Darwin vs. Descartes - What happens after Darwin 'removed the soul from man'?
At the end of last class, I asked if ‘Darwin’s work gave souls to animals or took away the soul from man?’ to which the response was that the concept of a soul in man had surely been taken away by Darwin’s work. This response seemed logical and aligned with much of the class discussion – although perhaps indirectly. In reflection of this response, I see no way to answer this question without first being forced to choose between the logic of Darwin and Descartes. I would like to continue that discussion in this week’s post, and support my comments with the reading from the last two weeks (while probably posing even more questions).
Descartes claims that ‘he came to realize’ that there are two different principles causing our motions – the corporeal soul (purely mechanical and corporeal) and the incorporeal mind –the soul which he ‘defines as a thinking substance’. As he believed that every motion of an animal could be produced by the corporeal soul, we could therefore never prove that a ‘thinking soul’ or incorporeal mind existed in animals (they could do everything they need to without one). Descartes then makes the very important leap from incorporeal mind to immortal souls when he tells us at the top of pg 61 that it is more likely that worms, flies, and caterpillars move mechanically than with the assistance of an immortal soul. This is important because it tells us that Descarte’s incorporeal mind IS the thinking soul, which is also in his view the immortal soul that animals must lack. It is this same incorporeal mind that gives man the power to think, to reason, to speak, and to be elevated above the animals.
At the bottom of page 60, Descartes wrote that ‘…if they thought as we do, they would have an immortal soul like us.’ This immortal soul that Descartes refers to must again be his interpretation of the incorporeal mind and the thinking soul. In reflection of our classroom discussion and the final question posed last week, IF the soul has been taken away from man by Darwin, then Descartes would consider us no more than animals without our immortal soul (our ‘thinking soul’ or ‘incorporeal mind’) and we must be reduced to acting upon the mechanical needs of our organs. Did Darwin disprove Descartes logic (as perhaps the general consensus of the class would have suggested)? How can they both correct?
The Origin of Species, although written some 150 years before Jonathan Marks’ What it means to be 98% Chimpanzee, presents much of the same argument but from a genetic perspective – that all species evolved from a common ancestor and the closer the break in evolution between two species, the more likely they will be to share common traits than species that have a much greater span in time between their common ancestors. Darwin provides great details of similarities and differences shared WITHIN certain species such as pigeons, horses, plants, and dogs in an effort to make his point. Marks tells us that ‘modern science classifies animals by two criteria, descent and divergence’ in an effort to emphasis that it is ‘nearly’ pointless to compare unlike species...such as humans and chimpanzees, because humans are not chimpanzees. Marks explains that this mistake is common - geneticists might want to compare chimps to humans because their DNA is so similar, and biologists may want to study the same pair to learn more about one from observing the other for the same reason – i.e. gaining insight on human nature from observing chimpanzee interactions. He sums it up best on page 161 by saying that ‘what we derive from (any species) turns out to be largely a function of what we project upon them.’
Descartes used this ‘mistaken logic’ in his observations of animal communication, emphasizing the difference between ‘men and dumb animals’ (pg 61) because animals have never been observed speaking as humans do. Since Descartes chooses to build his argument through the comparison of unlike species by ‘projecting upon’ the animals the lack of an immortal soul because of their lack of speach, would Jonathan Marks disagree with his logic (and perhaps his entire argument) as well?
What role does technology play in human evolution?
ReplyDeleteTechnology removes much of the pressure of natural selection. Take transportation as an example. Despite being the most widespread species on the planet, humans are the most interconnected. Pockets of genetic isolation - especially islands like Japan or Australia - are becoming heterogenized while indigenous species of animal disappear. Blonds (humans) are predicted to be "extinct" within 200 years, redheads much sooner. This is not to say that lighter-haired people will (for lack of a better term) stop breeding. Due to increased international exposure that advances in technology allow, these genetically isolated genes will be swallowed up by more prevalent or dominant genes. Since the genes for darker hair are both more prevalent and dominant over the genes for light hair, this will occur quickly from a Darwinist perspective.
What is this "soul" thing and why do so many people insist we have one but animals don't?
ReplyDeleteThroughout the ages the "soul" has been used extensively as an explanation for various cognitive functions, from our ability to feel emotions such as love and hate to our ability to abstractly reason our way through a game of chess. Of course nowadays we know that emotions are caused by various chemical interactions inside the brain, and that abstract reasoning is simply a function of computer processing that our large cerebral cortex allows us to perform.
So, then, it seems that in all likelihood a soul doesn't exist. The assumptions upon which the concept was formed are false, so why do we persist in believing in it?
I liken the explanation to the old story about the first man to watch TV. He was certain there were little men inside the plywood box, but when the television's creator explained how it actually worked, the man said, "oh. But I bet there's a little man in there somewhere!"
We are simply unable to give up concepts that have been ingrained in our cultural consciousness. Even moreso because the idea of a soul makes us "special" when compared to other animals.
So when Darwin removed the soul from human beings, I would say it was definitely a good thing. Many people obviously don't accept the (likely) fact that they don't have a supernatural critter inside of them somewhere, but Darwin certainly humbled our idea of what it means to be human. Even more importantly, this humbling allowed later researchers to observe animal behavior and think, "hey, maybe this can explain similar human behavior?"
When you reduce our actions to their basest forms, they are essentially the same as an animal's. We enter into romantic relationships under the pretense of "love," but what usually happens to couples when their sex life turns sour? What do most people consider the goal of marriage to be? When you get down to it, interaction with the opposite sex is simply a manifestation of our base reproductive instinct.
But how about interaction with members of the same sex (or members of the opposite sex who you have no attraction to)? Well, humans aren't very well suited to living in the wild on their own. We don't have any natural weapons or defenses, we don't run particularly fast, and as anyone who's spent time outside during summer knows, our lack of body hair invites multitudes of mosquitos and no-see-ums.
So our great strength is our ability to communicate and form complex societies. 50,000 years ago one human being wouldn't have been able to take down a wooly mammoth, but working in groups, we managed to contribute to their extinction. Social interaction, it seems, is simply a manifestation of our survival instinct. Technological advancement is also part of this, and religion/spirituality comes about when our intellects aren't so preoccupied with feeding or protecting the tribe (focusing attention on the unexplainable invites all sorts of hackneyed explanations that become "fact" within a culture simply because they can't be disproven).
It seems that all of our supposed defining characteristics are really only more complex ways of acting on the instincts other animals have. Our intellect isn't a separate entity unto itself, it is simply a powerful computing tool that allows us to achieve our biological goals much more effectively than other animals. Biological evolution takes hundreds of thousands of years for relatively small changes, but our intellects allow us the ability to evolve socially and technologically on the order of centuries or decades instead.
Does man differ from animal because of his ability to define himself?
ReplyDeleteSartre discusses the concept of existentialism as it relates to moral responsibility and action. Can we cite this as a definition of how man differs from animal? If animals don’t define who they are, then, by Sartre’s argument, they can’t define the difference between man and animal. If man doesn’t define who he is, then he can’t define this difference either.
On the other hand, as regards creation, Sartre would say that if man were separate from animal, it would only be because man was created with that purpose and distinction and not because man can actively distinguish himself. In that way, we would be existentially equal to animals in that we were created with defined purpose prior to existence.
Sartre says human nature follows our existence; it is what we make of ourselves and hold others and hold others to. What about animal nature? If animals lack a sense of self then they lack responsibility, purpose, definition, etc., which any semblance of in the animal world, we tend to attribute to instinct. What is instinct? Do people have it? Is it expendable?
Jon Hays
ReplyDeleteSartre’s “existentialism is a humanism” was a very interesting read, even if I don’t agree with it, and it is precisely because I don’t agree with his philosophy that I will write about him.
A major portion of Sartre’s reasoning comes from the idea that existence comes before essence, essence being the idea of something. However, if we accept that there is no god, as Sartre does, then we are forced to conclude that man is an essence that then creates itself. Because there is no creator to have built us with a specific design in mind, we aren’t actually anything, until we define our own purposes for ourselves. In effect, we have perfect freedom, to do what we will. That, as far as I can tell, is the basic idea of Sartre’s existentialism.
So, one big question. If we accept the above ideas, how do animals fit into this? I am going to assume that they are also without a creator, so do they then get to define themselves as well? It is kind of tricky as Sartre doesn’t talk about animals very much at all. I am going to assume that philosophy is a statement about fundamental aspects of reality; if it applies to humans, then it probably works for animals as well.
The conter-argument can be derived from Jonathan Marks’ “What it means to be 98% Chimpanzee”. Marks notes that humans cannot be considered separately from culture, that there is no such thing as a “natural” man, separate from society; quite simply because culture is a result of what humans do and achieve in a group…
I’m gonna have to stop now; I am losing my focus and time.
Colin K.
ReplyDeleteMy post is going to be somewhat on whether or not Descartes used a proper definition as well as a proper context for the soul, although it may move away from the intended direction as I ramble on and on and on...
Is Descartes use of the term soul really used properly here? When we are comparing the arguments presented by Darwin and Descartes and conclude that by following Darwin we end up taking the soul away from humans, it seems to me that we are taking away the soul that is defined by Descartes, which in my opinion is faulty. Descartes reasoning involves the separation of the soul into the corporeal soul and the incorporeal mind. As stated earlier Descartes claims that the corporeal soul controls the mechanical aspects and the incorporeal mind which is in charge of thought. For me it appears that the use of the term soul is based on defective reasoning. Descartes chooses to use the idea of the soul to define aspects of thought. Here is where my first objection comes into play. The language of ‘soul’ rather than ‘mind’ changes the context of the argument and throws it into the realms of religion and theology, which is not where I feel the arguments being made here belong. I think that if we were to take Descartes argument and transplant the word ‘soul’ with ‘mind’ we would find an entirely different argument and this new argument would not require us to dismiss the soul in either animals or humans.
The concept of the soul as been around for thousands of years and what exactly the soul is has changed along with the years so using only Descartes’ definition appears to be a very narrow-minded way of looking at things. For example the ancient Egyptians thought that the immortal soul was more of an eternal reflection of a person’s character and contained the imprints—so to speak—of all their actions and decisions made in life, which was, at death, balanced against a feather and if the bad deeds of the person life outweighed the good the soul would be eaten instead of being carried off into eternal bliss. Anyway, the point of this is to show that using a definition that is closer to a definition of thought or says that the soul is thought, stretches reasoning a bit thin. Overall it feels to me that arguments involving, or gravitating around the soul need to stay away from whether or not animals are capable of thought. So what I say is scrap the soul and move on because it seems ridiculous to base everything on the idea that only humans have one and even more so that having a soul dictates whether or not you are capable of complex thoughts, because connecting the two ideas is most definitely a stretch in my relatively biased opinion.
Mark points out that we see chimps as “us, minus something.” (165) Why do we, as humans, constantly see other animals and their ways of life as inferior to ours? What makes our way of life better?
ReplyDeletePerhaps the most apparent reason for our perceived superiority is the control we hold over their lives. Whether it is through the more direct means of domestication, or the indirect effects we have as we harness and change heir environments to fit our needs—there is little question who is the dominant race. But dominant doesn't necessarily mean better. What have we gained in our evolution away from apes that they lack? Clearly we have grown more intelligent, but does that really make any of our lives better? Are we really any happier with all the fruits of our intellect—our cars, computers, stock markets and telemarketers—than any animal is with what they have in the wild? It seems that in our much lauded intellect we have actually, in many ways, only gained the mechanism to make ourselves trapped and miserable.
Why do we posses the desire to compare and differentiate ourselves from other creatures?
ReplyDelete_____________________________________________________________________________
Marks helps to shed light on questions we have regarding our similarities and their significance, but why are these questions so important to us?
They are important to us because "Man is condemned to be free," as Sartre says. He, explains further, "Man, did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. That sense of being the sole responsibility for our actions, is a strange feeling. Just as we seek to answer the question of God's existence, we seek to answer the reasons for things we do. In order to find those answers we look to our ancestors and to other creatures. We note what is similar, and what is different.
We have developed a nomenclature of things to make this process of comparison of things easier but which in reality makes it difficult. For how are we to say what is a "bird"? Are the characteristics we have attributed to the definition what really defines it? Our DNA sequence is similar to that of a Chimpanzee. If it were 100% the same, would we define ourselves as chimpanzees? No, because there are more then genetics and characteristics we have prescribed that define a creature. As Marks says, "..you can't get at human nature from chimpanzees. They're not human."
So, we compare and differentiate ourselves from other creatures to gain a better understanding of who we are and why we do what we do. Is, it possible that it also has to do with our own desire to feel superior? In all of what we do, consciously and unconsciously, overtly and covertly we seek to be better then our neighbor. So, it is also true that as a whole we want to define and establish the characteristics that make us superior to the creatures around us. Does this relate to what Sartre, means by "man is condemned to be free"? Does this desire to be superior stem, from our sense of loneliness, and self-responsibility? Does making ourselves feel superior give us a sense of meaning, purpose? That history has taken place to bring forth Man, the strongest and most equipped for survival? I think this is a very narcissistic view, but probably lays deep inside each one of us.
-Taylor Manuel
David Leggitt
ReplyDeleteMy question is one of not understanding the text. What does Sartre mean by saying essentially the only human nature is the one we create for ourselves, and then going on to say that “in fashioning myself I fashion man”? The first part of this seems unreasonable, that we are only who we make ourselves to be, there is no one truth about how humans are. This is not realistic because it is safe to say that all humans (except those with mental disabilities and the like) have a sort of language, we all use some sort of tool, we all possess some kind of culture, etc. And then the second part of his statement that each individual is responsible to all other individuals for his own concept of “humanness.” This is silly because I have no idea what most of the world conceives man to be. To the pygmy in the jungle, a French philosopher’s idea of what man is means nothing. This kind of thinking would necessitate the acceptance of some kind of global consciousness.
I think it is more reasonable to say that there are certain truths about man and from those truths it is possible to imagine a litany of “human natures.”
Katie Arledge
ReplyDeleteWhat does Jean-Paul Sartre mean by claiming that ‘existence comes before essence?’ Is he correct in this assertion?
Sartre writes that “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.” In some sense, this seems like a denial of genetic predisposition or tendencies. An individual might have a predisposition to schizophrenia, depression, or bipolar disorder. In suggesting that existence come before essence, is Sartre arguing that humans are born a ‘blank slate’ as Locke argued? It is challenging to separate genetic predisposition from upbringing but to say that genetic predisposition does not exist seems far-fetched. Human nature might seem a dubious idea, in part because it is all-encompassing, but the idea of individual nature perhaps makes more sense. Man is born with instincts and needs. While these vary from individual to individual it still seems as though there are traits common to all people. This next section will likely make no sense, but in arguing for human nature or tendencies, I believe that people are born with a language capacity. Certain patterns and rhythms in words and sounds are able to work for us as mnemonic devices. Throughout history, people have used song to convey oral histories and stories. Kids in grade school rely on School House Rock to remember the fifty states. Perhaps this too could be conditioning. At the same time, it seems as though even very young infants move in rhythm with music. Language and sound have meaning to us not because there is intrinsic meaning inside of those words or sounds but perhaps because we are on some level programmed with the language capacity. I don’t know much about language but it seems as though we have an understanding of language, the lulling sh--- sound, the hard c--- potentially have meaning before we have, as individuals, formulated one for them, in which case, an essence, perhaps a very basic instinctive connection, came before existence. I’m not sure if that was relevant.
Critical Perspectives on the Animal – 20 Minute Write #2
ReplyDeleteDoes existentialism apply to animals?
Obviously, this is a central question to consider when reading Sarte for a class about animals. The thing is, he doesn’t seem too interested with anything besides humans. He continually limits his argument to ‘man’ and ‘the human race’. Furthermore, we can doubt whether or not Sarte would apply his principles to animals because he seems reluctant to do so to plants, “Man is, indeed, a project which possess a subjective life, instead of being a kind of moss, or a fungus or a cauliflower.” (207-208). So if plants are excluded by Sarte because they lack a subjective life, the question becomes “do animals have a subjective life?” The trouble, I think, that Sarte sees with applying his principle of subjectivity to plants, is that it’s hard to define the essence of a plant. It seems far more difficult to prove that a plant thinks than it is to prove if an animal thinks (although, as we’ve already seen, it’s hard to do for animals too) because they don’t act like we do. Therefore, the idea that Montaigne talks about where similar actions must imply a similar thought process, do not apply to plants. So it makes sense that Sarte would claim that plants do not have any particular ‘essence’ because they cannot think and subjectively establish what themselves. The essence of animals, it seems to me, is much more akin to that of humans, and because of that it seems far more likely that Sarte would say that existentialism applies to them. However, it still seems like Sarte believes that we establish our essence because we have a conscious subjective thought of what we should be (but I could be wrong on this point). Therefore, I think (based on the assumption that I am right) that in order to apply existentialism to animals, you have to believe that animals think. And Sarte doesn’t really tell us what he believes. So to answer my question… maybe. It all depends on conscious thought, which animals may or may not possess. How can you subjectively decide your essence without conscious thought?
Anthony Distefano- apologies as this is my first class and not knowing the format I am bellyflopping in with this entry...
ReplyDeletewhat do we make of the explanations of human behavior premised on analogies to animal behavior?
At first glance, these perceptions seem to be based upon a fallacy, namely that there are pure distinctions to be made between the two. It is an uneasy assumption; compared to setting a sense of degree in defining behaviors rather than attributing them to being 'human' versus 'animal'. For a moment, take that out of the question and ask if instead we can make analogies of naked mole rats burrowing to the behavior of carpenter ants, wolf societies versus those of humpback whales, or magpies compared to shut-ins collecting trash in New York city- it seems that we would then be measuring the degree of awareness, rather than separating the two. Sarte himself is defining atheistic existentialism in opposition to Christian existentialists. This seems to read as a defining of slight distinctions in similar beliefs, the result of a divergence in response to stimuli that led to a inevitable result. That is, to radicals, God is dead so there is *this* as opposed to existentialists. These distinctions are developments in the behaviors of each group as they respond to different stimuli.
Saying this in a different way that is hopefully less confusing and wending, if we attribute behaviors to animals as opposed to humans, then we focus on minor distinctions that can distract us from a discussion of what IS conciousness and what IS emotion and what makes us 'human'. Or, is there and animalness that we have lost over time? To embrace these distinctions right off the bat is a way to blind alley yourself. Our seperations from defining behaviors of children from adults is a matter of degree. My niece loves that goofy guy from Twilight, but I draw a distinction of degree from relationships I have had and her undying vampire love that will last five weeks tops.
I would like to learn this- I hope to use this semester to develop a theory or philosophy of how emotions have come to be. If we attribute evolution to making us have big beautiful brains then at some point our survival became dependent on how we felt about things. Why is that and what do we share with others that walk, crawl, swim, fly, or ooze through this world? What do dogs dream of? Are whales praying when they sing? Are humans exhibiting a synaptic cascade of BASIC/FOTRAN when we want some chocolate? In my mind, if dogs are but Pavlovian clockwork then what makes us different? Or are we a melding of these networks, 'primal' infrastructure built upon 'human' consciousness? Using aqueducts made during Caesars time to transport water to cool a supercomputer...
Clifton Miller
ReplyDeleteAre people just lonely?
When looking at the fossil record and trying to find the missing link between humans and animals we see that in the past homo sapiens had other related species in the same genus. Today I believe that homo sapiens are not only the only species in our genus but in a separate class as well. Is it possible that because we have no relative cousins on the planet we look to more distant relatives to compare ourselves ? Even before the idea of evolution people have dressed up their animals and have personified even inanimate objects. Once we discovered our closest living relatives the great apes we could not help but point out hot similar they are to us, never mind how different they are. In folklore around the world there have always been stories of the missing link like Yetis and Bigfoot. We want to believe that we are not alone and this is the reason why we try to personify animals to the extent that we have. We have even gone so far as to create 400 level philosophy classes that try to distinguish the fundamental difference between people and animals, when we are still animals, right? If we are then where is the proof. We know in the back of our minds that we are alone on this planet, so we invest billions of dollars to try and find life on other planets. Even if there is no intelligent life on Mars, a single organism would give us hope for intelligent life somewhere in the universe.