Narrative Essay on Human Nature Text

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Still more recent scientific perspectivessuch as behaviorism, determinism, and the chemical model within modern psychiatry and psychologyclaim to be neutral regarding human nature. As in all modern science, they seek to explain without recourse to metaphysical causation. They can be offered to explain human nature apos s origins and underlying mechanisms, or to demonstrate capacities for change.

In this view, the mind is at birth a blank slate without rules, so data are added, and rules for processing them are formed solely by our sensory experiences. 10 jean jacques rousseau pushed the approach of hobbes to an extreme and criticized it at the same time. Their teleological concept of nature is associated with humans having a divine component in their psyches, which is most properly exercised in the lifestyle of the philosopher, which is thereby also the happiest and least painful life. Socratic philosophy edit philosophy in classical greece is the ultimate origin of the western conception of the nature of a thing. According to aristotle, the philosophical study of human nature itself originated with socrates, who turned philosophy from study of the heavens to study of the human things. By this account, using one apos s reason is essay on save nature for future the best way to live, and philosophers are the highest types of humans. Aristotleplato apos s most famous studentmade some of the most famous and influential statements about human nature.

I am indebted to rosemary novitz, augustine schutte, david brooks, paul taylor, sorrel kerbel, bernard harrison, stewart candlish, and denis dutton for their comments on this article. Throughout this article, i use the word identity in its epistemological not its metaphysical sense to mean the view or sense or beliefs that one has of oneself. See my pictures and their use in communication: a philosophical essay the hague: martinus nijhoff, 1977 , chaps. Goodman clearly believes that pictures can tell stories without being used in a specific context to do so.

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See, for example, sigmund freud, the relation of the poet to daydreaming, collected papers. Morris chicago: university of chicago press, 1934 erving goffman, the presentation of self in everyday life garden city: doubleday, 1959 richard wollheim, the thread of life london: cambridge university press, 1984 , lecture 3. Scott, the drama of social reality new york: oxford university press, 1975 , chap. See, for example, roy schafer, narration in the psychoanalytic dialogue, in on narrative. 26, where it is merely submitted that it makes sense, and it may be a useful project, to present psychoanalysis in narrational terms. Although paul ricoeur is adamant in the questions of proof in freud's psychoanalytic writings, in hermeneutics and the human sciences cambridge: cambridge university press, 1983 , that the self is a narrative construct, he merely asserts, but does not argue for the view.

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For more on this, see anthony paul kerby, the language of the self, philosophy today 30 1986: 210 23 and the adequacy of self narration: a hermeneutical approach, in philosophy and literature 12 1988: 232 44. For a full account of the way in which we empathize with subjects in a story, see my fiction and the growth of knowledge, grazer philosophische studien 19 1983: 47 68. I am indebted to the late flint schier not just for my use of this term, but for drawing my attention to the phenomenon.

Hayden white, the value of narrativity in the representation of reality, in on narrative. The precise dynamics of this process are explained in my knowledge, fiction, and imagination philadelphia: temple university press, 1987 , chaps. This same point is made in more detail by michael krausz, art and its mythologies, in rationality, relativism, and the human sciences. Edited by richard burian, michael krausz, and joseph margolis the hague: martinus nijhoff, 1987. The nature and scope of this process, its epistemological role and metaphysical implications, are extensively discussed in my knowledge, fiction, and imagination. Beauty in nature it was cold, dark, and quiet, and i was having the time of my life.

As i was lying on my cot on that little beach at the bottom of the grand canyon, i started to relive the whole experience from start to finish and i suddenly relized how fortunate i was to have this experience. For my sixteenth birthday, my grandparents said that i could pick anything i wanted to do, anywhere in the country, and they would pay for my dad, my grandpa, and i to go. After a few weeks of indecision i had so many ideas that i couldn’t decide my grandpa called me and told me that he had asked a travel agent for ideas.

She informed him of a trip that consisted of visiting the city of las vegas, spending a day on a cattle ranch, and, best of all, a three day, two night rafting trip through the grand canyon. A decision that i had been struggling with for weeks was solved with a short phone call. This posed a slight problem in that school didn’t let out untill the fifth of june, and final exams were taking place in the last two weeks. After much effort on my part, i was able to exempt a couple of exams and convince the rest of my teachers to allow my to take their test early.

The plan was for my dad and i to drive up to my grandparents’ house in the mountains of north carolina, spend the night there, and then fly out of the charlotte airport. To our dismay the air conditioner in my dad’s car stopped working as we were passing through summerville. After what felt like an eternity in the car, i could finally see lake adger, which meant that we were only minutes away. Human nature is the concept which distinguishes inherent characteristics such as thinking capacity, feeling and acting that all human beings have.

Human nature provide standards or norms that individuals can use when judging how best to live like human being or community members. Nature refers to the physical world phenomena and also to life in general which ranges from subatomic to the cosmic schopenhauer 81. Human nature according to karl marx's concept has been a misunderstanding subject. Marx considers human beings as simply a blank slate, whose characteristics depend totally on their experience and social life. Marx place immense benefits on the view that environment influence and determine the characteristics of the individuals. Marx had an exceptionally strong concept of human nature on one stage of his development.

He discussed the species essence concept form the 'german gattungswesen' which is sometimes referred species being. Under capitalism, marx believed individuals are alienated that is separated from human nature aspects. He envisaged the society succeeding capitalism which will fully exercise human in their individualism and human nature. The understanding of human nature according to marx did not play any role in his capitalism critique, and in his belief of a possible better society. In the germany ideology, the tendency of human beings to act in generation of new needs and fulfillment of their needs are social activity aspects which ground marx's history. This tendency of human according to marx is what drives productive power expansion in human civilization. According to nietzsche, human nature is a cultural condition, and what individuals are before they make something for themselves.

To him, a few exceptional humans are the creators who subject themselves to prevailing norms, and raise themselves above the all too human mass kazantzakis and makridis 95. He compares humans beings with other animals in every significant of physical attributes. He claims what distinguishes individuals in the fact that they were programmed even before they were born to learn their family language and culture. He considers animals to have certain capacities, but people are the only species to have created new evolution form of language and culture kazantzakis and makridis 24. Nietzsche, in beyond good and evil accuses philosophers of past in lacking critical sense and accepting blindly premises of christianity in their moral consideration. His work moves around beyond good ad evil in leaving behind the traditional morality. He criticizes 'unegoistic morality' and demands all the immoralities to first bow before the rank order.