Humanity and Its Being as an Object of Philosophical Understanding

The Multidimensionality of Human Existence: The Relationship between the Biological and the Social in Humanity

The multidimensional nature of humanity manifests in biological, psychological, and social relationships. The biological aspect of the human being is a relatively autonomous substructure, deeply connected to the evolution of living nature, possessing its own specific organization. Biologically determined traits in humans include lifespan and its various stages, the type of nervous system, natural needs, sexual and age characteristics, predispositions toward different activities (such as music, mathematics, drawing, etc.), and talents; certain species-specific traits related to race, shaped by adaptations to various regions of the planet, are also biologically programmed. Each human individual is biologically unique, possessing an unparalleled set of genes that carries information predicting the existence of characteristics exclusive to that individual.

The psychological dimension encompasses the internal spiritual and emotional world, conscious and unconscious experiences, will and feelings, thinking and memory, character and temperament; it includes individual traits of specific psychological processes that have become properties of personality—unique manifestations of emotions, sensations, and perceptions.

However, fundamentally, a human being is a subject of social relations. The social aspect refers primarily to knowledge, skills, and habits, the ability to think and act practically, mastery of language, adherence to certain norms of behavior and value systems, and socio-genic needs. Although a child enters the world as a human being, they are merely a candidate for humanity. Society introduces them into the world of humans, regulating and infusing individual behavior with social meaning. All of this is acquired by the individual through mechanisms of socialization, which engage the person in the realm of culture. Further exploration of this will be addressed in the discussion on "Personality and Society."

The relationship between the social and the biological in humanity is complex and contradictory. The primary issue lies in determining which of these foundational elements dominates and defines the formation and development of the human being. A limited perspective on the individual within certain frameworks, or the exaggeration of one aspect, leads to a simplified interpretation of the relationship between the biological and the social in humanity, giving rise to various versions of pan-biologism or pan-sociologism, in other words, biological and sociological concepts of the human being.

Biologistic (naturalistic) concepts absolutize the role of biological principles in humanity while diminishing the significance of the social (cultural). Such concepts include racism, social Darwinism, and sociobiology. Recent theories of sociobiology and social Darwinism pose the alternative question: "Genes or society?"—giving primacy to genes. The opposite extreme is represented by sociologistic concepts that undervalue the importance of biological factors in human behavior.

Yet, humanity should be viewed as a unity of the biological and the social. A human lives simultaneously under the laws of two worlds: the natural and the cultural; however, the fundamental qualities of humanity—practical action, consciousness, language—are ultimately of social origin. A vivid example of the interaction between the biological and the social is the development of abilities. A person is born with certain predispositions, but whether these develop into talent or genius, or whether they evolve into abilities in a specific domain of human activity, depends on the conditions of upbringing and the social environment.

In the 20th century, the biological aspect of humanity has been significantly influenced by social, technological, and ecological factors. This influence is predominantly negative. In the context of modern highly developed technological civilization, the adaptive capacities of the human organism are nearing exhaustion across a number of parameters, which manifests in what are known as civilization diseases—stress, cardiovascular, and mental disorders.