The Problem of Man in Philosophy

The Essence of Man

Sociality

Sociality is an intrinsically necessary and insurmountable impulse, a yearning that compels individuals to engage in relationships with others in pursuit of fulfilling their needs. It embodies the practice of interconnection (mutual assistance) and cooperative action among people. Sociality is also characteristic of certain segments of the animal kingdom, where alongside the instinct for survival, the instinct for herd behavior (collectivity) plays a crucial role. In social animals, the instinct for community life is so strongly developed that it becomes a constant presence, often overshadowing even the instinct for self-preservation.

Unlike animals, in humans both instincts take on more complex forms, influenced by the specificity of human existence. As Darwin defined, human nature encompasses not only the mutual struggle of individual needs and the limitations of personal capabilities but also a division of labor that binds people in interdependent relationships, exchanging the products of their labor. Thus, in its inherent, nature-given essence, humanity demonstrates a proclivity for exchange, for communication.

Exchange manifests as a social act of kinship, a societal bond. As individuals are interconnected through the exchange of labor products, this exchange reveals the societal character of their division of labor. Divided labor emerges as a purely social phenomenon, reflecting the relationships established among individuals in the course of exchanging material and spiritual goods. Therefore, the exchange of products as commodities serves as a specific form of labor division and dependency, representing a social mode of existence that, alongside meeting life’s needs, establishes concrete social relations into which individuals enter regardless of their desires.

Moreover, humans are inherently active beings, and this activity, despite its already defined principle of human essence, is directly connected to sociality. As subjects of activity, humans must first and foremost think and act. Theology posits that the word was the first. Science prioritizes action. Social philosophy emerges from the primordial unity of word and deed as the foundational principle for explaining the specificity of the social.

When considering the unity of word and deed from the perspective of action, it is entirely legitimate to define activity as the condition, means, driving force, and essence of the social. Outside of activity, the social does not exist. Through activity, humans have transcended their initial identity with nature and risen above it. Consequently, activity has become the source of sociality’s formation. The social exists only in human activity and is realized through it. Through their activity, humans transform nature and create their unique world—culture. Hence, activity becomes a means of shaping the social as the cultural environment of human life.

Since activity cannot possess a universal character, individuals achieve this universality once again through exchange. Exchange serves as the social method by which an individual realizes the fullness of their being, a social means of restoring the unity of the labor process in relation to the world. Exchange is not limited to mere commodification; it begins with the exchange of goods and evolves into a practice of interrelation among people that fosters solidarity.

Communication is also one of the fundamental forms of human interaction, an essential characteristic of human existence as a social being. Even in antiquity, thinkers explored communication as a social phenomenon that embodies one of humanity's primary needs—the need for relationships with others, through which the individual masters the world of their existence. Communication is an objective process, fundamentally rooted in collective, especially productive, activity, necessitating interaction, mutual assistance, and understanding among people. This, in turn, represents the indispensable conditions for the existence and development of humanity.

Indeed, through communication during joint activity, the production and accumulation of material, social, and spiritual wealth occurs, along with the internalization of values, socialization, and self-realization of the individual. Through communication, individuals achieve self-determination, self-presentation, and mutual enrichment, as they physically and spiritually create one another (K. Marx). Communication serves as a crucial factor in the social integration of individuals. It acts as a measure of civilization for both the individual and society as a whole. It influences social consciousness, becoming ingrained in it in the form of norms, principles, demands, and rules of coexistence.

Communication is a multifaceted and multi-tiered construct that embodies the entirety of social relations: economic, political, legal, national, and domestic, among others. The subjects of communication encompass both individual entities and social collectives or groups. They form a complex system of interaction: direct and mediated, anonymous and personalized, formal-roles and informal. Communication is closely tied to the socio-psychological factor, as its qualitative traits are significantly determined by the psychological characteristics of the interacting subjects and embody those traits.

Communication characterizes the polyfunctional role of individuals within society. Through communication, individuals fulfill their communicative, transmittal, informational-communicative, existential-organizational, and cultural-educational functions, among others. In its social aspect, communication plays a vital role as a factor in reconciling the interests of various social subjects and as a means of overcoming societal conflicts and contradictions. Through communication, individuals internalize norms, behavioral rules, and etiquette. In the course of communication, human relationships are imbued with emotion, enriching the emotional sphere of human activity.

Through communication, the social space of civilized coexistence among people is created and refined (“the lifeworld of the individual”). During communication, the highest need of the individual for another person is realized as the highest value, based on the ethically compelling imperative: treat others as you would wish to be treated (Kant).

Central to communication is the word, the language, which serves as the medium for the existence of that distinctly human essential quality known as consciousness. The ability to speak and to listen is an inseparable attribute of intersubjective connections, identification of the individual with other participants in communication, and the process of mutual understanding.