Humanity. Society. Power

The Phenomenon of Humanity

Our examination of the issues in this section will commence with the phenomenon of humanity, for without a comprehension of it, one cannot grasp the essence of either society or power, nor their roles in social development.

What is a human being? It may seem that the answer to this question has long been established and is evident to all. Indeed, at the very nascent stages of philosophical thought, grappling with this query and recognizing the significance of the problem of humanity, Socrates formulated a program for its resolution: "Know thyself."
Since then, much progress has been made. Notably, it has been substantiated that humans are an integral part of nature, biological beings. Advocating this viewpoint, Charles Darwin pointed to what he considered compelling evidence that humans and higher animals, particularly primates, share certain common instincts. “All of them,” he asserted, “possess the same feelings, perceptions, and sensations; they are subject to the same passions, inclinations, and emotional movements; even complex psychological phenomena such as jealousy, suspicion, ambition, gratitude, and generosity can be found in both humans and animals; both exhibit the capacity for deception and revenge, they perceive humor and even exhibit a sense of it; they marvel and are curious; they possess the same capabilities: imitation, attention, reflection, comparison, choice, memory, imagination, and the ability to associate ideas, understanding and intellect, albeit in varying degrees.”
Alongside the unveiling of the inseparable link between humanity and nature, the animal kingdom, and its most developed species, the foundational aspects characterizing anthropogenesis have been established. Among these, V.F. Sergantov and G.V. Grebenkov, who have profoundly investigated the phenomenon of humanity, identify the following: “1. The relationship between forms of cognition and corresponding types of behavior fundamentally changes: for humans, there is a radical reduction of instincts and their replacement by intellectual activity. 2. The nature of intellectual activity itself undergoes significant transformation. While the intellect of animals merely reflects elementary empirical laws (regularities, spatial relationships), in humans arises the capacity to establish theoretical laws, which constitute a higher form of intellect—reason: the reduction of instinct and the maximum development of the brain in the living world gives rise to human intellect, which has recently been viewed as a starting point in understanding human nature.”
It has been convincingly shown that these transformations are not solely attributable to biological causes, but also to social factors that determined the emergence of a qualitatively new being characterized by a series of distinctive social traits. In every region of the Earth, humans distinguish themselves by the following:

• the ability to create and employ tools for production;
• an understanding of the most basic moral prohibitions, distinguishing good from evil;
• historical development of needs, sensory perceptions, and cognitive skills;
• an inability to form or exist outside of society;
• the individual qualities and virtues recognized by them are social definitions corresponding to various types of social relations;
• their activities possess not an inherently programmed nature, but a consciously willed character, rendering them beings capable of self-discipline, conscience, and an awareness of responsibility.
  As we can see, considerable progress has been made in understanding this phenomenon. However, it cannot be said that the problem of humanity has been fully resolved. It continues to exist, remaining relevant in both science and philosophy. Moreover, the comprehension and investigation of this issue are diverse in character, differing in approaches, levels of reflection, and conflicting worldviews and methodological positions. This circumstance complicates the formation of a comprehensive characterization of the state of resolution of this problem by contemporary philosophers. Nevertheless, some researchers endeavor to undertake such attempts. For instance, I.S. Andreev identifies key, broadly understood questions that are at the center of attention among representatives of global philosophical thought. Among them are:

1. The quest to substantiate the essence of humanity, characteristic of representatives of philosophical anthropology in its narrow sense, as well as a number of works in the fields of social philosophy and theoretical sociology.
2. The exploration of the relationship “human — nature,” which entails studying not only the interaction between nature and society but also elucidating the correlation of natural and social beginnings within humanity itself, examining humans as natural beings and, correspondingly, the influence of their natural properties on the socio-cultural sphere and vice versa.
3. In the theory of knowledge, there is an interest in the nature of human cognitive abilities, determining the place and stimulation of creative faculties in cognitive activity, and analyzing the significance of the subject in the cognitive act, among other aspects.
4. The contemplation of humanity’s place in a changing world—within the framework of the philosophy of history—is linked to attempts to characterize the role of historical processes in human destiny...
5. Social and socio-political philosophy examines humanity within the context of theories of societal development, relying on theories of industrial society or appealing to classical theories of social development from the 18th to 19th centuries.
6. In the realm of ethics, the problem of humanity is increasingly associated with its corporeal, natural organization, due to the "explication" of sociobiology in this domain of philosophical knowledge, as well as through the desire to consider humanity in interaction with its environment (particularly in ecology), in the unity of its corporeal and mental levels, and so forth.

As we observe, the enumeration of these questions, pursued by contemporary philosophers concerned with analyzing the phenomenon of humanity, indicates a primary aspiration to penetrate its essence and expand the understanding of its fundamental characteristics.
What then constitutes the essence of humanity? The history of philosophy reveals various approaches to its elucidation. In ancient Chinese, Indian, and Greek philosophy, humanity is conceived as a part of the cosmos, a microcosm (Democritus), comprised of body and soul, which are seemingly two aspects of a singular reality (Aristotle). According to the philosophical tradition of Vedanta, the essence of humanity is Atman (soul, spirit, "self," subject), identical to the universal spiritual principle—Brahman. In Christianity, the biblical conception of humanity as “the image and likeness of God,” internally divided due to the Fall, is intertwined with the doctrine of the union of divine and human natures in the person of Christ, and the possibility of thereby participating in divine grace. The Renaissance was marked by a fervor for the autonomy of humanity and its boundless creative potential. In modern times, the dualism of soul and body, championed by Descartes, became the foundation of modern European rationalism, which viewed the body as a machine common to both humans and animals, while equating the soul with consciousness. German classical philosophy is characterized by a return to the understanding of humanity as a living whole. Humanity is primarily viewed as the subject of spiritual activity, a creator of the cultural world, a bearer of universal consciousness, and the all-encompassing spiritual principle—spirit, reason. Critiquing the idealism of German classical philosophy, L. Feuerbach considered its fundamental flaw to be the equation of being and thought. “...Thinking being,” he asserted, “is not actual being... The image of this being beyond thought is matter, the substrate of reality.” Feuerbach undertook an anthropological reorientation of philosophy, placing humanity—understood primarily as a sensory-corporeal being—at its center, as a living encounter between “I” and “You” in their particularity.
Dialectical materialism rejects both idealistic and naturalistic conceptions of humanity. “The primary shortcoming of all previous materialism,” noted K. Marx, “including Feuerbach's, lies in the fact that the object, reality, sensibility is taken only in the form of an object or in the form of contemplation, and not as human sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, the active side, in contrast to materialism, was developed by idealism, but only abstractly, since idealism, of course, does not know genuine, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach seeks to deal with sensuous objects, genuinely distinct from thought objects, but he considers human activity not as objective activity.”

What constitutes the essence of humanity, according to the dialectical-materialist perspective? Some of its proponents, notably O.G. Spirkin, assert that this essence is elucidated by K. Marx in his "Theses on Feuerbach," referencing his assertion that "the essence of man is not an abstraction inherent in each individual. In its reality, it is the ensemble of social relations." However, this interpretation seems questionable.

Indeed, the essence, as is well known, embodies the internal content of a subject, expressed in the unity of diverse and contradictory forms of its existence. If we proceed from the premise that the ensemble of social relations constitutes social being, following the logic of O.G. Spirkin, we are compelled to recognize that social being is the essence of humanity. This raises the question: can this truly be the case? For a person is a structural element of social being, which undoubtedly influences their social attributes; however, their essence (the essence of the individual), which encapsulates these attributes in a transcended form, cannot be reduced to them—after all, a person is also a biological entity.

A careful examination of all of Marx's theses on Feuerbach reveals their interconnection, aimed at substantiating the historicity and variability of the materially-activity-based nature of humanity. What do the aforementioned words about the essence of humanity convey? They indicate that this essence also transforms, evolving alongside society, a point that L. Feuerbach failed to grasp. The founder of materialist dialectics, critically engaging with Feuerbach's anthropological materialism, recognized that the negative aspects of previous societies are likewise the results of human activity, which can only be altered by changing the world, by creating "human society, or socialized humanity."

It seems justifiable to assert that the essence of humanity lies in its subjectivity—the act of contrasting oneself first with nature and subsequently with society, with objective reality, its comprehension and transformation. Without this, there is no human being as such.

The Russian social philosopher and social anthropologist V.S. Barulin approached an understanding of the essence of humanity that resonates closely with this view. "I," he writes, "consider the essence of humanity in the most general terms, from the standpoint of a philosophical interpretation of the very nature of humanity as such, in elucidating what distinguishes humanity from the rest of the world and what differentiates it from the totality of existence. In my view, the essence of humanity does not represent a statistical magnitude or some fixed 'this.' Rather, the essence of humanity, in my opinion, is inseparable from the continuous interaction and comprehensive interconnectedness between the individual and the social world. In this sense, the essence of humanity is manifested, revealed within a process; it is itself a process. In my view, the essence of humanity lies in the continuous creation of the social world by the individual, its embodiment within it, its formation of its own existence, as well as the equally continuous embodiment of the social world within the individual, the assimilation of the social world by the individual. The essence of humanity is this ongoing embodiment of humanity within the social world, and, so to speak, the perpetual return of the social world into humanity." All of this collectively constitutes the manifestation of what we denote by the term "subjectivity."

Indeed, subjectivity is the internal essence of humanity, expressed in the unity of all its varied and contradictory forms of existence. Such an understanding of the essence of humanity allows us to more precisely define the content of the concept that signifies the phenomenon of interest: humanity is not a differentiated subject, consciously engaging in its vital activity within a specific society at a certain stage of its historical development.

The proposed definition, naturally, does not claim infallibility. Nonetheless, it seems to us to possess several advantages. First, it broadly characterizes the object of knowledge, which, in this instance, is humanity in all its manifold manifestations. Second, it reveals the essence of the phenomenon denoted by this concept, which is subjectivity—the preservation of which ensures its existence as such, that is, as humanity. Third, it emphasizes a fundamental characteristic that distinguishes humanity from other subjects: the impossibility of its differentiation. Fourth, the definition indicates the mode of existence of humanity—its vital activity. Fifth, it underscores the variability of the examined phenomenon, which is in a state of development, its historicity and conditionedness—on the one hand, by the process of the individual's vital activity, the result of which is the assimilation and transformation of objective reality and the creation of material and spiritual culture, and on the other hand, by the development of society.

Humanity is one of the primary structural elements that, in their totality, existing in relations with one another, form a certain integrity, unity, and system, which, as previously noted, is referred to by the term "social." The second fundamental structural element of this system is society itself. We now turn to the examination of this phenomenon.