Human being
The word human refers to either the human being or the biological human species.[1] In scientific terms, the human species is an animal of the genus homo, with common ancestors among the primates.[2] In human terms, the human being is a person, and is transcendent of all animalia in the possession of a high degree of intellect, a capacity for language[3][4], and (unlike any known animal) higher forms of self-awareness, rationality, and sapience.[5][6][7] In the colloquial distinction of higher and lower organisms, human beings are the highest among known living organisms.[8]
According to scientific explanation, human origins are attributable to evolution —in qualitative conjectures, all human aspects are credited to evolutionary development.[9] However most of the world's people hold religious belief [10] in which context the credit for human origins and human capacity is given to a creator being, whom it is believed endowed humans with a spiritual nature that transcends scientific understanding.[11]
Humans form groups called families, tribes, and nations. Humanism is the socio-political conceptualization of human beings as one tribe, including certain ethics and values associated with human unity, sovereignty and dignity.
[edit] References
- ^ http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=human
- ^ Nature (2003-06-12). "Access : Human evolution: Out of Ethiopia". Nature. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v423/n6941/full/423692a.html. Retrieved 2009-11-23.
- ^ Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues By Alasdair MacIntyre pp. 60, "Those who have wanted to draw a single sharp line between human and nonhuman animals have commonly laid emphasis upon the presence or absence of language as such, the ability to use and to respond to strings of syntactically ordered and semantically significant expressions whose utterance constitutes speech acts. But this is insuficient for human rationality. What is needed in addition.."
- ^ Nature vs. Nurture: The Miracle of Language, by Malia Knezek. "What about the fact that other animals do not have similar language capabilities? [..] This obviously involves some innate difference between humans and other animals.. [..] ..other animals do not use any other form of language (i.e. sign language) even though they have the physiological capabilities." citing, Andy Clark. Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again. The MIT Press, 1997. 208-209).
- ^ Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues By Alasdair MacIntyre pp. 60, "But this [language] is insufficient for human rationality, What is needed in addition is the ability to construct sentences that contain as constituents either the sentences use to express the judgment about which the agent is reflecting, or references to those sentences."
- ^ John McDowell, Mind and World, 1994. p.115, Harvard University Press, (quoted in Dependent Rational Animals, by Alasdair MacIntyre): "In mere animals, sentience is in the service of a mode of life that is structured exclusively by immediate biological imperitives" [..] "merely animal life is shaped by goals whose control of the animal's behavior at a given moment is an immediate outcome of biological forces"
- ^ The Really Hard Problem:Meaning in a Material World, Owen Flanagan, MIT Press
- ^ "What animal species has the highest IQ next to humans". WikiAnswers,com. none. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_animal_species_has_the_highest_IQ_next_to_humans. Retrieved 2010-08-30. [: "According to Edward O. Wilson [..] the ten most intelligent animals next to humans are the following: 1. Chimpanzee (two species) 2. Gorilla 3. Orangutan 4. Baboon (seven species..).."
- ^ Out of Africa Revisited
- ^ Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents ~84% religious. ~77% of the world belong to one of four largest religions, cf. "list of religious populations" article
- ^ cf. soul, "William of Auvergne combines Aristotelian and Augustinian themes [..] he expressly adopts the Aristotelian definition of the soul as perfectio corporis physici organici potentia vitam habentis". "It [the soul] is created and infused by God alone, neither generated by the parents nor educated from the potentiality of matter, and it is, morever, immortal." Aristotle quoted and condensed in A History of philosophy: medieval philosophy, by Frederick Copleston p. 223
