The Specificity of Human Beings: Exploring the Essence of Humanity
The Specificity of Human Beings
Differences with Animal Ancestors
Biochemistry, Genetics, and Anatomical Differences
From a biochemical point of view, there are no major genetic differences between humans and apes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, while great apes have 24 pairs.
However, the anatomical differences are significant and must have been favored by natural selection. The most important ones are:
- Reduction of the size of teeth and jaws
- The shape of the hand and its ability
- The upright position and bipedalism
- Development of the brain
Behavioral Differences
Human beings share characteristic features of animal life but also possess the following distinctive features:
- Ability to communicate through symbols: While animals communicate through signs, humans use symbols.
- Life in reality: Our intelligence allows us to grasp things as realities, as Zubiri characterized them, differentiating human and animal realities.
- Openness to the reality of the world and their own reality through intelligence:
- Awareness of their own body: To achieve full human knowledge, it is necessary to know the body. This leads to a feeling for it, to take care of it, and to feel compelled to act voluntarily.
- Openness to the world: Humans can understand things beyond their immediate situation in space and time. They transform the world with their actions and find meaning in it.
- Free will: Humans are capable of saying “no” to the satisfaction of their instinctive desires and choosing their future.
- The unfinished human: Humans always desire more and new things. Augustine characterized humans as avid animals, and Nietzsche said humans are the only animals that can make promises.
- Self-awareness: Humans have a self that guides and governs their actions, forging their ideas and projects.
- Capacity to imagine and reason: Fantasy and imagination allow us to create innovative projects and ideals.
Cultural Life
Cultural life is the most striking distinguishing feature of human beings. Culture is a set of capabilities that no other animals possess, even those most similar to humans. This allows us to speak of a human culture that has arisen as a result of living in society. Culture helps humans understand the world, orient themselves, survive, and operate effectively. It is an instrument by which society shapes the individual and enables them to belong to it.
Animal Intelligence or Human Intelligence?
Since the 19th century, there has been ongoing discussion about whether intelligence is a primitive faculty of humans. If intelligence is defined as the ability to modify the environment or use instruments to meet basic needs, then it is already present in some animals. But if intelligence is defined as the ability to grasp things as realities, convert symbols into signs, or develop universal and abstract ideas, then only humans possess intelligence.
The question arises whether human intelligence is simply a quantitative development of what chimpanzees possess or if there are qualitative differences. The difference lies in the fact that animals do not transcend the level of the stimulus-response operational scheme. An animal can respond to stimuli by modifying the environment, but its response is limited to that specific situation. In contrast, Homo habilis used tools not only to resolve the immediate situation but also for any similar situation, transcending time and space.
Own Experience of the Human Body and Awareness
We Are a Body…
To achieve full human knowledge, it is necessary to know the body, not only its anatomical features but also from within (intrabody), which modulates our psychic life, thoughts, and volition. It is necessary to be aware of the feelings of one’s own body. Any change in it brings a feeling, and feelings acquire a personal tone.
Our vitality is emotionally affected, and we feel compelled to respond voluntarily, thus being determined in our actions. There is a structural union between the three human vertices: intelligence in the order of the senses, feelings in the order of affect, and desire in the order of tendencies.
…and Awareness
The human being is a subject because they act, respond, reflect, and are able to question. The ability to turn inward is called consciousness. All living beings have a consciousness, which is the capacity to receive and process environmental information. Human beings, because of this, perceive the reality of things, their meaning, and the possibilities presented to them. Human consciousness has two functions: to be aware of one’s own reality and to maintain the continuity of the self.
Individual consciousness is transformed into personal consciousness.