Humanity: Nature, Society, Beauty, and Time
Chapter Seven: Artificial Nature
Man is a symbolic animal and can point out the traits that he is.
The first task of philosophy is to specify the possible uses of the themes of nature.
This term is used in many applications. It mainly refers to everything around us and all that exists in the universe. But another of the senses of nature is everything that appears in the world that is not of human creation. In contrast to the case of man, it has to do with culture or what is innate.
Any of us, any natural feature, is always contained in the culture and vice versa.
Between the terms natural and nature, a cultural aspect is primarily stored. Those who take nature as a guide usually look a lot like it in all its aspects. It is perfectly true that the artificial is much worse than the natural. Nature has no agreement with men, and it has not always favored them. Anyway, we do have some obligations to comply with nature to maintain its proper state.
Nature has no preference for living beings.
The relationship between man and nature is based largely on technique. Unlike science, which is comparative and cumbersome, the technique is intended to get something new without being an imitation of anything or anyone.
Anyway, there are many opinions about nature, but all focus on it receiving some worship for the life that inhabits it.
Chapter Eight: Living Together
Nobody gets to become human if we do not help each other.
Modern societies tend to depersonalize relationships. Life is hell and can make us rebel against ourselves, and can influence the social and political implications of our personal autonomy. We are set to and for our fellow men.
The self then does not conform to the biological survival that was enough, as it is in full continuity with the rest of the world.
A self can triumph over another through fear of death. Self-consciousness can be overcome by the fear of death.
Discord does not exist because human beings are irrational or violent by nature, and trivia can be reached. It is true that we are not naturally violent or antisocial; if there are such people, they are isolated cases. Society always tries to stay in harmony, without discussions. But it’s difficult because everything that unites us confronts us, and this depends a lot on interests.
It tells us that the Utopians call for a new man.
It is now seeking a political organization of the human community from a social contract.
The big problem is that in existing societies, not all ideals are compatible. What better expresses social harmony is called justice.
Because we are not robots, all human beings have a conscience more or less developed, but we have it. Human manifestations can only be understood in a social context.
Chapter Nine: The Chill of Beauty
Humans are subject to pleasure and pain.
Pleasure is not just what produces pleasurable physical sensations, but also everything to which we feel approval, also involving the right to enjoy the beautiful. That is beautiful which pleases the universe without a concept. The concepts of beauty and human values are somewhat mixed.
He says he must be wary of artists because they make us think like them, introducing their ideas in their works so that we cherish them as something beautiful and we like them. We must be wary of them. There is a clear contrast between art and true knowledge, i.e., philosophy.
Art does not tell us what we need to do, it just shakes us and purifies us, invigorating us for what we want to be.
One of our questions is if the meaning of a work done by an artist always has to be pretty, beautiful, or ugly.
So yes, in art, beauty can be called something that has little to do with decoration.
Chapter Ten: Lost in Time
When you ask someone how their everyday life is, they always tend to respond by indicating their usual activities, what they do every day.
The definition of time is something we have not achieved until today.
Time is something we cannot have insurance through what seems to us because we have no means of securing it, despite not having found a way to measure it for correspondence between all beings in society. Some have been enough time to establish itself in correspondence to cold or heat, whether it is day or night, etc.
Adopting the kind of action we take, one cannot help thinking that there is also the margin, thereby establishing an independent measure, and that time itself cannot be decrypted.
If the past and the future intrigue us, perhaps we should think that there is no past or future as they seem; all moments are moving, and there is no noticeable difference between the three moments. The relationship with the past is not the relationship we have with the future, as the past is influencing us in this, but the future is coming.
Everyone does not impose the future due to a spatial conception of time, not knowing what we will be going in a present more advanced (in time) than the present moment.
We found many clear differences between movement in space and over time. Space can offer us distinct points, but in time, where it really may appear next. Assume or try to do the weather actually happens, but we do know that time is always there, but not increasing or decreasing. Time is linked especially to the human condition. Time is another aspect that makes us think about the theme of death, which is explained in the first chapter.