Nature, Culture, and Human Behavior
Nature and Culture
Nature: The concept of nature is a dynamic Greek idea. During the Middle Ages, ‘Phycis’ as a whole, along with the scholastic idea of nature, maintained that touch of reality subject to change. For some, nature is a machine that operates according to a set of laws.
Culture: Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, science, art, and all those habits that humans acquire as members of a society. There are two types of culture:
- Objective Culture: Cultural production objective in a specific social context since the Enlightenment.
- Subjective Culture: Education in personal training, knowledge, and skills.
Instinct and Learning
Instinct: An innate and fixed pattern of animal behavior, characteristic of the species, triggered by certain stimuli, which does not require learning.
Learning: The process of acquisition of new patterns of behavior, more or less permanent, through experience.
Sociobiology and Cultural Product
Sociobiology: A discipline that studies the biological basis of social behavior.
Culture as a Social Product: Humans create human-animal cultural spaces. Culture has greater complexity, and language acts as a cultural vehicle.
Distinction Between Nature and Culture
The primary position facing nature and culture is based on the ability to use abstract symbols. Nature can be seen as an integrated element and as an emergent product of the process of natural evolution.
Varieties of Human Cultures
During the 18th century, explanations for cultural diversity arose:
- Evolutionism: Cultures evolve through different stages of the same historical process.
- Historical Particularism: Each culture has its own historical development.
- Diffusionism: Diversity arises from the spread of a culture to other cultures or groups.
Attitudes to Cultural Diversity
- Cultural Relativism: Cultural practices are related to the culture they are part of and can only be understood from within that culture.
- Ethnocentrism: Considering one’s own culture as superior and the external model leads to racism and xenophobia.
- Cultural Relations: Validity is limited to the cultures, and multiple criteria exist for judging cultures.
Cultural Identity, Mind, and Consciousness
Cultural Identity
Cultural identity is the common feature set that is identified with a group of people. There are two essentialist conceptions:
- Statically define the characteristics of cultural identity.
- Historical notion: define cultures as historical products.
Mind
Mind encompasses all the activities of intelligence and human emotion. There are three conceptions of mind:
- The mind is thought and all intellectual activities.
- The mind is the unordered set of perceptions.
- The mind is a relentless stream of consciousness that processes the reality of the outside world.
Neuroscience examines the processes, such as reasoning, that occur in the mind.
Consciousness
Consciousness is a mental activity that allows for reflection. It is realizing that something is explained by something or asking about something. There are two types of consciousness:
- Immediate: Realizing our own presence.
- Mediate: Aware of external reality and other human beings.
Critical Consciousness
Consciousness is also a source of errors and illusions. It causes disorders and diseases.
Desire and Passion
Desire
- Spinoza: Desire is the drive to remain in one’s being.
- Hegel: Desire involves destruction to achieve its purpose.
- Deleuze: Desire is born of the forbidden and produces reality.
- Stoicism: Bringing reason to desire, to live according to nature, and to achieve peace of mind.
- Epicureanism: Accept only natural desires that promote pleasure, leading to serenity.
Passion
Passion is an inclination that dominates and produces dreams and utopias, but also frustration and illness. There are two major philosophical positions:
- Reason should dominate passion to prevent strife and enslavement.
- Without passion, there is no real knowledge; according to Hegel, nothing important in history can be achieved without passion.