The Works of Aristotle, Williams and Zack - Essay Example

Mankind Introduction While a human being can be defined in biological as well as chemical terms, these would only give us a lexical definition of what it means to be a human. We know the number of legs and arms, fingers and eyes as well as a lot of detail about the internal organs of a human being but the sprit and the mind are things which elude understanding. Some of the greatest philosophers of the past have talked about human existence and how a person’s sprit defines him or her. In this context the works of Aristotle can help in understanding the human while the works of Williams and Zack can bring about a deeper understanding in modern terms. Such an understanding is important for all students of sociology, philosophy as well as psychology since it can show what it means to be human. Aristotle The viewpoint taken by Aristotle regarding the human being and the soul of a person seems to be rather abstract since he considers the soul to be the essence of anything around him. He uses the example of an axe which is an axe due to the nature of the object and if somehow that nature was taken away from it would cease to be an axe. He also used the example of the eye and took sight to be the soul of the eye because without sight the eye would be lifeless. In this manner, for animals and for human beings, the soul is distinct from the body yet it is connected to the body since it guides the condition of self-nutrition, movement, thinking and sensation. With this definition, animals and human beings can be said to have souls but other living things such as plants or other basic forms of life may not have souls at all as the definition of the soul is applied to higher life forms. Aristotle therefore creates a threshold before allowing anything to have a soul or not since the lower forms of things are more likely to have an essence which makes them what they are. Thus the essence and the soul of a chair could be its utility in terms of comfort and location. The soul of a computer could be the ability of the computer to assist its human owners in performing the tasks they need the computer to perform. The differentiation between the soul and the body also allows Aristotle to suggest that while a person may lose a part of their body they can still retain their soul as a whole. However, the processes which cease to be displayed by a body once the soul has departed i.e. self-nutrition, movement, thought processes and sensation have given the functions of the soul for Aristotle. This is what makes us human and without this soul and its functions humans would cease to be what they are and even become less ‘soulful’ than plants. Williams On the other hand, instead of looking at the functions of the soul that give a human being his/her essence, Williams looks at the perception of others regarding the human being and considers that to be the creation of human identity. Williams described in detail an incident in which a salesclerk refused the writer any chance of entry to the shop. Williams connected this lack of permission with racial identity and thus considers the way people view a person to be the essence of that individual. Williams notes that while the professional world of editing and writing considers race to be immaterial and while the world at large tries to be colorblind in legal, economic as well as political terms, the real world defines individuals through their race and their appearances. In fact he notes on page 44 in The Death of the Profane, that, “it is not all blacks who are barred, just 17-year-old black males wearing running shoes and hooded sweatshirts”. Williams positively disagrees with this sort of discrimination while he does seem to respect the right of businesses to reserve who they grant admission to the premises. What he does not respect is the idea that there is a certain measure of hypocrisy between what goes on out in the real world and what is supposed to be the idealized image of racial harmony and individual identity and what it means to be human as far as books and laws are concerned. Zack Zack starts out by clarifying that the idea of race is a social construct and not a biological differentiation which appears to be a popular misconception. This social construct also groups people together and forces them to accept certain aspects of behavior as normal while others may be considered abnormal. Unlike Williams, Zack does not consider race to be her own defining element in identity and perception but in fact suggests that it is something which might be excluded altogether from the idea of a person’s identity. In this manner, Zack is perhaps closer to the ideas about the soul as they are presented by Aristotle since her definition is more towards the basic ideas of what it means to be human and what it means to have a soul. She does not want to be known as being black yet at the same time; she would not accept the label of being white. In her opinion, identity seems to be what a person can make of it rather than something that can be given to a person by society or culture. As long as a given human being is working in good faith towards identifying himself or herself as a particular person, s/he is living out life the way s/he wants to and thus should not be objected to. In the final analysis, I feel that Aristotle’s words come closest to my definition of what it is to be human and what it is to have a soul. While race may be important as it is discussed by Williams or it may be more or less a hindrance as discussed by Zack, I feel that racial identity is simply a matter of fact and that does not prevent or help a person from fulfilling the basic requirements of being a human being. We do not need to know that we are Arabs or non-Arabs, Whites or non-Whites, black or brown to know what we are since that is an identity which is given to us from the outside world. Of course it may help or hinder us in some small terms e.g. being black may certainly make it hard for a person to get a taxi cab in New York, yet at the same time there could be positives associated with a certain race or gender. All these must be taken in stride and as long as function as intelligent humans, there should be no reason to doubt our functionality and humanity. Word Count: 1,179 Works Cited Aristotle. On the Soul. Williams, P. The Death of the Profane. Zack, N. Race, Life, Death, Identity, Tragedy and Good Faith. Read More