15 Nov Man, philosophical animal (MORTIMER J. ADLER)
If we did not, in the first place, recognize and understand the clear-cut
distinction between a stone and a mouse, we would never find ourselves puzzled
by whether something difficult to classify was a living or a nonliving thing.
Similarly, if we did not recognize the clear-cut distinction between a rosebush
and a horse, we would never wonder whether a given specimen of living
organism was a plant or an animal.
Just as animals are a special kind of living organism because they perform
functions that plants do not, so for a similar reason are human beings a special
kind of animal. They perform certain functions that no other animals perform,
such as asking general questions and seeking answers to them by observation
and by thought. That is why Aristotle called human beings rational animals—
questioning and thinking animals, able to engage in philosophical thought.
There may be animals that appear to straddle the borderline that divides
humans from nonhumans. Porpoises and chimpanzees, it has recently been
learned, have enough intelligence to engage in rudimentary forms of
communication. But they do not appear to ask themselves or one another
questions about the nature of things, and they do not appear to try, by one means
or another, to discover the answers for themselves. We may speak of such
animals as almost human, but we do not include them as members of the human
race.
Each distinct kind of thing, Aristotle thought, has a nature that distinguishes it
from all the others. What differentiates one class of things from everything else
defines the nature possessed by every individual thing that belongs to that class.
When we speak of human nature, for example, we are simply saying that all
human beings have certain characteristics and that these characteristics
differentiate them from other animals, from plants, and from inanimate things.
Aristotle’s scheme of classification arranged the five main classes of physical
things in an ascending order. He placed elementary and composite bodies at the
bottom of the scale. Each of the higher classes is higher because it possesses the
characteristics of the class below and, in addition, has certain distinguishing
characteristics that the class below does not have.
In the scale of natural things, the animate is a higher form of existence than the inanimate; animals are a higher form of life than plants; and human life is the
highest form of life on earth.
All living organisms, like all inanimate bodies, occupy space and have
weight, but in addition, as we have noted, they eat, grow, and reproduce.
Because they are living organisms, animals, like plants, perform these vital
functions, but they also perform certain functions that plants do not. At the top of
the scale are human beings who perform all the vital functions performed by
other animals and who, in addition, have the ability to seek knowledge by asking
and answering questions and the ability to think philosophically.
Of course, it can be said that many of the higher animals think, and even that
computers think. Nor is it true that only humans have intelligence. Intelligence in
varying degrees is to be found throughout the animal world, just as it is to be
found in varying degrees in members of the human race. But the special kind of
thinking that gives rise to asking and answering philosophical questions
distinguishes humans from other animals. No other animal plays philosophical games.
Aristotle for everybody
MORTIMER J. ADLER
