Human being

(ME. humayne; OFr. humaine; L. humanus, human, humane; from homo, man, humus, soil. Being, from be: from AS. beon, to be, beom, I am; OHG. bim; G. bin). The reference of the h.b. in situation is the body itself. It is in the body that the relationship between the human being’s subjective moment and objectivity takes place, and it is through the body that the h.b. can understand itself as “interiority” or “exteriority,” depending on the direction it gives to its intentionality (*), to its “look.” Before it the h.b. encounters everything that is not itself, everything that does not respond to its intentions. Thus, the world in general and other human bodies – which the body of the h.b. affects and has access to and which it also registers the action of – set the conditions in which the h.b. constitutes itself. These conditionings also appear as future possibilities, and in future relation with the body itself. In this way, the present situation can be understood as something modifiable in the future. The world is experienced as something external to the body, but the body is also seen as part of the world, since it both acts in the world and receives the action of the world. Corporality is also something that changes and, in this sense, a temporal configuration, a living history launched toward action, toward future possibility. For human consciousness, then, the body becomes the prosthesis of intention, responding to intention in a temporal sense and in a spatial sense; temporally, to the extent that it can realize in the future what is possible for intention; spatially, as representation and image of intention.

In this becoming, objects are extensions of corporal possibilities, and other bodies appear as multiplications of those possibilities insofar as they are governed by intentions recognized as similar to those governing one’s own body. But why would the h.b. have the need to transform the world and to transform itself? Because of the situation of finiteness and temporo-spatial deficiency in which it finds itself, and which it registers, in accordance with various conditionings, as pain (physical) or suffering (mental). In this way, the overcoming of pain is not simply an animal response, but a temporal configuration in which the future has primacy, and which becomes a fundamental impulse in life, though it may not be felt as urgent in any given moment. Thus, apart from responses that are immediate, reflexive, and natural, deferred responses and constructive activity to avoid pain are motivated by suffering in the face of danger, and these are re-presented as future possibilities, or as present actualities when pain is present in other human beings. The overcoming of pain, then, appears as a basic project that guides human action. It is this intention that makes possible communication among various bodies and intentions in what is referred to as the social constitution. The social constitution is as historical as human life, is configuring of human life. The transformation of the social constitution is continual, but in a mode different from that of nature. In nature, changes do not come about due to intentions. Nature appears as a “resource” for overcoming pain and suffering, at the same time that it is a “danger” to the human constitution; hence, the destiny of nature itself is to be humanized, intentionalized. And the body, insofar as nature, insofar as danger and limitation, has the same project: to be intentionally transformed, not only in physical location but also in motor capabilities; not only in exteriority but in interiority; not only in confrontation but in adaptation.

In a talk given May 23, 1991, Silo presented his most general ideas about the h.b.: . . . When I observe myself, not from a physiological point of view but from an existential one, I find myself here, in a world that is given, neither constructed nor chosen by me. I find that I am in situation with, immersed in phenomena that, beginning with my own body, are inescapable. The body is at once the fundamental constituent of my existence and, at the same time, a phenomenon homogeneous with the natural world, in which it acts and on which the world acts. But the nature of my body has important differences for me from other phenomena, which are: 1) I have an immediate register of my body; 2) I have a register, mediated by my body, of external phenomena; and 3) some of my body’s operations are accessible to my immediate intention. It happens, however, that the world appears not simply as a conglomeration of natural objects, it appears as an articulation of other human beings and of objects, signs, and codes that they have produced or modified. The intentionality (*) that I am aware of in myself appears as a fundamental element in the interpretation of the behavior of others and, just as I constitute the social world by comprehending intentions, so too am I constituted by it. Of course, this refers to intentions that are manifested in corporal action. It is by virtue of the corporal expressions of the other, or by perceiving the situation in which the other appears, that I am able to comprehend the meanings of the other, the intention of the other. Furthermore, natural or human objects appear as either pleasurable or painful to me, and so I try to place myself in favorable relationship to them, modifying my situation. In this way, I am not closed to the world of the natural and other human beings; rather, precisely what characterizes me is opening. My consciousness has been configured intersubjectively in that it uses codes of reasoning, emotional models, patterns or plans of action that I register as “mine,” but that I also recognize in others. And, of course, my body is open to the world insofar as I both perceive it and act upon it . . .”

The natural world, as distinct from the human, appears to me as without intention. Certainly I can imagine that stones, plants, and the stars possess intention, but I find no way to achieve effective dialogue with them. Even those animals in which at times I glimpse the spark of intelligence appear basically impenetrable to me, and changing only slowly from within their natures. I see insect societies that are rigidly structured, higher mammals that employ rudimentary technology but still only replicate such codes in a slow process of genetic change, as if each was always the first representative of its respective species. And when I observe the benefits of those plants and animals that have been modified and domesticated by humanity, I see human intention opening its way and humanizing the world.

. . . To define the h.b. in terms of its sociability seems inadequate, because this does not distinguish the h.b. from many other species. Nor is human capacity for work a distinguishing characteristic when compared to that of more powerful animals. Not even language defines the essence of what is human, for we know of numerous animals that make use of various codes and forms of communication. Each new h.b., in contrast, encounters a world that is modified by others, and it is in its being constituted by that world of intentions that I discover that person’s capacity for accumulation in and incorporation into the temporal – that is, I discover not simply a social dimension, but each person’s historical-social dimension.

With these things in mind, a definition of the h.b. can be attempted as follows: Human beings are historical beings, whose mode of social action transforms their own nature. If I accept this definition, I will also have to accept that the human being is capable of intentionally transforming its physical constitution. And indeed this is taking place. This process began with the use of instruments which, placed before the body as external “prostheses,” allowed human beings to extend the reach of their hands and their senses and to increase both their capacity for and the quality of their work. Although not endowed by nature to function in aerial or aquatic environments, they have nonetheless created means to move through these media, and have even begun to emigrate from their natural environment, the planet Earth. Today, moreover, they have begun to penetrate their bodies, replacing organs; intervening in their brain chemistry; conceiving in vitro; and even manipulating their genes.

If by the word “nature” one has meant to signify something permanent and unchanging, then today this idea has been rendered seriously inadequate even when applied to what is most object-like about the h.b., that is, the body. In light of this, it is clear in regard to any “natural morality,” “natural law,” or “natural institutions,” that nothing in this field exists through nature, but on the contrary, everything is socio-historical…

After denying this so-called “human nature,” he concludes with a brief discussion that involves the supposed “passivity” of the consciousness: Hand in hand with the idea of human nature goes another prevalent conception which asserts the passivity of the consciousness. This ideology has regarded the h.b. as an entity that functions primarily in response to stimuli from the natural world. What began as crude sensualism has gradually been displaced by historicist currents that, at their core, have preserved the same conception of a passive consciousness. And even when they have privileged the consciousness’s activity in and transformation of the world over interpretation of its activities, they still have conceived of its activity as resulting from conditions external to the consciousness . . .

Today, those old prejudices concerning human nature and the passivity of consciousness are once again being asserted, transformed into neo-evolutionary theories embodying such views as natural selection determined through the struggle for the survival of the fittest. In the version currently in fashion, now transplanted into the human world, this sort of zoological conception attempts to go beyond former dialectics of race or class by asserting a dialectic in which it is supposed that all social activity regulates itself automatically according to “natural” economic laws. Thus, once again, the concrete h.b. is submerged and objectified… We have noted those conceptions that, in order to explain the h.b., have begun from theoretical generalities and maintained the existence of an unchanging human nature and a passive consciousness. We maintain, quite the opposite, the need to start from human particularity; that the h.b. is a socio-historical and non-natural phenomenon, and that human consciousness is active in transforming the world in accordance with its intention. We view human life as always taking place in situation, and the human body as an immediately perceived natural object, also immediately subject to numerous dictates of the person’s intentionality. The following questions therefore arise: 1) How is it that the consciousness is active, i.e., how is it that it can operate intentionally on the body and, through the body, transform the world? 2) How is it that the human being is constituted as a socio-historical being, that is, both socially and historically? These questions must be answered starting from concrete existence, so as not to fall again into theoretical generalities from which a dubious system of interpretation might be derived – which could then go on even to deny it was an interpretation!

Answering the first question will require apprehending through immediate evidence how human intention acts upon the body. In answering the second, one must begin from evidence of the temporality and intersubjectivity of the h.b., rather than beginning from some supposed general laws of history and society.

These two themes are further developed in the two essays of Silo’s work Contributions to Thought. How human intention acts on the body, through the image, constitutes the nucleus of the explanations in the first essay “Psychology of the Image.” The second essay, “Historiological Discussions” (see historiology), considers the problem of temporality.