Q&A: Man’s Advantage Over the Beast
Man’s Advantage Over the Beast
Question
In one of the columns (I don’t remember which one), you referred to the issue of man’s advantage over the beast—among other things in relation to emotion/will/choice, etc.
Yuval Noah Harari tends to repeat one central idea in his books:
The main difference between human beings and other creatures is their ability to imagine, create, and share stories and abstract concepts. While other animals can communicate about tangible reality, such as danger or food, human beings are capable of believing—and causing others to believe—in ideas that do not physically exist, such as money, laws, states, religions, and human rights.
What do you think about this idea? It seems correct.
The question is whether it is philosophically exhaustive, and whether one can in fact conclude that a human being is not really different from an animal except for the fact that he tells stories and exchanges abstract ideas on the social and cultural level?
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. Harari blurts out some musing and it turns into a claim or a question? In your view, is that really the only difference? It’s worth thinking for a moment before posting a question to the site.
Discussion on Answer
And if some musing is accepted by more people, does that make it a claim? Here again you’re falling into ad hominem/ad populum.
I don’t see what I’m supposed to do here. Someone who assumes there is no soul, no morality, no free will, and no human advantage over the beast will indeed conclude that there is no human advantage over the beast.
I’m done.
Maybe it was a mistake to quote Y. N. Harari by name, since it’s customary to denounce and dismiss him (which, it should be said, he earned honestly).
But this approach is very common among historians and intellectuals.
In my opinion it is very significant in this discussion, and I reject your claim that this is some meaningless “musing.”
It may be that everything depends on basic assumptions.
What Harari presents assumes an evolutionary-materialist approach.
If you assume that a human being is, all in all, just a sophisticated animal, then a human being is an animal that developed.
To claim that what separates him from the animal is culture, information, communication, and culture sounds very plausible.
(You yourself did not accept distinctions connected to intellectual ability, etc.)
Or is this rejected by you out of hand because you assume dualism?