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An Overarching Framework for Understanding and Explaining Human Nature

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Abstract

This article investigates how we can reconcile conceptions of human nature with biological explanations. Therefore, it discusses essential differences between (neo) Cartesian substance dualism and (neo) Aristotelian substance monism. It argues that only the (neo) Aristotelian conception of the psuchē, as the set of potentialities the exercise of which is characteristic of the organism, is coherent. The question of how we can reconcile this conception with biological explanations is answered by discussing how it can be integrated with Tinbergen’s subdivision of causal explanations into two proximate and two ultimate explanations, and with modern evolutionary theory. The use of the resulting overarching framework is illustrated by discussing its application to empirical phenomena.

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Notes

  1. A well-known example illustrating this point is the result of investigations by Pittendrigh (1958). He studied how an insect (Drosophila) emerged from its pupa stage and asked why it occurs in the early morning. The ultimate explanation or function is humidity: insects emerge in the early morning from their pupa stage when humidity is high for this optimizes, for example, unfolding and stretching of the wings and therefore increases survival. However, Pittendrigh showed that the proximate, immediate explanation is not humidity. The proximate explanation turned out to be the shift from light to dark: this shift affects an internal clock mechanism so that insects emerge from the pupa during the early morning when humidity is high.

  2. Powers of animate things are attributes of space-occupying organisms. They are not made of stuffs as material objects are, although they have a physical basis for possession of powers (just as the power of hydrochloric acid to burn a hole in a shirt is not made of HCl but is only due to it, and the horsepower of a car is not made of cylinders or steel: these are its physical basis).

  3. If we have acquired knowing that, we have acquired information. Such information may be before one’s mind (when we are conscious that things are so), brought to mind (we are then already aware that things are so), or it may have slipped one’s mind (we need to call it to mind or be reminded that things are so).

  4. Humans, as language users, possess over and above the nutritive and sensitive psuchē a rational psuchē. Notice that this does not mean that they possess three psuchē–s, but that the distinctive set of human powers includes the essential powers of vegetal and animal forms of life.

  5. This ultimate explanation is an extension of the one given by Wulf and Grete Schiefenhövel and was suggested by the reviewer.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Peter Hacker and a reviewer for comments on an earlier version of this article.

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  1. Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Harry Smit

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Smit, H. An Overarching Framework for Understanding and Explaining Human Nature. Biol Theory 18, 63–75 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-022-00425-x

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