Are we featherless bipeds?

Generally philosophers are a queer lot. They try to define almost everything in life in an abstract way. In ancient Athens, the celebrated philosopher Plato’s followers once decided to find an answer to the perennial question: What is a human being?

They discussed ideas for and against their views and finally came up with a novel definition: “A human being is a featherless biped.” They were satisfied with their definition. However, Diogenes the Cynic one day burst into their meeting with a live plucked chicken, shouting “Behold! I present you with a human being.” Thereafter Plato’s followers came up with a new definition: “A human is a featherless biped with broad nails.”

This somewhat humorous episode shows the problems philosophers face. Ancient philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle defined a human and tried to find his role in society. Even modern philosophers do the same thing using their sophisticated knowledge. However, the fact remains that their definitions are subject to change from time to time. Like Diogenes, modern philosophers question the validity of old philosophical concepts. That is the nature of philosophy.

Definition

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), a modern German philosopher, too tried to analyse what it is to be human. His approach to the issue was quite different from philosophers who lived before him. Without trying to give an abstract definition Heidegger gave an insider’s opinion. He said that since we exist in the thick of things we have to look at human life from within. This he called an insider’s view.

Being a student of philosopher Husserl, Heidegger followed his guru’s method of phenomenology. According to phenomenology, we must look at phenomena through examining our own experience of them. For instance, instead of trying to answer direct questions such as “What is a human being?” phenomenologists try to answer “What is it like to be human?”

For an existentialist such as Heidegger, the human existence constitutes the fundamental question of philosophy. He tried to answer ontological questions such as “What does it mean to say that something exists?” or “What are the different kinds of things that exist?” In Being and Time he said that other philosophers asked ontological questions and their answers were too abstract and shallow.

Animals

Heidegger realised that animals such as cats and dogs also exist but they do not ask why they do so. But humans are different. They want to know why they exist. To find the answer we have to analyse ourselves. Then only we will realise what it means to exist. According to him, humans are tied up with time and as such we are essentially temporal beings.

When we were born we had no choice about our parents, place or time of birth. What we know is that we were simply brought into this world without our volition. As the world was already there before our birth, we inherit its environment and material comforts and discomforts. As babies, children and adults we always try to make sense of this world. In the course of our brief stay in the world we study various subjects, do jobs, marry, produce children and then depart. We soon realise that whatever we do in life have an inevitable end.

Complex

Heidegger said that death is the outermost horizon of our being. We cannot see anything beyond death although there are many abstract theories about life beyond human existence. His existential philosophy, however, is not easy to understand because of his technical language. This happens when philosophers try to explain complex philosophical ideas in a non-abstract way.

The burden of being human is central to Heidegger’s philosophy. He said that we exist in the world without any explanation. Although we know that we have been thrown into this world we continue to live and eventually die without any explanation of why. In this scenario, we feel “homeless,” orphaned and forsaken. That seems to be the tragedy of human life.