Humanity

Ancient Greek philosophers from the fifth century B.C.E. onward speculated on the essence of human nature, and Aristotle's views came to dominate in medieval universities. In his four-part theory of causation (material, efficient, teleological, and formal causes), Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) defined human nature by the end (the telos) and the form, the fully developed human being; his ideal human was the free, self-governing man who ruled over household and shared community rule in a democratic state. As he noted that a black parent and white parent could mate and produce a child of either color, he viewed all human peoples as the same species. Proposing that all human seeds strive for their full development, which he viewed as male, he thought that women were defective males, but alas the same species. Aristotle's view contrasted with his teacher Plato (c. 428–348 or 347 B.C.E.), who in the Republic taught that the only difference between men and women is that one begets within the other; in order to have the best women available and trained to be philosopher-kings, Plato proposed a communal mating and child-rearing system in the guardian class. Throughout the Middle Ages the text of Plato most available was the Timaeus, which suggests that men who misbehave are reincarnated as women; as a result, Renaissance male commentators tended to read the Republic with the misogynist preconception from the Timaeus. When the Republi c was discussed in the Renaissance, there was mockery of Plato's description of women exercising in the nude as men did in Greece. Nevertheless, in a treatise defending the dignity of female humanity, "La nobilita et l'eccellenza delle done, co'diffettie mancamenti de gli huomoni" (1600; The nobility and excellence of women and the defects and vices of men) Lucretia Marinella (1571–1653) handled the arguments of Aristotle and Plato with aplomb; and the twentieth-century daycare, as proposed in Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's State and Revolution (1917) or as established by many employers by the early twenty-first century, applied Plato's distinction between birth mother and the child caregiver to release parents' talents for the good of the community.

Renaissance humanists were knowledgeable in the debates of ancient Greek philosophers on the essence of human nature and the highest good, but they viewed the essence and highest good within the biblical framework of the Creator God. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) in his Oration, in stating God's words to androgynous "adam" (before woman was separated), broke with a fixed essence for human nature by emphasizing freedom of will as the essence of human nature. He suggested that humans may choose to lower themselves in imitating animal behavior or raise themselves in imitation of angelic behavior. Pico poses as the highest goal to attempt in one's lifetime to contemplate God, a viewpoint compatible with his teacher Marsilio Ficino's (1433–1499) proof that the striving to contemplate God in this life suggests that there must be an afterlife where the goal can be achieved (texts in Renaissance Philosophy of Man, 1948).

The rejection of "essences" awaited atheist Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialism Is a Humanism" (1946), wherein he declares that there is no essential human nature, but that all persons must choose their own natures. He rejects the essentialist human nature of Denis Diderot, Voltaire, and Immanuel Kant, and follows Martin Heidegger in proclaiming that existence precedes essence. Like Pico, Sartre emphasizes the freedom of the will; unlike Pico, Sartre leaves it up to persons to determine the universalist image of humanity that they believe is best for molding themselves. In dialogue with Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir in the Second Sex (1949) elaborated on the complexities of a woman's existence and the challenges of defining her own essence when woman is seen as "the other" by men and has internalized men's viewpoints. Peoples of Africa and India, freeing themselves from the "otherness" of European colonial rule, extended the discourse to their own definitions of essence in establishing political independence. A diversity of feminists questioned whether there was any common essence to womanhood, and emphasized differences. Sartre's viewpoint of each individual defining an essence as best for humanity gave way to self-definitions particularized to national, religious, and racial communal norms, as well as to self-definitions expressive of multiple identities and of personal individuality.