Conceptual analysis and human nature 185
(should “are carbon-based” be part of that catalogue?). Moreover, we face boundary cases, such as viruses, for which not all of the mentioned characteristics hold,
and where empirical disagreement prevails. If one is a Neo-Darwinist, viruses
will count in (genes are replicated but much else is missing). If one is a vitalist,
one will postulate a vital force as a metaphysical – and hence, according to Kant,
a synthetic a priori – criterion that is supposedly expressed in the aforementioned
set of empirical characteristics. Everything else we could do, it seems, is synthetic
and a posteriori.
By virtue of being partly derived from a partly empirical claim (namely H-2),
H-3 will itself be an empirical claim about what organisms in environments do
with natural information. Any attempt to analyse this statement will initiate cascades of specifying and qualifying statements, many or most of which are of the
synthetic a posteriori kind. “Informational environments” should be well-defined
though, by virtue of comprising the notion of information as analytically treated
in H-1. By virtue of being partly derived from H-3, H-4 is to be viewed in partly
analogous fashion, while adding a concept of artefacts that is not further explicated here but certainly is not exhausted by an analysis of the “All artefacts
are structures created by organisms” kind. Because the purpose of the artefacts
involved here is the provision and treatment (to inelegantly avoid the strongly
computation-connoted term “processing”) of information, only a certain subset
of these structures is of interest here, and some of them may not even have been
created in a narrow sense. For this reason, I have been using the term “cognitive
artefacts”, or would suggest to refer to “cognitive resources” if natural structures
are used for the provision of information.
What comes closest to the appearance of a synthetic a priori statement in my list
is H-5. It includes a claim concerning the human condition and artefacts – which
has been a topic of metaphysically inclined philosophical anthropologies since
the early twentieth century and thus may invite the reader to interpret my statement as a derived from, or embedded in, philosophical anthropology. Helmuth
Plessner’s work may be considered the pinnacle of this specifically German tradition, in justifying a set of highly elaborated claims about the human condition on
partly metaphysical partly biological arguments (of a neo-vitalist stripe), but Max
Scheler, Arnold Gehlen and, in a slightly different vein, Ernst Cassirer have been
more popular and accessible reference points for arguments about human nature
and the nature of human artefacts.
According to Scheler (1928), man is a being whose nature is not exhausted by
being a more diligent, artefact-creating animal, which he refers to as homo faber,
nor is he bound to concrete environments; instead, and in explicit rejection of what
the biological sciences may tell us in these respects, man is considered the only
living being capable of viewing the world and himself as objects of thought and
action, thereby abstracting from concrete conditions of existence. According to
Gehlen (1940), man is a being that is by his biological nature incomplete, helpless
and un-specialised in comparison with other organisms, and thus requires artefacts
and other “institutions” as extensions that augment his capacities and develop a
degree of autonomy that, in turn, requires from him a degree of subordination
(should “are carbon-based” be part of that catalogue?). Moreover, we face boundary cases, such as viruses, for which not all of the mentioned characteristics hold,
and where empirical disagreement prevails. If one is a Neo-Darwinist, viruses
will count in (genes are replicated but much else is missing). If one is a vitalist,
one will postulate a vital force as a metaphysical – and hence, according to Kant,
a synthetic a priori – criterion that is supposedly expressed in the aforementioned
set of empirical characteristics. Everything else we could do, it seems, is synthetic
and a posteriori.
By virtue of being partly derived from a partly empirical claim (namely H-2),
H-3 will itself be an empirical claim about what organisms in environments do
with natural information. Any attempt to analyse this statement will initiate cascades of specifying and qualifying statements, many or most of which are of the
synthetic a posteriori kind. “Informational environments” should be well-defined
though, by virtue of comprising the notion of information as analytically treated
in H-1. By virtue of being partly derived from H-3, H-4 is to be viewed in partly
analogous fashion, while adding a concept of artefacts that is not further explicated here but certainly is not exhausted by an analysis of the “All artefacts
are structures created by organisms” kind. Because the purpose of the artefacts
involved here is the provision and treatment (to inelegantly avoid the strongly
computation-connoted term “processing”) of information, only a certain subset
of these structures is of interest here, and some of them may not even have been
created in a narrow sense. For this reason, I have been using the term “cognitive
artefacts”, or would suggest to refer to “cognitive resources” if natural structures
are used for the provision of information.
What comes closest to the appearance of a synthetic a priori statement in my list
is H-5. It includes a claim concerning the human condition and artefacts – which
has been a topic of metaphysically inclined philosophical anthropologies since
the early twentieth century and thus may invite the reader to interpret my statement as a derived from, or embedded in, philosophical anthropology. Helmuth
Plessner’s work may be considered the pinnacle of this specifically German tradition, in justifying a set of highly elaborated claims about the human condition on
partly metaphysical partly biological arguments (of a neo-vitalist stripe), but Max
Scheler, Arnold Gehlen and, in a slightly different vein, Ernst Cassirer have been
more popular and accessible reference points for arguments about human nature
and the nature of human artefacts.
According to Scheler (1928), man is a being whose nature is not exhausted by
being a more diligent, artefact-creating animal, which he refers to as homo faber,
nor is he bound to concrete environments; instead, and in explicit rejection of what
the biological sciences may tell us in these respects, man is considered the only
living being capable of viewing the world and himself as objects of thought and
action, thereby abstracting from concrete conditions of existence. According to
Gehlen (1940), man is a being that is by his biological nature incomplete, helpless
and un-specialised in comparison with other organisms, and thus requires artefacts
and other “institutions” as extensions that augment his capacities and develop a
degree of autonomy that, in turn, requires from him a degree of subordination