Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Human Nature

The big question I have been grappling with over the past while is: Is there such a thing as an inherent Human Nature? This seems to be one of the most important questions in philosophy, and one of the most fundamental ones; someone's philosophy hinges on this. Philosophers with extremely varied beliefs all believe in such thing as Human Nature: C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and other followers of Thomas Aquinas, but also people like Ayn Rand and Noam Chomsky.

On the other hand, you have those who believe that humans have no nature. Either they are completely dependent on society, or they have no real purpose. Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault, and of course David Hume are in this camp.

I've yet to be convinced either way. I'll talk about this more later.

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