The difference between man and other living beings. The similarity of a person with other living beings and the difference from them How a person differs from other living organisms

I love nature and animals very much. At home I have a cat and a parrot, without which I would be very bored. I try to visit zoos in different cities, as well as observe the behavior of animals. Animal and vegetable world is striking in its diversity, because living organisms on our planet great amount.

What are the distinguishing features of animals from other organisms

First you need to figure out what exactly is included in the number of living organisms. These are those organisms that have a more complex chemical composition than those of inanimate objects. Such organisms can be unicellular or multicellular.

Animals differ from other living organisms very significantly, here are their main distinctive features:

animals have nervous system;
animals feed on other living organisms;
animals have the ability to move.

Plants and simpler living organisms are, as a rule, at the beginning of some kind of food chain, while animals are at a higher level.

Here is an elementary example of a simple chain: sheep eat grass, and wolves hunt sheep.

With change climatic conditions animals can migrate to another place where conditions are more favorable for them, and other living organisms often simply die.

What are the types of relationships between organisms

All living organisms interact with each other, but these interactions can be different.

There are positive interactions when some living organisms benefit others. For example, animal digestion waste helps to improve plant growth.

There can also be neutral relationships, when some living organisms do not bring any harm to others, but also benefits, for example, eating the fruits of trees by animals.

And there can also be a negative relationship, when some living organisms harm others. Examples include catching fish, eating other animals, and the like.

All living organisms on our planet carry out the cycle of matter and energy, so everything is interconnected.

A human is biologically defined as an animal that belongs to the class of mammals of the species Homo sapiens, to the order of primates.

What is a person?

But a person differs significantly from other living beings, and the main difference lies in his consciousness and the fact that a person has self-consciousness. A person has social and psychological qualities, and functions not only as a living organism, but also as a social object.

A person is able to realize his nature, to think and realize the objects around him and the world. Therefore, man is considered the most intelligent being on Earth. Man has managed to create and develop his own culture. People have created what is called civilization and continue to actively improve and update it.

How is man different from other living beings?

Philosophy and psychology study inner world a person, his social side and the development of his personality, and anatomy studies the bodily shell of a person. The main features of a person, as a separate biological species, are upright posture, the presence of hands adapted to work and a highly developed brain that is able to reflect and comprehend the world in certain concepts and categories.

The species and individual characteristics of a person are formed under the influence of social and natural conditions, largely depend on the region of the planet in which he lives and in which society he functions. People have certain racial varieties - by skin color, by hair color, by eye shape. It depends on customization natural environment human habitation.

Therefore, there are different physiological, biological and anatomical signs. But despite this, any person, regardless of race and habitat, still has common human characteristics. And all people are inherent in participation in the sphere of life and in society.

Natural and social in man

Man differs from all other types of living beings in that he can combine two essences - biological and social. In addition to being a separate biological species, it lives in nature and constantly interacts with other living species and creatures.

But for a long time, man not only does not obey nature, but also tries to subordinate it completely to himself in order to satisfy his needs of various kinds. A person is special in that he also has social needs, and using the resources of nature, he tries to satisfy them.

Also, a person is recognized as a social being, which cannot be constantly outside of society and is highly dependent on it at all levels. Man created a developed society on his own, and now he is trying to match it. For this reason, it is believed that the main features of a person are that he is a social being and that he is able to think rationally and has self-consciousness.

At present, the idea has been established in science that a person is biosocial being, combining biological and social components. We can agree with this, not forgetting: firstly, that a person can be considered from a physical point of view, and to study the chemical processes occurring in him, and, secondly, that not only a person has a social form of existence, but also many animals. There is a lot of data that social behavior Humans are largely genetically determined. Man is also called a corporeal-spiritual being, referring to his body and spirit.

Before talking about the time of the appearance of man, it is necessary to clarify the question of the difference between man and animals, since

it is the idea of what a person is that forms conclusions about his formation. First, about the similarities between humans and animals. It is determined, firstly, by the material composition, structure and behavior of organisms. Man is made up of the same proteins and nucleic acids as animals, and many of the structures and functions of our body are the same as those of animals. The higher an animal is on the evolutionary scale, the greater its resemblance to humans. Secondly, the human embryo passes in its development those stages that the evolution of the living has passed. And thirdly, a person has rudimentary organs that performed important functions in animals and were preserved in humans, although they do not need them (for example, the appendix).

However, the differences between humans and animals are fundamental. They are primarily intelligence. What it is? The study of higher animals has shown that they possess much of what was previously thought only humans were capable of. Experiments with monkeys have found that they can understand words, communicate with the computer about their desires, and you can conduct a dialogue with them in this way. But what the highest animals do not have is ability for conceptual thinking, those. to the formation of abstract, abstract ideas about objects, in which the basic properties of concrete things are generalized. Animal thinking, if one can speak of it, is always concrete; human thinking can be abstract, abstract, generalizing, conceptual, logical.

The higher the ability for conceptual thinking, the higher the intelligence of a person. To assess the real value of the mind helps, in particular, the rivalry of a person with a chess computer, which is trying to win due to the enormous speed of enumeration of all possible options. Ethology is receiving more and more data that there are many similarities in the behavior of humans and animals. Animals experience feelings of joy, grief, longing, guilt, etc.; they have curiosity, attention, memory, imagination. Nevertheless, it remains true that although animals have very complex forms of behavior and create amazing works (for example, a web that a spider weaves), a person differs from all animals in that before starting work he has a plan, a project, a model of construction. Thanks to the ability to conceptual thinking, man is aware of what he is doing and understands the world.

The second main difference is that a person has speech. Again, animals can have a very developed system of communication using signals (which, by the way, made it possible to speak

about the "civilization of dolphins"). But only a person has what I.P. Pavlov called the second signaling system (in contrast to the first - in animals) - communication with the help of words. In this human society differs from other social animals.

In natural science, trying to find out the natural causes of human abilities, the hypothesis of the origin of speech from the sounds uttered during work, which then became common in the process of joint work, is known. First, the roots of verbs appeared, corresponding to certain types of activity, then other parts of the word and speech. In the same way, in the process of social labor, reason could gradually arise.

Ability to work- another fundamental difference between humans and animals. Of course, all animals do something, and higher animals are capable of complex species activities. Monkeys, for example, use sticks as tools to get fruit. But only man capable of making, creating tools of labor. Related to this are claims that animals adapt to environment, and man transforms it, and that in the end labor created man.

Two more distinguishing features of a person correlate with the ability to work: upright posture, which freed his hands, and, as a result, hand development, especially the thumb on it. Finally two more characteristic feature people who influenced the development of culture - use of fire and burial of corpses.

The main differences between man and animals: conceptual thinking, speech, labor - became the paths along which the isolation of man from nature proceeded.

human needs

The American scientist A. Maslow defined as fundamental those needs, the dissatisfaction of which causes illness. Fundamental needs are inherent in man as a member of the species Homo sapiens. They can be divided into physiological and psychological. Hierarchy of fundamental needs, according to Maslow, looks like this:

1. Physiological needs (food, water, sleep, etc.).

2. The need for security (stability, order).

3. The need for love and communication (family, friendship).

4. Need for respect (self-respect, recognition).

5. The need for self-actualization (development of abilities).

Previously named needs must be satisfied before those named later. “Man can live by bread alone if he lacks bread. But what happens to a person's desires when there is enough bread, when his stomach is constantly full? Immediately, other, higher needs appear and begin to dominate the body. When they are satisfied, new, even higher needs come on the scene, and so on. To this it must be added that a person may not be aware of his psychological needs and strive to satisfy others, non-fundamental ones. Psychological needs are not as obvious as physiological ones. This in itself creates the problem of human existence. Physiological needs do not always go in this sequence either. The need for self-actualization may be in second place, ahead of the others.

To these fundamental needs, others can be added, without which human existence is impossible, but which hardly deserve the name needs, since they are fundamentally unsatisfactory. These are feelings that we would like to give up, but cannot, because it is precisely the fact that we cannot get rid of them that ensures the existence of a person. For example, the fear of death, which is a kind of self-preservation instinct. Need for fear of death special kind negative needs, or needs for the negative, the unsatisfaction of which ensures life. If people overcome the fear of death, life will lose a great deal of value for them, and it will be easy to part with it. The presence of such an unavoidable need makes human life fundamentally contradictory, although not absurd. Life is absurd if a person dies "for good". If we abandon this assumption, then the fear of death in itself is by no means absurd, but necessary for life and evolution. The difference between positive and negative needs is shown in the table.

1 Personality theories in Western European psychology / comp. D. Ya. Raigorodsky. - M., 1996. - S. 418.

Maslow also uses the concept of higher or metaneeds, which are unity with fundamental needs, so that their dissatisfaction causes "metapathology". It can be a feeling of lack of values, senselessness and aimlessness of life. So there are reasons to add to the hierarchy of fundamental needs such needs as the need for justice, truth, beauty, the meaning of life, goodness, perfection, etc. The dissatisfaction of metaneeds causes metacomplaints. The presence of such complaints shows that everything is quite well. The level of complaints, according to Maslow, may indicate the degree of enlightenment of society.

How is man different from other living beings?
How are human qualities manifested?

The difference between humans and other living beings. What is a person? How is it different from animals? People have been thinking about these questions for a long time. The ancient Greek philosopher Plato answered them like this: "Man is a two-legged animal without feathers." Two thousand years later, the famous French physicist and mathematician B. Pascal objected to Plato: "A man without legs still remains a man, and a rooster without feathers does not become a man."

What distinguishes people from animals? There is, for example, a feature that is unique to humans: of all living beings, only humans have a soft earlobe. But is this fact the main thing that distinguishes man from animals?

Great thinkers came to the conclusion that the most important sign of a person is that he is a social being, or social (the Latin word socialis means "public"). (Recall from the history and biology courses what you know about the origin of man.) So, man is a social being. Only in society, in communication between people, did the formation of such human qualities as language (speech), the ability to think, etc.

Each born child becomes a person only in society. From birth, baby animals have instincts that help them navigate what they can and cannot eat, who can be attacked, and who should be feared. A human child after birth is the most unadapted to life of all living beings. And a person grows out of him only in a family, in a society where he is taught to live, they give him knowledge about the world around him, and form the ability to work.

There were cases when very young children got to animals. Growing up among animals, they did not learn to walk on two legs, talk, use various objects. They were not able to think like people, and when they were among people, they behaved like trapped animals.

But, being a public (social) being, man does not cease to be a being of nature. Nature created the human body. Only ghosts in scary tales are incorporeal. The result of the long development of nature is the human brain. Man is a wonderful creation of nature. It has many biological needs: to breathe, eat, sleep; it needs a certain thermal environment. Our body, blood, brain belong to nature. Therefore, man is a biological being. This is manifested in human anatomy and physiology, in the course of neuro-cerebral, electrical, chemical and other processes in the human body.

The social and the biological are merged together in man. The straight gait, the structure of the brain, the outline of the face, the shape of the hands - all this is the result of changes that have taken place over a long time (millions of years). Each child has fingers obedient to his will: he can take a brush and paints, draw. But he can become a painter only in society. Every person born has a brain and voice box, but he can learn to think and talk only in society. Every person, like every animal, has a self-preservation instinct. This means that in man the biological and social principles are organically interconnected, and only in such unity does man exist. This inseparable unity makes it possible to say that man is a biosocial being.

Thinking and speech. Along with labor and social relations The most important difference between humans and animals is the ability to think. Mental activity has evolved along with the development of the brain. Even the most highly organized modern animal - the great ape - does not have such a highly developed brain. Attempts to teach the monkey to think like a man, through many years of study with her, were unsuccessful.

Thanks to thinking, a person not only adapts to natural conditions like an animal, but transforms the world. He creates what nature does not produce. After all, nature does not build cars, houses, railways. And man, transforming natural materials, creates new objects with the qualities he needs. To do this, he uses the accumulated knowledge. Without knowledge of the properties of natural objects, a person could not make any technical inventions. But in order to create technology, transport, means of communication, not only the ability to accumulate knowledge is necessary, but also the ability, with the help of this knowledge, to create mental models of those objects that a person needs and that he wants to make, produce. A person will first think, imagine what goal he wants to achieve, and then he will work to realize his plan. There are animals that also create something new: a spider weaves a web, a bee builds a honeycomb. But no one teaches them this, an innate instinct works in them. And none of the named (as well as others) representatives of wildlife can do anything more serious, complicated. K. Marx wrote that "the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that, before building a cell from wax, he has already built it in his head." Consequently, human activity has a creative character: based on knowledge of the world, he creates something new, first in thoughts, and then by practical actions.

The need of people for communication, thanks to which only collective work is possible, led to the appearance of the first words (i.e., language). Human speech gradually developed, helping people to exchange thoughts. It is possible, of course, to transmit some signals to each other with the help of gestures (for example, we nod our heads in agreement), drawings, drawings and other signs. However, verbal language is the most developed, universal (universal) means of expressing thought. When a person reads a book, he joins the highest achievements of human thought, receives deep knowledge, perceives expressed in words author's feelings. When a person thinks something to himself, this is accompanied by an internal "silent conversation" - imperceptible movements of the muscles of the tongue in the oral cavity. Thus, in addition to written and oral speech, there is also inner speech, soundless, not visible or heard by others.

There is a close relationship between thought and language. They cannot be separated from each other without destroying both. Language does not exist without thinking, and thinking cannot be separated from language.

Monkeys, which were tried to be taught to speak through special classes, were unable to master speech. And not only because the human vocal apparatus has been formed for millions of years, but also because a highly organized brain capable of thinking is also the result of a long historical development.

How does a person realize himself? Probably, every person would like his life not to be in vain. When a person passes away, they write on the tombstone: born in such and such a year, died in such and such. There is a dash between two dates. What is behind this line? He drank, ate, walked the earth - and that's it? Or left behind a good memory?

Let's remember A. S. Pushkin: “No, I will not die all - the soul in the cherished lyre will survive my ashes and run away from decay ...” What remains for people? Created by the poet's work - his poems, poems, stories. Architects and builders leave towns and villages to people, scientists and writers leave books, gardeners leave parks and gardens. But not everyone can be builders and gardeners, you say. And right. However, philosophers noticed that a person has a desire to stand out in some way, to distinguish himself in some way, to become noticed, famous, to deserve recognition, which would be preserved even after he passes away. However, this desire sometimes takes an ugly form. So, the Greek from the city of Ephesus Herostratus in the IV century. BC e., in order to immortalize his name, he burned the temple of Artemis - one of the seven wonders of the world.

Now in our life more and more attention is paid to the acquisition of material goods. Possession of things in itself does not characterize a person: the one who has things can be both a worthy and insignificant person. The German psychologist and sociologist Erich Fromm (1900-1980) wrote: “...Most people find it too difficult to give up their possession orientation: any attempt to do so causes them great anxiety, as if they have lost everything that gave them a sense of security, as if they, who could not swim, had been thrown into the abyss of the waves. They do not know that, having cast aside the crutch that their property serves for them, they will begin to rely on their own strength and walk on their own feet. What does it mean? A person, according to E. Fromm, must be active. And this means “to let your abilities, talent, all the wealth of human talents, which - although in varying degrees- each person is endowed.

Abilities, talents of a person are manifested and developed in the process of activity.

The child is playing. Builds a house out of cubes. Build a fortress out of sand. Assembles a model from the details of the designer. He plays mom, putting the doll to bed, pilot, salesman, car driver, astronaut. In the game, he repeats the actions of the elders, gaining the first experience. human activity. The game teaches the child to plan his actions, to outline their goals, to look for suitable means. Diverse human qualities develop in gaming activities.

There comes a time when next to the gaming develops educational activity. Experience is mastered in it* step by step. Studying educational texts, reading works fiction, solving problems, performing various study tasks, a person acquires the knowledge and skills necessary for life in society, improves thinking and speech, develops his Creative skills acquires a profession. Along with study appears labor activity. First, this is housework, then, perhaps, in a school workshop, on a personal plot, and then the work of an adult - professional activity in production, in the service sector, intellectual activity. Labor expands creative possibilities person, contributes to the formation of purposefulness, independence, perseverance, sociability and other human qualities.

Employment may vary. Cultivated fields, tools, houses and temples - all these are the fruits of industrial activity. "Russian Truth", Sudebnik 1497, other legislative acts - result state activities. Expansion of borders, the formation of a multinational state - a consequence political activity. Victory on Lake Peipus, on the Kulikovo field, in northern war or Patriotic war 1812 - result military activities. The discoveries of M. V. Lomonosov, the inventions of I. P. Kulibin, the works of D. I. Mendeleev are a product of intellectual activity. The famous Russian ballet, the paintings of the Wanderers are the embodiment of artistic activity.

In activity, self-realization of the individual takes place, i.e., the embodiment of plans and life goals in reality, which is possible only under the condition of free human activity. First of all, the inner need of a person, his own desire to fulfill his life purpose, to their own free development.

Life goals can be very different: someone wants to devote his life to science, someone to business, another sees himself as a military man or dreams of having a big family and raising children. At the same time, it is important that the goals of each do not diverge from the interests of society. Therefore, for example, it is no coincidence that in our time the activities of hackers - computer scientists who penetrate other people's Information Systems in order to acquire information or introduce false data into them.

The realization of life goals - self-realization - requires the exertion of a person's strength and can be considered as one of the indicators of his willpower. In the process of self-realization, in the course of his activity, a person overcomes the difficulties that arise, his own laziness, timidity, disbelief in his own strength. Thanks to this, significant results for society are achieved, the abilities of the individual develop. It is the socially useful results of a person's self-realization that bring him respect and recognition from other people, that is, the self-affirmation of the individual takes place.

And we hope that you share the thoughts expressed by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov: “... I want to live independently of future generations, and not only for them. Life is given once, and you want to live it cheerfully, meaningfully, beautifully. I want to play a prominent, independent, prudent role, I want to make history so that the same generations do not have the right to say about each of us: it was insignificance or even worse ... ".

Summarize. What are the differences between humans and animals? First, a person is able to produce tools and use them. Secondly, he has a complexly organized brain, thinking and articulate speech. Thirdly, a person is capable of purposeful creative activity.

Man is a biosocial being, which is a special link in the development of living organisms on Earth.

Basic concepts

Man, self-realization.

Terms

Social, biological, thinking, speech.

Questions for self-examination

What do the words "Man is a biosocial being" mean?
What properties of a person are biological?
What qualities of a person have a social nature (that is, they arise only in society)?
What is the creative nature of human activity?
What is the relationship between thinking and speech?
How are human abilities manifested?
What is human self-realization?
Why is self-realization of a person possible only in activity?

Tasks

People build dams on the rivers, and beavers build dams on the rivers. Explain how human activity differs from that of a beaver.
The spider skillfully weaves a web - a network with which it obtains food. A man fishes with a fishing net. He uses the net in a sieve, in a tennis and badminton racket. The man-made tulle curtain on the window is also a net. Consider how human web-making is different from spider-web weaving.
Read the poem and express your attitude to the words of the author.
Explain the difference between the two statements:
1. man is a biological and social being;
2. Man is a biosocial being.
Indicate what is inherent in a person by nature, and what is society.
Describe what the social (public) essence of a person is.
Name which of the considered human qualities you value most of all.
Refer to the above words of A.P. Chekhov and think: can each person play a prominent role in society; noble role? Can any of you make history? If yes, how?
Express your attitude to the statement of the French historian Mark Blok: “History ... has its own aesthetic joys, unlike the joys of any other science. The spectacle of human activity, which is its special subject, is more than any other capable of capturing the human imagination.