World Affairs

Vol. 6, Number 3 (July-September 2002)

Who Are We?
Jerzy A Wojciechowski

Rational activity has completely changed the human situation. Today we have more knowledge about ourselves, nature and the environment. Earlier we feared nature but now we are aware of its limits. We know nature is not infinite and inexhaustible. Hence we cannot take our future for granted.

"I am whoever I will be, Yahweh is my name." (Exodus 3:14–15, as translated by Zecharia Sitchin in The Cosmic Code, New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1998, p 164). God can define Himself thus because He is eternal. He exists outside time with its temporal succession of moments. He possesses the plenitude of His being simultaneously; there is no becoming in Him. Humans are certainly not in this category. They are temporal beings, immersed in the process of becoming. In the metaphysical hierarchy of beings, they are situated somewhere between the constantaneity of divine existence and the evanescence of a sub-atomic particle. But they are humans; there is no doubt about this. The problem is that they cannot say they are what they will be. Does this mean that the centuries-old definition of humans as rational animals, formulated by Aristotle, is no more valid?

The answer is simple: yes and no. When Aristotle was defining humans, the development of knowledge was slow and the adjective ‘rational’ seemed to be straightforward and its consequences easy to grasp.

Today, twenty-four centuries later, we are in an entirely different situation. If the title question can and should be asked, it is precisely because we are rational. Rational activity has completely changed the human situation. At the time of Aristotle, humanity was small and weak compared with the all-powerful nature. Although the ideas of Plato and Aristotle were monumental intellectual achieve-ments, beacons of light and inspiration for thinkers ever since, they had few practical consequences. They did not offer humans concrete tools to improve their material condition.

How different our situation is presently! Now it is evident that knowledge is power. The develop-ment of science and its consequences convince us every day of the truth of the historical statement of Francis Bacon. Bacon wanted to lift humans from the wretched condition in which the great majority of them lived by using material resources to enrich human existence. To achieve this aim, we had to study nature and discover its laws. History proved Bacon to be right. Armed with Bacon’s insight, Westerners embarked on an evermore rapid and broad development of science and technology. The twentieth century alone has multiplied factual, scientific knowledge over one thousand times.

If we were conforming to the definition of ‘rational animal’ in the time of Aristotle, we are surely more so now. Not only do we know infinitely more about the world, but we are also more cognizant about ourselves. We know more about our body and how to take care of it. Nowadays medical knowledge doubles every five years. We learn constantly about our past, about history and prehistory, discovering evermore distant roots of our species. We can appraise human condition better species-wide and analyse the depth of material, psychological and moral global interdependence and the need of world--wide solidarity. From now on we have to view ourselves not only as individuals, who we surely are, but also as integral parts of our species.

But this is not all. Since the Second World War we have made a decisive and revolutionary breakthrough in our understanding of our relationship with the environment. For the first time in the history of Western civilisation, we have perceived ourselves as earthlings, as denizens of planet earth, depending on and conditioned by the earthly environment. We specifically said in the history of the Western civilisation and not simply in history, because of the fundamental difference existing between Western and all other civilisations in the perception of the status of humans and their relationship with nature. Only Western culture views humans as superior to nature, fashioned in a distinct act of creation to the image of the supremely personal creator. For all other cultures, humans are indistinct part of nature.

Somebody may object that what we have just said about Western culture is not quite true. There were Westerners, St Francis for instance, who lived in full communion with nature. This is true. But unfortunately, his was a voice crying in the wilderness. The development of Western civilisation did not follow in his footsteps. Instead, it took its marching orders from a much more ancient source, the famous and truly incredible commandment contained in the book of Genesis: "Go forth, and fill the earth and submit it to your command." (Genesis 1:28). The entire verse from the New Revised Standard Version reads: "Be fruitful and multiply; and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

This commandment produced at least a double effect. It shaped Western, i.e. Judeo-Christian culture and separated it, as we alluded above, from all other cultures. But this is not all. Placing humans above nature allowed the elaboration of the notion of personality which in turn led to the development of the all-important and unique distinction: objectivity and subjectivity. The distinction can be qualified as unique because it is unique to Western culture. In no other culture has this distinction been so clearly elaborated and produced such important effects, namely, the development of modern science and technology, with all its positive and negative consequences. They form now the gist of the contemporary problematiq&egrame;, and throw new light on the very notion of the human being.

Through the development of knowledge, we find ourselves in a strange situation. On the one hand we are more powerful than ever. If a modern man equipped with his contemporary knowledge and power to do things appeared in ancient Greece, he would be hailed as a demigod. But on the other hand, because of the awareness of the dependence on the environment and its fragility, we are relativised more than ever before. Previously, we feared nature and stood in awe before its power, but had no idea about its finiteness and exhaustibility. Now we are painfully aware of its limits. Consequently, we cannot take our future for granted any more, and we have to be more and more able to foresee the consequences of our activities. In other words, we have to become increasingly responsible for ourselves, and be our own masters.

The above statement is sufficiently general and important to be expressed in the form of a ‘law’: The need to be aware of one’s condition and to foresee the consequences of one’s acts is proportional to the power to act which is proportional to the power of knowledge.

The consequences of the ‘law’ are far-reaching indeed. The more we know, the more mindful we have to be of ourselves as individuals and members of a species. At first glance one may wonder how an individual may feel responsible for the species. But that is precisely the case now. Our consciousness expands proportionally to knowledge and the power to act. It becomes global, species--wide, and planet-wise. Consciousness is a unique and precious quality of humanness, but it comes at a price. The more humanity advances, the higher will be the price of being human, whether we like it or not.

Rationality is a human trade-mark. The more we become rational, the more we will have to be rational. In other words, the more we are human, the more we will have to be human. In contradistinction to Yahweh, today we are not what we will be tomorrow. Evolution is our mode of being. This statement demands a few comments. Many biologists and philosophers view evolution as a haphazard process, the result of chance events, not pre-ordained to produce higher, more perfect forms of existence. Perhaps, just perhaps, infra-human evolution may be conceived as being a non--directional, non-finalistic process so as to satisfy those who fear the notion of the final cause, and its consequence, the existence of objectively justified moral commandments.

Human evolution is different. It produces demonstrably ever more and varied intellectual knowledge with its evident consequence: the need of foresight and greater responsibility for one’s behaviour. Unfortunately, the need of greater responsibility does not result automatically in being more responsible, i.e. more moral behaviour. The history of the past century is the best proof of this.

The horrors of the most murderous century of human history invites us to analyse the phenomenon of knowledge in a more critical manner than has been done until now. Ever since thinkers in ancient Greece began to study knowledge, and all their different opinions about the nature of knowledge notwithstanding, they were united in their belief that human intellect is the most perfect human faculty and its product, intellectual knowledge is the most perfect human product and achievement. Consequently, they never envisaged the possibility of intellectual knowledge having consequences for humans other than beneficial. Hence, they were led to view the intellectual knowledge as a harmonious extension of the intellect. The idea that intellectual knowledge can be a source of problems for humans, let alone a threat to their very survival was far from their minds. And yet that is precisely what we have to envisage today.

The present situation of humanity forces us to examine the nature of intellectual knowledge in a new light and to distinguish between the body of knowledge, the knowledge construct (KC for short), and knowers. KC has to be perceived for what it really is — an entity in its own right, distinct from knowers, though produced by them; a separate and rapidly growing factor of human environment. Once this distinction is conceptualised, it becomes evident that it is necessary to analyse this relationship and admit the possibility that it may not always work to our advantage. This is what the present author has been doing for the past thirty years, developing his theory of ecology of knowledge.

For the first time in history, humans have to face self-destruction, limits to growth, and the necessity to think about the future of humanity on a global scale. Moreover and even more importantly, they have to cast the moral considerations in a more complex context than they have done until now: namely they have to evaluate the consequences of their behaviour for future generations. They become morally responsible not only before God but likewise before their descendants. This fact not only complicates human existence, it also enriches the meaning of the adjective ‘rational’ in the definition of human. Rational means not only ‘capable of thought’, but also, and by the same fact, being causally related to the future of humanity.

Ever since the birth of con-sciousness and the resulting ability to distinguish between good and evil, humans became moral agents. But the notion of ‘moral agent’, just like that of ‘rational’, is not cast in stone. It is extensible and depends on the level of existing knowledge. Knowledge is power, and the more knowledge humans have, the more powerful they become. The more powerful they become, the more important are the consequences of their activities and the more responsible they become for the results of their actions. More responsible not only in time but also in space. This latter statement may be more difficult to grasp. ‘Space’ here does not mean only geometric dimensions. If we invoke the notion of space, it is because humans live always in a concrete place on earth, surrounded by nature, interacting with it and dependent on it.

The fact that we are denizens of a planet has fundamental consequences for humans as well as for understanding who we are. We partake not only in human evolution but also in the planetary one. Through our planet we are connected with the solar system, the galaxy, and the entire universe. But in contradistinction to the immense, mind-boggling All, we are an infinitesimal but conscious part of the All. Aristotle said that the human mind is "as if it were everything." Developing knowledge, we absorb and become everything we know. This fact has to be taken into consideration in any attempt to answer the title question. It also indicates the difficulty inherent in such an attempt. The fact of being earthlings not only determines what we do and how we live but also shapes to a large extent our intellectual life. Namely, it influences our ideas about ourselves: how we evaluate ourselves, how we envision our future, as well as what is our attitude towards our planet and through it towards nature in general. In other words, the fact of living on earth is essential for understanding the problems discussed in this article. Generally speaking, the Earth forms our ideas for two different reasons: its geographic, geological and climactic characteristics, and its finiteness.

While the impact of geographic, geological and climactic factors on us is rather evident, the consequences of earth’s finiteness may be somewhat less obvious. In fact, they are the roots of the contemporary problematiq&egrame;, which defines present-day humans. To understand properly this affirmation, it is necessary to compare ourselves with our distant ancestors. To primitive humans, whether living in the remote past or as members of present-day tribal societies, nature’s way is all- powerful, life-giving and limtless. One of the major intellectual breakthroughs since the Second World War is the realisation that nature, or more precisely, the Earth System, is finite, not limitless. From now on we will have to be mindful of this fundamental fact and behave accordingly. Let us illustrate the consequences of the perception of the finiteness of the Earth System by means of the following chart:

 

Differences in Perception of the Earth System and Its Consequences

	Nature
Nature is	Infinite, i.e. inexhaustible.	Finite, i.e.exhaustible.
Hence:	No exploitation of nature.	Exploitation of nature.
	No negative effects of the use of nature for (a) nature, (b) humans.	Negative effects for (a) nature (b) humans.
	No responsibility for the development of powerful knowledge.	Resonsibility for the development of powerful knowledge.
	Knowledge does not threaten nature.	Knowledge threatens nature.
	The development of knowledge does not create humans/nature moral problem; no need to enlarge the moral problematiq&egrame;.	Moral problem: humans/nature; need to enlarge the moral problematiq&egrame;.
	Scientific (quantitative) knowledge is sufficient; no need to complement it by enlarged knowledge of qualities and values; humans may imagine themselves as masters of the world.	Scientific (quantitative) knowledge insufficient; need to complement it by enlarged knowledge of qualities and values; humans are NOT masters of the world.
	No source of concern about effects of on nature.	Concern about effects of scientific knowledge on nature.
	Ethics is secondary.	Ethics primary