An exposition of the foundations of the philosophy of human nature

Abstract

Our study is an exposition of the foundations of the philosophy of human nature. This task, of the exposition of the foundations of human nature philosophy, is undertaken because in our preliminary investigations, we discovered that the philosophies of the human nature generally fall into two basic camps, namely, "purism" and "realism." "Purism" consists of the position that there is an unadulterated philosophy of human nature, knowable purely by reasoning, which then composes the substance of human nature. "Realism," on the other hand, consists ofthe position that there are no pure concepts of human nature, which transcend social and existential circumstances, and, therefore, there are no concepts or philosophies of human nature which are "purist" in that sense. These two camps, namely, "purism" and "realism, contradict each other and generated, and continue to generate, a lot of controversy in the philosophical discussion of human nature. Therefore, we felt that an exposition of the foundations of the philosophy of human nature would go a long way towards clarifying this confusion in human nature philosophy. To tackle the problem in our research, we employ the em..inent philosophical methods of thinking, like critical thinking, conceptual analysis, comparison, definition and historical exegesis, under the general method "deconstructionism." Our "deconstructionism" of the philosophy of human nature reveals that neither "purism" is pure, nor is "realism" free from purist assumptions. The study concludes that a metaphysical assumption, as well as socio-historical contexts, are basic foundations in the philosophies and conceptions of human nature. The study recommends that humans, therefore, need to continuously and critically evaluate the conceptions of the human nature that they hold, in view of the fact that such conceptions are products of changing conceptual and existential circumstances as our study shows.