Modern Period Philosophies of Man

Modern Period Philosophies of Man

By Dominic San Jose | August 13, 2023 |

This is Module 2 Lesson 3: Western Philosophy Modern Period Philosophies of Man. This Western philosophy modern period is the philosophy done in Europe. The story of modern philosophy is a drama in which “reason” is at the center.

In the previous lesson, we ended the medieval period at the age of the Renaissance with several things happening at the backdrop. There was the Reformation, Counter-Reformation, the age of discovery and exploration, and the rise of the scientific method. This was also followed by the introduction of three mechanical inventions from the East: gunpowder, block printing, and the compass.

The gunpowder was used to explode the massive fortifications of the feudal order and was instrumental in the realization of nationalism. The block printing propagated knowledge widely, secularized learning, reduced the intellectual monopoly of an ecclesiastical elite, and restored the literary and philosophical classics of Greece and Rome. The compass increased the safety and scope of navigation, produced the voyages of discovery that opened up the Western Hemisphere and symbolized a new spirit of physical adventure and a new scientific interest in the structure of the natural world.

Reflecting on the consequences brought by so much bloodshed and war in the name of religion,
the Renaissance thinkers revolted against the reign and supremacy of religion. They reacted against the church, against authority, against the scholasticism of the medieval period, and even against ancient thinkers like Aristotle. Instead, there was a growing interest in problems centering on civil society, humankind, and nature. This gave birth to an emphasis on political philosophy, humanism, and the philosophy of nature.

Generally suspicious of science and indifferent to religion, humanism emphasized anew the centrality of human beings in the universe and their supreme value and importance. To the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, the universe was hierarchical, organic, and God-ordained. To the philosophers of the Renaissance, it was pluralistic, machinelike, and mathematically ordered. In the Middle Ages, scholars thought in terms of purposes, goals, and divine intentions; in the Renaissance, they thought in terms of forces, mechanical agencies, and physical causes. All of this had become clear by the end of the 15th century.

In his Notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), the great Italian artist and polymath, listed three propositions with these principles: the principle of empiricism, the primacy of mechanistic science, and faith in mathematical explanation. It is upon these three doctrines that Renaissance and early modern science and philosophy were built. From each of Leonardo`s theses descended from the great streams of Renaissance and early modern philosophy: from the empirical principle the work of Bacon, from mechanism the work of Hobbes, and from mathematical explanation the work of Descartes.

Generally, modern philosophy is characterized by the rejection of the dominant philosophies, rejection of the church’s authority, emphasis on the primacy of reason or rationalism, focus on issues of knowledge, skepticism, justification, reliance on science, faith in progress, and individualism and individual search for meaning. How about the philosophies of man in the modern period? Well, let’s find out in this lesson.

Question: “Cogito ergo sum” is a famous line of whose rationalist philosopher?
A. Buber
B. Hobbes
C. Rousseau
D. Descarte

What’s your answer, teacher? Yap, the answer is letter D. Rene Descarte. Let`s start our discussion of modern philosophies of man with Descartes.

1. Rene Descartes: Starting point of the modern philosophy of man

Rene Descartes is widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy. He is credited for rationalism, a view that gives primacy to the power of reason as the chief source and test of knowledge. When everything around him was unreliable and to be doubted, there was one thing he could not doubt, and that he was doubting. Hence, his famous dictum: cogito ergo sum, or usually translated as “I think, therefore, I am”.

For him, a human person is a thinking machine, a thinking being, or a thing that thinks. Since our human brain resembles a working machine, mathematics and mechanics could explain the most complicated processes of the mind.

He also viewed a human person with a dual nature; first, as a thinking substance (represented by the mind); and second, as an extended substance (represented by the body). For Descartes, a human person is a composite entity of mind and body. And he gave priority to the mind since it can exist without the body, but the body could not exist without the mind. Nevertheless, the mind and body are closely joined.

Para kay Descarte, ang “reason” ay sapat na sa paghahanap natin ng kung ano ang tama at “mabuti” or good. Pero ang kalidad o quality ng reason ay nakadepende sa kaalaman o knowledge, dahil ang may sapat na kaalaman at impormasyon ay MAS may kakayahang pumili ng mabuting mga desisyon.

That is precisely one of the underlying principles of why we educate our student’s intellect in values education. And of course, we also educate the will. With this, we believe that values can be learned and eventually, they can be appreciated, internalized, and characterized in the students’ lives. That`s Rene Descartes.

2. Thomas Hobbes: Man as a sophisticated machine

Let`s talk about Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes was an English philosopher and is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. He is best known for his book Leviathan which he published in 1651. In this book, he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. This book begins with Hobbes’ explanation of human nature.

For him, human beings are physical objects in motion, sophisticated machines whose functions and activities can be described and explained materialistically or in purely mechanistic terms.

To him, the motions of external objects around us can cause different mental experiences in our mind, and those mental experiences can cause human behaviors, which he called endeavors. Endeavors can be appetite (yong paghahangad natin na magkaroon) or aversion (pag-iwas). Ibig sabihin, ang mga emosyon, sensation, o mental operations ay dulot ng mga paggalaw or pagkilos ng mga bagay bagay sa paligid natin. So for Hobbes, our human nature is understood on how we react to the different movements or motions around us.

Moreover, Hobbes believed that human nature is essentially or basically anti-social, egoistic, and focused on self-preservation and self-interest. Since this human nature (in the state of nature) is making life difficult for everyone in the community, Hobbes believed that this is the primary reason why there is a need to set up a commonwealth or government.

Hobbes thought we should use the force of the state to restrict and control our selfish human nature. Ibig sabihin, nagkasundo ang mga tao na bumuo ng gobyerno para kontrolin ang makasariling naturalesa ng tao. Ang government din ang magdidikta ng mga paraan o batas para makapamuhay ng mapayapa ang bawat isa sa komunidad.

Maganda dito ang punto ni Hobbes. Kase pinuntahan n’ya ‘yong pinaka-ugat kung bakit may pamahalaan. At para sa kanya, ang dahilan kung bakit may pamalaan ay ang mismong human nature nation.

Sa konteksto ng Values Education, makikita agad natin ang mga parallel. Masasabi natin na may Values Education dahil din sa human nature natin. Tinuturuan natin ng Values Education o mabuting pagpapahalaga ang mga mag-aaral dahil alam natin na may malaking posibilidad na mapariwara sila kung hindi nila matutunan kung alin ang tama at mail.

At kung ang tao, para kay Hobbes, ay isang physical object na kumikilos sa mundong ito, sa Values Education, binibigyan natin ng mas malalim na dahilan kung bakit kumikilos ang tao. Tinuturuan natin ang mag-aaral na magkaroon ng direksyon at purpose ang pagkilos nila sa mundong ito.

That’s Thomas Hobbes’ view on human nature and its implications on the Values education.

3. David Hume: Empiricism in modern philosophy of man

Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher who is best known today for his philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism.

Hume did not define a human being as an emotional being per see. However, his works suggest that human beings are emotionally driven. Our actions and decisions are motivated by our feelings. Our feelings or emotions are too strong to be ruled or controlled by reason. And because of that, our reason is a slave of our emotions. Therefore, for Hume, emotion is the major theme as the defining characteristic of our human nature.

Hume used several terms to refer to our affective perception. He used the words, passion, sentiment, feeling, taste, and emotion.

According to Hume, our affective perception, which can be impressions or ideas, come to us through our senses. This has become the foundation of empiricism, which is attributed to Hume.

Empiricism is the theory that human knowledge comes predominantly from experiences gathered through our senses. So for Hume, as an empiricist, everything we believe is ultimately traceable to experience.

Moreover, Hume believes that our beliefs and actions are the products of customs and habits. And since our beliefs are products of our repeated experiences, they give superior influences on our passions and imagination.

As far as our majorship is concerned, Values Education finds a philosophical reason in Hume why we educate or why we take time to form our will. Our responses to experiences are different from person to person. Some people can control their anger, while others are controlled by their anger.

In Values Education, we empower our students to be able to handle their raging emotions and channel properly their various emotional drives. By doing so we help our students to gain control of their emotions, rather than being slaves by their passion.

In short, since our actions and decisions, according to Hume, are motivated by our passion, we educate our students on how to respond to their experiences, especially those experiences that stimulate their emotions.

4. Jean Jacques Rousseau: Character development in modern philosophy of man

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Europe. He was from Geneva, which is now part of Switzerland. He was a philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, and aspects of the French Revolution, and the development of political, economic, and educational thought.

For him, human beings are basically good by nature but were corrupted by the complex historical events that resulted in present-day civil society. In his famous work, Social Contract, he expounds on the nature of a human person based on the idea that by nature, humans are essentially peaceful, content, and equal. It is the socialization process that has produced inequality, competition, and the egoistic mentality. So his famous line: Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.”

When it comes to education, Rousseau believed that rather than imparting too much information and concepts, it is first and foremost important to develop the student’s character and moral sense, so that they may learn to practice self-mastery and remain virtuous even in the unnatural and imperfect society in which they will have to live

In the context of Values Education, the role of Values Educators is to ensure that the learners do not become corrupted in the process of integrating and becoming active participants in society or in socializing that produces inequality, competition, and an egoistic mentality.

Values Education is to do its best to keep the natural state of a human person, which is naturally good. The role of values Education has become more crucial in the digital age. Students become conscious of the social world as soon as they become active in various social networking platforms.

A society that exults the famous, the best, the rich, the beautiful, and the handsome, a society like this brings a lot of mental or psychological challenges to our learners and even to us. This produces more competition, and more desire to have more and to be more. These are not totally wrong. They can be healthy in many instances. But we should guide our students toward the real purpose of their lives. We should teach them values that they can use as their guide when they need to make decisions in their lives. If we fail to do that, Rousseau will be correct that our students will become corrupted in the process of socialization.

So, like the character of Emile (the work of Rousseau), we should let our students begin learning important moral lessons from their infancy, through childhood, and into early adulthood. Rousseau says, someone who has been properly educated will be engaged in society, but relate to his or her fellow citizens in a natural way.

5. Jeremy Bentham: Utilitarianism in modern philosophies

Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer. He was regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism, with this fundamental axiom: “It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong”, and “the obligation to minister to the general happiness of all”. This is also known as the greatest-happiness principle.

For Bentham, since humans are governed by two sovereign masters: pain and pleasure, our nature then is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. To him, our behaviors are motivated by a need to increase pleasure and decrease pain. As Bentham went on to explain, pleasure is “the only good”, and pain “without exception, is the only evil”.

In this re-appearance of ethical hedonism (including the psychological egoism), Bentham believes that pleasure is the only good. Therefore, actions are right in so far as they tend to produce pleasure and avoid pain. In other words, the utility of an act – the goodness or badness of an action – is determined solely by its consequences. If they tend to produce pleasure and avoid pain (they are good), but if not, they are bad or evil.

Rejecting the supernatural and idealist explanation of morality, Bentham (as influenced by Humes’s empiricism) explained the philosophical and psychological reasons why human beings should be moral. He used the term “utility” which he defined as the “property in any object that tends to produce benefit, advantage, good or happiness”.

For Bentham, moral philosophy should be based on utility. The utility principle, therefore, is the principle that approves or disproves every action whatsoever, according to the tendency that it appears to increase or decrease the happiness of the people. In Bentham’s moral philosophy based on utility, we choose to be good or perform our moral obligations in consideration of the great happiness of the greatest number of people who are affected by the performance of our actions. In the consequences, the pleasure, benefit, goodness, or happiness of the majority should always outweigh the pain.

For Bentham, this type of moral philosophy based on utility (not based on something supernatural or abstract ideas) is more advantageous to people. That`s because this type of moral philosophy will encourage the community to have a convention or agreement on what is an acceptable act and what is not. And with that, our choices, decisions, and actions will make us happy individually and will contribute to the happiness of our community in general.

That`s what Bentham means when he writes that moral philosophy or ethics can be simply described as “the art of directing our actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness of all.

In the context of Values Education, Bentham`s moral philosophy provides Values Education with a philosophical reason why we should act morally. If our students are non-believers, or let’s say they do not believe in God, it would be pointless to convince them to act morally because God said so. Instead, it will probably make sense to them if we explain that we should act morally because it will make them happy individually, and they will contribute to the happiness of our community. Although there are many debatable issues employing the utility principle, talking about pleasure and pain, could already be a good starting point to let our students (especially those already in the age of reason) consider acting morally.

And our job as Values Education teachers is to purify this ethical hedonism or utility principle, incorporate relevant values, and navigate the discussion into the objective moral principles that we are teaching our students. So that is Jeremy Bentham and his moral philosophy based on utility, that the primary motivators in human beings are pleasure and pain.

6. John Stuart Mill: Refining Utilitarianism

John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP), and civil servant. He was one of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. He was dubbed the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the 19th century.

For Mill, our very nature as a human being is to seek happiness. In fact, in his work, Utilitarian, he states that “happiness is the sole end of human action”. He acknowledged that we are beings with social feelings or sympathy, feelings for others, not just for ourselves.

As a follower of Bentham, he fully accepted Bentham’s devotion to the greatest happiness principle as the basic statement of utilitarian value, which states that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, and wrong as they tend to produce pain. By happiness, Mill means intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.”

Mill upgraded Bentham’s hedonism which is too egalitarian. By egalitarian, this means that for Bentham, pleasures (like sensual pleasures, simple-minded pleasures, and complex pleasures) are all equal. For Mill, there are some pleasures that are more desirable and therefore higher and better compared to those that are merely sensual or lower types of pleasure.

For example, intellectual pleasure (like learning, or gaining wisdom) is higher than just watching a movie or eating your favorite ice cream. To use his famous example: “It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied`. So, Mill offers a distinction between lower pleasures and higher pleasures (including mental, aesthetic, and moral pleasures).

In this way, Mill has refined the Utilitarianism he inherited from Bentham. He continued to argue that people desire happiness, and the utilitarian end is the general happiness of all people. To achieve the general happiness of all people, we should desire higher types of pleasure. Mill emphasized that this could be possible if our emotions, like guilt and remorse, will serve to regulate our actions. Our social feelings and care for others motivate us all to be good and choose the good.

Utilitarianism, as a moral principle that promotes the general happiness of the greatest number of people, was purified by Mill to make it appealing to the public. He offers a completely secular moral theory in contrast to supernatural and abstract moral principles (like the Christian moral philosophy).

In the context of Values Education, we advocate and encourage our students to pursue their happiness. But as Values Education teachers, we do not stop there. We encourage them to pursue their happiness in accordance with the objective social rules so that other people around them can also pursue their own happiness. In that case, their pursuit of happiness will also be for the greater happiness of the greatest number of people.

In Values Education, we normally guide our students to understand lower pleasure and higher pleasure, and we educate them to pursue those of higher pleasure. The formation of the will and the education of the intellect are meant to equip them to: first, develop strategies to moderate or control their natural tendencies to give in to the lower pleasures (especially the sensual pleasures), and, second, to motivate them to pursue the higher pleasures.

Lastly, as beings with social feelings or sympathy, we promote values that, when practiced by our students, will contribute to the common good, social justice, social solidarity, and social transformation. In the word of John Stuart Mill, a sign of moral progress is when the happiness of others, including those we do not know, becomes important to us.

So, that is John Stuart Mill’s philosophy of the human person in his utilitarian moral theory based on the principles of utility, and the pursuit of the higher pleasures.

7. Karl Marx: “Homo faber” in modern philosophy of man

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, and social revolutionary. His best-known works include The Communist Manifesto published in 1848, and Das Kapital published from 1867 to 1883.

For Marx, labor is the human activity that produces the totality of our social relations, and our social relations form our human nature. So, we can say that human beings are produced by their labor. Humans are homo faber or “working man”.

Therefore, since human nature is derived from labor, we can say that human nature is dynamic. Human beings are constantly changing because their social relations are also changing. Those changes are based on the purposes of our production or labor. Our purposes can be driven by our particular needs, tendencies, ambitions, or desires.

For Marx, our human labor is what sets us apart from irrational animals, because we can work productively even under pressure or repressive environment (as what he observed in the capitalist economy of his time), and most importantly, we can work freely and creatively in accordance with the laws of beauty. And because of that, our human labor creates and transforms not just our environment, but above all ourselves and others.

For Marx, labor is absolutely essential because it is our means of development or actualization. And to produce an environment conducive for other people to actualize or develop themselves. Marx is giving emphasis on the value of our labor, which must be done productively, creatively, and continuously. Why? Simply because we are all creators of our environment. And the people we become especially our children, will depend so much on the kind of environment and social relations that we produce.

In relation to Values Education, we give emphasis on the dignity of human labor. Values education curricula and programs incorporate Marx`s concept of the human person as a working being (or homo faber).

We equip our students with work-related values that will solidify their commitment to become future laborers or workers or builders of their own lives. As Marx taught us, building our lives well is also building our environment where everyone has an opportunity to flourish and develop.

Obviously, in Values Education (just like Karl Marx), we understand labor not just in relation to the economy or as a means to earn our living, we understand labor in a bigger context as a means of transforming ourselves and our society.

So, that is Karl Marx’s contribution to the discourse on human nature or human beings in modern philosophies of man in the context of Values Education.

Modern philosophies of man: RECAP

In this article, we talked about the common modern philosophies of man in the modern period in relation to the Values Education. We started with Rene Descartes who conceived that a human being is a res cogitans and res extensa (a being composed of mind and body). We also learned that Descartes is credited with rationalism.

Then we moved to Thomas Hobbes who believed that human beings, who are sophisticated machines, are anti-social, selfish, or egoistic by nature. Then, we moved to David Hume who believed that human beings are emotionally driven and that we are products of our customs and habits. He is also credited for empiricism and moral sentimentalism. We also talked about Jean-Jacque Rousseau who believed that human beings are good by nature. He is credited with naturalism for his exploration of morality as natural and innate.

We also talked about Jeremy Bentham who revived hedonism in the form of modern utilitarianism based on the greatest-happiness principle. Then, we moved to Bentham`s disciple, John Stuart Mill, who refined Utilitarian Ethics through his lower and higher types of pleasures. And lastly, we talked about Karl Marx who believes that human nature rests on labor and that labor serves as a means of transforming ourselves and our society.

These are the common philosophies of man in the modern period related to the Values Education. And that is Module 2 Lesson 3 (Western Philosophy: Modern period).

Check the previous Lessons in this course Philosophical & Ethical Foundations of Values Education related to Modern Philosophies of Man.

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References

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About Dominic San Jose

Hello! I`m Teacher Doms! I am a teacher, Christian missionary and entrepreneur. This personal website is my simple way of sharing my experiences. It is my hope that you may get something valuable from this site. Cheers to your success!

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