The human essence in psychology and the potential impact of answers to the question of what is the human essence can have on the field. It highlights key perspectives on “the human essence” presented in the volume, with particular emphasis on the reciprocal relationships among individuality, sociality, and cultural embeddedness. The chapter explains how the evolution of humans’ cognitive abilities produced both unique individual capacities, such as powers of reflexivity, and social adaptations, such as the development of culture. It also discusses individuality as a human essence, which is a view expressed in in several chapters of the volume that draw insights from work on existential psychology, meaning, free will, self-evaluation, goals, and basic physiological processes. Another common theme it identifies across several chapters is that the capacity for change and growth through the pursuit of truth, beyond individual self-interest, represents the human essence. The chapter concludes with an overview of organization and the content of the other chapters in the volume.
The question is too infrequently asked within psychology, yet is one of central interest to students and scholars in psychology, philosophy, sociology, public health, anthropology, and cognitive science.
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
By accepting this vision of the childbecoming-adult, children remain tied to liberalism’s assumptions about human nature, and a society in which social relationships are marginalised. We may miss the finer insight into human nature and the delicate touch in drawing character which Terence presents to us in his reproductions of Menander, but there is wonderful life and vigour and considerable variety in the Plautine embodiments of these different types.
“Curiosity is the essence human existence”
Gene Cernan