Plato and Karl Marx on the Topic of Human Nature - Essay Example

Section/# Comparison and Contrast of the Differing Ways in which Karl Marx and Plato Approach the Issue of Human Nature within their Writings It is not often that the names of Karl Marx and Plato are found within the same sentence or even the same context. However, for purposes of this brief essay, this author will do precisely that and compare and contrast the different views of human nature that both Plato and Karl Marx exhibited within their writings. Such an analysis will necessarily be a bit easier for Plato as opposed to Marx due to the fact that Plato specifically discussed the issue of human nature on a number of occasions as it was one of his favorite philosophical topics in helping to explain the actions and paths that mankind sought to take. Similarly, it will be somewhat more difficult with respect to Karl Marx, not due to the fact that Marx had no opinion on the issue (quite the opposite in fact), but rather due to the fact that Marx himself never specifically sought to engage on the topic. Rather, Marx would periodically discuss tangential manifestations of human nature with respect to “essence” and “biological definitions of man” within his works. To this end, I will seek to synthesize these tangential manifestations as a way of understanding what this author believes to be Karl Marx’s approach to the issue of human nature within his writings. Firstly, when one considers Plato, they necessarily consider his inspiration and teacher – Socrates. Socrates himself was highly interested in the notion of human nature as he so often came at odds with prevailing notions of his time while attempting to break through such staunchly, albeit blindly, held beliefs that the men of his time clung to with such fervor. Accordingly, due to the fact that Socrates had such a profound impact on Plato, it is not beyond logic to assume that many of Plato’s own views of human nature were themselves borrowed or at the very least inspired from Socrates. One such view of humanity is of course distinctly related through Plato’s allegory of the cave (Plato 44). Although a host of Plato’s writings deal with the topic of human nature, for purposes of this brief analysis, the author will only consider the allegory of the cave due to the length limitations that a more full and complete analysis might entail. It seems to me that such an approach is useful due to the fact that Plato can provide a well reasoned and differentiated view of reality and its relation to the constructs of human nature. Within this work, Plato introduces the reader to a situation in which allegorical prisoners are chained to a cave wall for their entire lives – never seeing anyone or the light of day. Rather, all the prisoners are able to discern is the flicker and the shadows of figures that the moving individuals and torches behind them portend. The allegory goes on to explain that if one of these creatures was taken out into the light of day to see the sun, to view the skies, and to feel the warmth of the air, they would likely run frantically back into the bowels of the cave to escape from such perceptions that they might deem as unsavory and wildly foreign. In this way, Plato exhibits an example to the reader in which the reality/nature of the individual is uniquely born out of the perceptions/environment in which they have grown accustomed (Fromm 24). As such, Plato illustrates that encouraging such an individual to action outside of their comfort zone or to think outside of the means by which they have grown accustomed very rarely yields a positive result. In this way, Plato exhibits a very traditional view of human nature as something that is ingrained from the early experiences and years of an individual’s life and seeks to define and corral the ambitions, thoughts, dreams, and goals, of the individual for the remainder of the life. As this can be understood as a traditional approach to human nature, it must also be understood as a type of synthesis between nature and environment. For decades scholars and intellectuals have debated the nature of humanity and sought to answer the age old question of what actually defines our perspective – nurture or nature. In this way, Plato is able to juxtapose these two in his allegory of the cave in such a way as to define the nature of humanity and to encompass both the aspects of nature and nurture within such a definition. Plato is able to present to the reader a situation that draws heavily on the instruction and training he likely received from his own tutor, Socrates, and paints his own understanding and unique interpretation of the nature of humanity in very much the same type of construct that Socrates did during his own brief lifetime. Similarly, Plato espoused a view that placed man on a higher moral ground than other subsequent philosophers, especially religious philosophers, have ever considered. Said Plato, “To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less” (Plato 44). In this way, the reader can quickly infer that Plato believed in a concept of moral superiority being an innate concept of humankind and human nature. It is this belief especially that helps to set Plato and successive philosophers apart in the sense that he had a higher concept of an innate goodness that existed within humanity. I find it refreshing that such a concept of goodness and moral reason is included as a function of the nature of mankind rather than the oftentimes guilt-ridden definitions of human nature that subsequent religious philosophers developed hundreds of years later. Unlike Plato, Karl Marx was not specifically concerned with the nature of humanity. Rather, Marx of course was most interested in the suffering of the proletariat and the way in which the material world defined the way in which humans behaved and interacted with one another. Although these forces had clear influence on the way in which Marx’s subjects behaved, they could not necessarily be labeled as “human nature” as such. Instead, Marx skirted around the issue by defining it in ways that were briefly discussed within the introductory paragraph of this essay. Rather than coming directly forward and referring to human nature as such, Marx used the terms “essence”, and “historical process”. For instance, in Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, Marx defines essence as: “Too abstract from the historical process to define the religious sentiment regarding itself. Therefore to presuppose this abstract is isolated within the human individual” (Marx 17). Furthermore, Marx goes on to say that essence can be defined by “an inner ‘dumb’ generality which unites many individuals only in a natural way” (Marx 17). Similarly, in 1844 Manuscripts, Marx notes: “Man is directly a natural being. As a natural being and as a living natural being he is on the one hand endowed with natural powers, vital powers – he is an active natural being. These forces exist in him as tendencies and abilities – as instincts. On the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous objective being he is a suffering, conditioned and limited creature, like animals and plants. That is to say, the objects of his instincts exist outside him, as objects independent of him; yet these objects are objects that have needs – essential objects, indispensable to the manifestation and confirmation of his essential powers” (Rassumussen 24). This further delineation of mankind as seemingly bestial and unrestrained is as close as Marx comes to outwardly defining the nature of humanity. A concept that many scholars have pointed out to describe Marx’s view of the nature of man has to do with the idea of “alienation” that Marx would oftentimes bring up in his works. Due to the fact that the worker, material, and labor defined his view of the world and of humanity and the nature of such a construct, Marx had the following to say, “The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces and the more his production increases in power and extent. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more goods he creates. The devaluation of the human world increases in direct relation to the increase in value of the world of things. Labor does not only create goods; it also produces itself and the worker as a commodity, and indeed in the same proportion as it produces goods. (Marx 13). In this way, the “nature” of man is a construct that is uniquely defined by the nature of the by-products of labor, markets, and the process of exchange. Regardless of the terminology that Marx uses, it is plain to see that the end description which he gives of the primal characteristics of mankind is from a nature standpoint. Whereas Plato attempts to describe the nature of humanity through a balanced approach which takes into account both nature and nurture, Marx does not seem to ascribe to a similar view as his ideology is most concentric upon describing the causal mechanisms which act upon mankind to behave a certain way as being wholly determined based upon biological interactions of need, want, and aggression (Calabressi et al 44). This interpretation of human nature is of course born as a product of the times in which Marx lived in a way not dissimilar to the way in which Plato’s estimation of human nature was born out of the times in which he lived. Due to the fact that evolutionary biology and the existence of God was coming into a greater degree of scrutiny, so too were traditional interpretations of nurture versus nature. In conclusion, although both of these philosophers lived millennia apart, the commonality between them is that they both agree that mankind is prone to revert to varying stages of a prior nature. For Pluto it was a combination of both nurture and nature that led the man to go running back into the cave without seeking to understand or explain the strange world which suddenly surrounded him. Rather than attempting to gain a comprehension, he merely reverted back to what his nature and nurture had programmed him to do. So likewise, with the animalistic urges that define human nature in Marx world, regardless of the level of gentrification that may have taken place, in Marx’s estimation, humanity is just a stone’s throw away from rapidly reverting to the animal base instincts that he claims define our compositional makeup. Similarly, the reader can rapidly understand that the fact that these philosophers come to such disparate determinations is the result of the fact that they were heavily influenced by the times in which they lived. Like all philosophers, their knowledge was not born in a vacuum. Rather, their views were born out of the unique times, pervasive sentiments, and political situations that existed within their own lifetimes that most powerfully defined the ways in which these philosophers crafted, developed, and sought to enunciate their view to the masses. With regards to which of these beliefs this particular author more appreciates, it would have to be that of Plato. Although Marx is clearly the more modern and perhaps even relevant philosopher with regards to the time period in which we live and current world events that help to define it, Plato’s balanced approach between nature and nurture is one that this author appreciates for its sheer complexity and simplicity. Rather than taking a hard line to determine what lies at the very core of humanity, Plato’s tempered response allows the reader/thinker to adopt and appreciate both manners of thought without being necessarily exclusive of the other. Similarly, although Marx had keen insights into many of the issues of his time, the fact of the matter was that he was oftentimes so blinded by his ultimate end, bringing communist revolutions throughout the workers groups, that he oftentimes failed to see the more nuanced aspects of humanity that Plato had little issue in speaking to and analyzing. For these as well as a host of others, Plato, although removed by over 2 millennia, has a more appropriate and rational view of the nature of man. Although neither view can be absolutely determined to be “right” or “wrong”, it is my belief that both of these scholars and philosophers have helped to develop a more nuanced and rational approach to the nature of man through the force of the works they have written and the insightful questions they have posed. Works Cited Calabresi, Steven G., and Gary Lawson. "Foreword: Two Visions Of The Nature Of Man." Harvard Journal Of Law & Public Policy 16.1 (1993): 1. Business Source Premier. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. Fromm, Erich. Marx's concept of man. London: Continuum, 2004. Marx, Karl. Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1988. Marx, Karl. The communist manifesto. Charlestown, SC: Bibliobazaar, 2007. Plato. The Republic. London: Penguin, 2007. Plato The trial and death of Socrates : Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, death scene from Phaedo. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub, 2000. Rasmussen, David M. "Fred Dallmayr: The Odyssey of Reconciling Reason." Human Studies July 1998: 273+. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. Read More