So You Think You're Human: A Brief History of Humankind

by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

You think you're human. But what does that mean? How can humanity be defined? Felipe Fernandez-Armesto takes us on an enlightening journey through the history of humankind to reveal the challenges to our most fundamental belief - that we are, and have always been, human. Chimps and humans are objectively so alike that an anthropologist from Mars might classify them together; advances in artificial intelligence mean that humans no longer have exclusive access to reason, consciousness and imagination; developments in genetics threaten humanity with an uncertain future. The harder we cling to the concept of humanity, the more slippery it becomes. But if it breaks down altogether, what will this mean for human values, human rights, and the defence of human dignity? So You Think You're Human? confronts these problems from a historical perspective, showing how our current understanding of what it means to be human has been shaken by new challenges from science and philosophy. FFA shows how our concept of humankind has changed over time, tracing its faltering expansion to its present limits and arguing that these limits are neither fixed or scientifically verifiable. Controversially, he proposes that we have further to go in developing our concept of humankind and that we need to rethink it as a matter of urgency.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Science

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is a British professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and author of several popular works, notably on cultural and environmental history.

Reviews

[Sense of History]

This is a brief inquiry into what mankind through history saw as "human", and of the acute questions the notion of humankind arouses today. Very interesting ofcourse, but I was rather disappointed by the casualness of this study.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

History of the concept of humanity; Interesting overview, but disappointing end.

[Ben Thurley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting, albeit odd, little essay, exploring the history of our views of what (if anything) makes us human, who is "us" and how and where you draw the boundary line, if there are any to draw. Fernandez-Armesto argues that our seemingly settled conception of humanity is being unsettled, or threatened, by greater understanding of how close to apes we are, by a concern to extend concern and even some thought of rights to other animals, by a greater appreciation of our evolutionary history, and by the rise of artificial intelligence.

Humanity, it seems, is an elastic concept.

Fernandez-Armesto leads us on a fascinating tour of pre-modern and "scientific" racism, of the cultural construction of monsters and strangers, of the continuity between human beings' crowning achievements (language, culture, etc.) and animal behaviour, and changing views of what constitutes human being. While this tour is always thoughtprovoking, I think he underplays the significance of human culture and history-making as of a different order (not merely a larger scale) to animal behaviour. Of course, these things are not unequivocally good, but then again very few things 'human' are.

[Aloysius · Rating 5 out of 5]

¿Qué es el ser humano?

¿Es un individuo que pertenezca a la especie Homo sapiens? ¿Entonces los neandertales no eran humanos? ¿Qué hay de los simios que se comunican con el lenguaje a señas y nos han demostrado que ríen, lloran, hacen berrinches y hacen amigos? ¿Tiene más derechos humanos un adulto en estado vegetativo, sin funciones cerebrales, que un no nato?

Responder a estas preguntas es más complejo de lo que uno imagina si aspira a ser justo e imparcial, pues ha tomado siglos plantear diversas posturas. Felipe Fernández-Armesto hace una extraordinaria sistematización de estas preguntas, ahondando en lo más profundo de nuestros prejuicios y develando lo frágil y superficial que puede ser el concepto "ser humano", analizando cuestiones biológicas, evolutivas, sociales y filosóficas.

¿Qué hay de diferencia entre el racismo esclavista de hace un par de siglos con nuestro actual especismo? Ahora es obvio que las personas de diferentes etnias somos en esencia iguales, con diferencias insignificantes en comparación de nuestras similitudes. ¿Qué tan tangible es nuestro concepto de alma para considerarlo exclusivo? ¿Qué tan única es la culturalidad, la civilidad? ¿Es suficiente ignorar el uso de herramientas entre aves, pulpos y monos, para sentirnos especiales? ¿O es esa necesidad de sentirnos especiales lo que nos distingue del resto de las especies?

******

What is a human being?

Is an individual belonging to the species Homo sapiens? So the Neanderthals were not human? What about the apes that communicate with sign language and have shown us that they laugh, cry, throw tantrums and make friends? Does an adult in a vegetative state, without brain functions, have more human rights than an unborn person?

Answering these questions is more complex than one imagines if one aspires to be fair and impartial, since it has taken centuries to put forward different positions. Felipe Fernández-Armesto makes an extraordinary systematization of these questions, delving into the depths of our prejudices and revealing how fragile and superficial the concept of "human being" can be, analyzing biological, evolutionary, social and philosophical issues.

What is the difference between the slave racism of a couple of centuries ago and our current speciesism? It is now obvious that people of different ethnicities are essentially the same, with insignificant differences compared to our similarities. How tangible is our concept of soul to consider it exclusive? How unique is culturality, civility? Is it enough to ignore the use of tools among birds, octopuses and monkeys, to feel special? Or is it that need to feel special that distinguishes us from the rest of the species?

[A. B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author charts a history of conceptions of humankind-- arguing that we can neither be defined by our biological nature nor by culture. The argument is that we are not sufficiently different from other creatures similar to us like chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans at a genetic level; nor are we particular unique in our cultural factors like tool-use and rationality which exists in these creatures at a rudimentary level as well. The author also charts a history of how humankind has been defined across time, and brings in Chinese accounts, Indian accounts, European encounters during the Age of Exploration etc. Our similarity with other hominids also raises the question of how we are different from them and whether they should be considered humans as well (a thankfully academic question) and whether rights should be extended to them as well. There is a weird digression about abortion, saying our tendency to not extend human rights to unborn foetuses claiming they are the great underprivileged minority of our duty and it is 'weaselly and wicked' to exclude them from humankind. The last chapter is the most interesting, albeit short, describing how genetic modification and cloning might lead us to change our definition of human further and charting a brief account of eugenic attempts to do the same. If we are not careful, we risk having a genetic elite of the rich among us.

Verdict: Full of interesting anecdotes but lacking in substance. The arguments for showing that the definition of 'humankind' is difficult is vacuous at worst, an academic matter at best. For all pragmatic purposes, we are able to work with a definition of humankind even if we cannot precisely pin down its boundaries. Yes, we are similar to hominids but this is again an academic question. Yes, we are similar to apes but sufficiently different for all purposes even if we cannot pin down exactly how. Perhaps it is a combination of factors which make us uniquely human. The last chapter on post-humankind was the most interesting and it does raise issues which should concern us all. All in all, a thankfully short book.

[Toby Newton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable, downbeat, sobering survey of human middlingness. Fernández-Armesto takes a dispassionate look at the stories we tell and try to tell about ourselves and finds that they don't really stack up in the scheme of things. Below the frothing surface swirl intolerance, self-service, and an impatience with the "many afflictions re-evaluated in societies becoming unused to frustration." His conclusion appears to be that we're less and more than we're cracked up to be, and coming to terms with that, while steeling ourselves for a re-think, would be a good idea.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this in a room I'd booked, so I spent the afternoon reading it. I liked the professor's more recent take on this idea, Out of Our Minds, which expands these early-millennial thoughts about what distinguishes us from "non-human animals." Turns out we're best at sweating and at throwing...~

[Ethan Hulbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is it to be human? This book delves into it, and the post-human future speculation was what I found most interesting. Will have to read this one again sometime.

[Rikke · Rating 3 out of 5]

was great until he said he was pro tighter abortion laws

[Marta Czamberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

hard read

[Ushan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an age that prides itself on its humanism and respect for human rights, we need to define, what it means to be human. All living humans belong to a single biological species, which is obviously a mammal most similar to apes, and less so to monkeys. When Europe learned about the great apes in the 17th and 18th century, it took a century to realize that these creatures are not human; even Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that orangutans are a variety of humans. We now know that the orangutans, the gorillas, the chimpanzees and the humans are different genera in the same family; Jared Diamond has proposed that the last three be reclassified as different species in the same genus. In the past few centuries, Western philosophers have built a wall between the humans and other animals; historically, the barrier was smaller: in medieval France, a loyal dog was unofficially venerated as a saint; Saint Francis of Assisi preached the Word of God to the birds. Trying to define, what makes humans special, runs into a problem: almost all the supposedly unique characteristics of humans are shared by the nonhuman great apes to some degree, and some of them are not shared by some human groups. Humans use tools, but then chimpanzees can hunt with spears, dig termite mounds with sticks, and crack nuts with two stones. Humans can control fire, except that some Aboriginal Australian bands couldn't, and had to rely on their neighbors' good graces. Humans have art for decoration; at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, female bonobos wore dead rats or cockroaches on their heads; the nomadic "Sea Gypsies of Malaya" studied in the early 20th century had no art. True, humans have language, and no one else does, but chimpanzees are better in nonverbal communication. Humans recognize themselves in the mirror after age 18 months, but so do many apes and even dolphins. Humans have cultural dietary prohibitions; in one part of Gabon, chimpanzees eat ants but not termites, and in another, termites but not ants. Humans have religion, but then Jane Goodall has observed chimpanzees doing a "rain dance" before a storm, perhaps trying to frighten away the forces of nature. During the Age of Exploration, the Europeans met a great many peoples of different skin colors with different levels of material culture. When black slaves were introduced to Europe, at first their human status was unquestioned; in a 16th century Portuguese comedy, the black slave outsmarts his white master. The Aztecs had a highly developed society; their priests mortified their flesh like Franciscan monks, and they stoned adulterous couples like the ancient Hebrews - surely, they were not inferior to their Spanish conquerors! It was only in the 19th century with the flourishing of imperialism, the decline of Christianity and the rise of biology that modern racism, or classifying some people as fully human, and some as subhuman, came about; it culminated in the Nazi genocide in the 1940s. Is a human being someone who behaves accordingly? Lemuel Gulliver thought so, stranded on an island populated by intelligent horses and unintelligent humans, and leaving it on a canoe covered with the skins of the latter. There is a Western tradition of contempt towards the savages and the barbarians, and another of admiration of their nobility, and their lack of contamination by the vices of civilization; the latter went from the 17th century French vogue for the Huron to Margaret Mead's 1920s fantasies about the Samoans, whose sexuality was supposedly free from Western hypocrisy.

By definition, human rights are rights enjoyed by all humans. However, any definition of individuals who should enjoy them other than the raw species boundary will necessarily either exclude some humans, or include some nonhumans, or both. Bertrand Russell warned of this: granting rights to apes will lead to "votes for oysters". In E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, two Christian missionaries tell a Hindu that God's grace falls on both black- and white-skinned people. What about the monkeys, asks the Hindu. The old missionary says, "No", but the young one says, "Yes." What about the jackals, the wasps, oranges, cactuses, crystals and mud, and bacteria? The young missionary changes the topic of the conversation.

[John]

This is a great little book about the notion "Human".

Throughout history, the writer shows, human beings in one part of the world have tried to deny the label "human" to other human beings. Meanwhile, animals of various kinds, chimpanzees and orang-utangs for example, have vied at times to be included in such a definition.

The idea of what it means to be human has thus shifted one way then the other, upwards and downwards, including some and excluding others, and it continues to do so today.

Interestingly and ironically, in the dim medieval past, black people, for instance, had been accorded (by whites) the label "human" and were "generally regarded as the equals of white people", the author says, and yet, in the recent past,they were denied it or their humanity was questioned.

[Needless to say that blacks themselves didn't think of each other as anything other than human; unless, of course, the black persons in question were from a disperate group of blacks; if so, as is the case globally, the one group of blacks would probably demonize the other, especially if they were enemies, and even define the other as anything but "human".:]

Even some white people, the wild, forest dwelling men (homo silvestris), of medieval imagination, feral children (homo ferens), or common criminals and prostitutes, have been on the verge of being disqualified, by so called learned men in various fields of study, of inclusion in the human family.

Eugenics, modern genetics, bio-engineering, and cloning continue to challenge what it means to be "human". Technological advances have stretched the idea of humanity further. Can, for example, the following be considered to be human: the unborn, the aged and sick, the mentally ill, those in a "persistent vegetative state"? Where do we draw the line between a bundle of cells and a human being? Is someone who is "brain dead" worthy of being treated as a human being compared to, say, a clear thinking chimp which is fully aware of its environment? How do we decide when to terminate the life of an unborn child, a brain dead patient, an aged person who wishes to die rather than be a burden on others? How will we describe those future people, genetically engineered or part human part machine, the cyborgs to come? Decisions about where to draw the boundary lines for what it means to be "human", the author argues, remain illusive.

If you've ever wondered what it means to be human you should read this book; if you haven't, this is the time to do so, and this book is a good place to start!

If you read this book, it would be worth reading "Exterminate the Brutes" by Sven Lindqvist. He deals with similar issues in a similarly short, but more shocking, treatise!

[Mikael Lind · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It's a fast-paced read, short in length yet packed with information and great in depth. Fernández-Armesto's great knowledge of history and anthropology makes this book into something more interesting than most of the popular neuropsychological "this is your brain on..." books of our time.
Fernández-Armesto touches on a broad range of topics, ranging from biological questions about the differences and similarities between humans and animals and mankind's different attempts of classifying human beings (and the different racist perversions of biology), to philosophical speculations about why the question about what makes us human can be so difficult to answer.
(If you haven't yet read the book, and ask yourself why it should be so difficult to define humanity, Fernández-Armesto gives a lot of reasons in this book, and they are all well argued for and fascinating, so to soothe your curiosity, I suggest you read the book.)
Parts of this book work as a philosophical supplement to David Attenborough. Remember how you sometimes feel after having seen an episode showing some of the amazing adaptations and genius solutions to problems that animals sometimes display, and you feel like... how do they do it? With their minuscule brains? Fernández-Armesto makes it perfectly clear that many of the things we think of as belonging only to the human race can also be found elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and makes an especially for the cognitive capacities of apes.
Being a linguist, often pondering about how language reflects society, I easily thought of some examples of how we speak derogatory of animals: "you're an animal", "you're a pig", "stop monkeying around", and so on. I'm not saying that this is wrong and that people should stop saying these things, but I'm claiming that these examples reflect a certain attitude in our society.
This is a good philosophy book, drawing on examples from many different fields and reflecting upon them. It leaves many questions unanswered, but by asking questions and making the reader ask questions and look differently upon himself/herself, it has filled its purpose. I read this book in a few evenings, and found it hard to put down. Well-written, well-argued and fascinating

[Stephen Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd take away the sense of discovering "noble savagery" and the idea's locus in the idealism of Nature---perhaps the reaction of European Romanticism to the Enlightenment. This may have been the prevailing sensibility before Thomas Hobbes declared the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".... Fernandez-Armesto appears to follow historicism in his treatment of the notion of humankind, and perhaps there is no other path. Especially in the chapters that move from animal-reductionism, to anthropology, culture, the legal-environmental-human-rights milieu, to genetic technology, eugenics, and robotics and AI, the palpability isn't there of the ephemeral construct being exposed, it slips in the grand scheme, and perhaps the panorama could only succeed in the particulars of apperception, in the state that ascribes the experience of being human to becoming human.

[Persephone Abbott · Rating 2 out of 5]

One may ask oneself instead what is the reward of being human? A long illustrious line of ancestors? Superior Darwin Award Statues a la Maltese Falcon? Playing God? Owning space? Rattling coins, gambling on the creation of sub species folders? This essay has some wit in it, and then it gets somewhat lost among bad science project reviews. Still, an interesting romp through human fallacy. Now I’ve got to go do something really useful and wander off to teach a singing lesson, find some spare change under a rock.

[Chris Lynch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pithy, wide-ranging little book.

[Juan Manuel Charry Urueña · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es sugestivo, pues invita a pensar en qué es la naturaleza humana y el alcance de sus derechos.

[Ozzie]

I liked it.