Man-Animal

@sometime sun,

To be tamed one would have to have a higher order animal delineating what it is to be tame and exercising authority/breeding/feeding/care.... so it is possible that we are tame and our master is the omnipresent superorganism-culture/society

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@sometime sun,

Just curious as to what you are addressing in Plato? Could you please refer us to the dialogue and to where we can find this idea so we can discuss it in further depth?

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@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead;104764 wrote:

To be tamed one would have to have a higher order animal delineating what it is to be tame and exercising authority/breeding/feeding/care.... so it is possible that we are tame and our master is the omnipresent superorganism-culture/society

This does not really answer, is man a tame animal, it solves for you of the question asking, is someone (not necessarily man) born wild?
And maybe goes onto asert/answer of the unasked question, what is it that tames a person? (not necessarily man).
You are giving to example od example.
You have not answered the question, even if what you say is correct.

I have changed my mind it doesn't solve 'is anyone born wild?'
All it does it asert there is transformation, it has little to do with wild or tame.
Master and servant one would think are good examples for answering or solving this question, but may not be as they are established rolls, they are still both wild and tame for the transformation they give and or recieve. They are still not defined as tame or wild? As both could be used to transform one into tame man or transform one into wild man. Just as they are the transformee. The servant could tame a master as well as make wild a master as master could do the same for servant. But i am putting words or intentions into your supposition that may not be there or need to be, but this is where it comes to answering a Platonic question, due process.
(I am still not sure the question has anything to do with wildness)
Elabourate so we can see if it fits.

To be availed tamed, one may therefore be wild?
To be availed tamed, one may not therefore be wild?
But this question does not ask about the process of taming.
Is man a tame animal?
Must we ask about process in order to answer it?
This process does in some extent actually say we are not tame, and that it needs to be learned (your supposition) taught.
But it goes onto progression rather than what the question is asking which is stationary.
Is man a tame animal?
Not, 'is man trainable?'.
Unless you are actually answering the question 'No, man is not a tame animal'?
Which although i have just put words into your supposition i am not sure you are saying this.
If it helps break the question down for us both to see how you do this.
I will try later perhaps to do so also.
By the way Thanks for your reply

---------- Post added 11-22-2009 at 01:34 AM ----------

Theaetetus;104792 wrote:

Just curious as to what you are addressing in Plato? Could you please refer us to the dialogue and to where we can find this idea so we can discuss it in further depth?

Sorry for not being more clear about this and will go away now and try and find what and where it was that Plato placed and asked this question of me.
I think it was in Meno, i will find it and quote it to you.
I have come to this area because i wanted to do a little Platonic process with the question rather than just simply answering it, but the intention is still there that i want it answered. If indeed it can be to my full satisfaction.
But it has more to do with the question and answering it than Platonic view, than from the specific piece, I dont want the question to get waylayed by the magnitude of something like Meno wholeness even if a little process from this is welcome, i just want the answer to solving the question and then answering it, i dont want History i dont want circumstance i want a bit of process and an answer.
Is this agreeable? Is this proper?
There are many questions that Plato Socrates asks that we never get round to answering, like in previous Euthyphro 'What is pious and impious?'
No one answered this for me, so I am trying to make it more about the question even if i am letting on who the author is.
Thanks and will have it for you by tomorrow hopefully.

edit; and as i am almost sure it comes from Meno i am not sure i want it to turn into an anamnesis question although this may be harder to omit than to include.

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@sometime sun,

Quote:

STRANGER: One is the hunting of tame, and the other of wild animals.

THEAETETUS: But are tame animals ever hunted?

STRANGER: Yes, if you include man under tame animals. But if you like you may say that there are no tame animals, or that, if there are, man is not among them; or you may say that man is a tame animal but is not hunted-you shall decide which of these alternatives you prefer.

THEAETETUS: I should say, Stranger, that man is a tame animal, and I admit that he is hunted.

As you can see i was wrong it does not come form Meno, it comes from the Sophist, hope this helps, but as i said it was a question i asked of myself because of this and is a valid and good question, so aside from all that is Platonic, Is man a tame animal?

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@sometime sun,

Well, I think to an extent that man is a tame animal. Our past is grounded in that of a beast, and our evolution into a creature of civilization is a recent advancement in our evolutionary history. Not to mention, our years of conditioning in youth tames our instincts to an extent in order to live within society.

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@sometime sun,

sometime sun;104750 wrote:

IS MAN A TAME ANILMAL?

I came close to answering this once.
But found I had only come one step closer to solving what the question is asking, not as i seems anywhere closer to the answering of it.
My conclusion (partial and brief though it may be) is that it is asking and agrees we are both a man and a animal asking the question. (but not as the animal may, insist upon the answer)
There, any help in answering it would be great.

Man is an animal. But he is not a beast.

1 : any of a kingdom (Animalia) of living things including many-celled organisms and often many of the single-celled ones (as protozoans) that typically differ from plants in having cells without cellulose walls, in lacking chlorophyll and the capacity for photosynthesis, in requiring more complex food materials (as proteins), in being organized to a greater degree of complexity, and in having the capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid motor responses to stimulation.

Merriam-Webster.

All beasts are animals, but not all animals are beasts. Man and beasts differ in a number of important ways, one of which is that Men (human beings) can speak, and reason in many important ways beasts cannot.

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@sometime sun,

Sun:
I'm not sure that you really understand the difference between tame, wild and domesticated. Wild animals are wild, tamed animals are wild animals that are less likely to be dangerous due to training, domestic animals or at the very least domesticable animals are animal species that have a certain set of traits that make their permanent domestication possible. Thus the wild acting domestic animals are called feral, not wild. Tamed wild animals that act wild are just wild animals. So the real question is are we wild and forced under control by something (tamed), always on the verge of wildness or are we domesticated/domesticable? Homo sapiens show all the hallmarks of a domesticated animal herd/pack mentality, sharply delineated heirarchies, natural grouping cohesion, submission to authority but for the most part not lethal challenges to it etc...

In my above post I was alluding to a possible force that might make a wild species tame it was not an attempt to answer the question it was an attempt to sur the question into something more accurately asked. My answer would be; in reality humans are a domesticated self domesticating species.

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@Theaetetus,

Theaetetus;105228 wrote:

Well, I think to an extent that man is a tame animal. Our past is grounded in that of a beast, and our evolution into a creature of civilization is a recent advancement in our evolutionary history. Not to mention, our years of conditioning in youth tames our instincts to an extent in order to live within society.

Our past is an interesting place to start (although we dont), begs the interest, Are man and animal different? If so what came first? and whatever the answer are we man or animal what we are made from? Or are we man or animal what we have become? This is to do with time but not necessarily evolution.
I do not want to quibble but for the sake of this beast=animal, raw state if you will, (because to make destinction you answer that animal is something imagined rather than progenitor, so in a sense you answer the question than man is not an animal at all because animal does not have sway over the answer as to where he has come from, if you are saying at all that man started as a beast and then became/evolved into man) animal that beginning we are going forward into man. Which would also answer for you that man is not an animal at all unless he learns how not to be.
Or has man that part of the design so was always man?
Evolution or creation?, Creation or evolution? are the two intertwined?
Talking of past, were we than destined to be man thereofre always were and always held it, were it, just didn't know how to use it.
Is a man ever not a man?
We have the equipment, just no way to know how to tame ourselves or by example, but someone must have first come up with the rule, law, reason, ability concept origin to be able to show it to their own and or force it upon others. 'You will be man, you will be.' Very Happy

(not animal)
Was this the first man or was (he/man it/beast) he always man, just didn't know he wasn't animal? (fool around with this question)
Was there a first man, and to become man you had to learn from him or for yourself. Is all learning self awareness or self imprisonment?
Self not yet having been established.
Is man born an animal? may be a good place to start if we have a finish in mind?

---------- Post added 11-24-2009 at 12:32 AM ----------

kennethamy;105231 wrote:

Man is an animal. But he is not a beast.

1 : any of a kingdom (Animalia) of living things including many-celled organisms and often many of the single-celled ones (as protozoans) that typically differ from plants in having cells without cellulose walls, in lacking chlorophyll and the capacity for photosynthesis, in requiring more complex food materials (as proteins), in being organized to a greater degree of complexity, and in having the capacity for spontaneous movement and rapid motor responses to stimulation.

Merriam-Webster.

All beasts are animals, but not all animals are beasts. Man and beasts differ in a number of important ways, one of which is that Men (human beings) can speak, and reason in many important ways beasts cannot.

Would you agree man can be a beast, not become, be?
Man may be an animal but is he an animal called learned equipped as 'man'?
Is he an animal evolved into man or just manimal?
My previous conscription that it was both man as man and man as animal (or animal as man) asking the question (is man a tame animal?) hold with the manimal prospect, you can be both man or animal and ask and or inquisite.
Curiousity killed more than just the cat.

So were we ever just animals beasts, or just with potential to net be?
Or is this potential something manish and the potential exceeds the situational?
Are we not by creation and design ability always man, or do we have to earn it?
Even still today?
Am i born man?

---------- Post added 11-24-2009 at 12:44 AM ----------

GoshisDead, i am not ignoring you, i need my sleep, i will consider your thoughts tomorrow. Thanks though.

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@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead;105445 wrote:

Sun:
I'm not sure that you really understand the difference between tame, wild and domesticated. Wild animals are wild, tamed animals are wild animals that are less likely to be dangerous due to training, domestic animals or at the very least domesticable animals are animal species that have a certain set of traits that make their permanent domestication possible. Thus the wild acting domestic animals are called feral, not wild. Tamed wild animals that act wild are just wild animals. So the real question is are we wild and forced under control by something (tamed), always on the verge of wildness or are we domesticated/domesticable? Homo sapiens show all the hallmarks of a domesticated animal herd/pack mentality, sharply delineated heirarchies, natural grouping cohesion, submission to authority but for the most part not lethal challenges to it etc...

In my above post I was alluding to a possible force that might make a wild species tame it was not an attempt to answer the question it was an attempt to sur the question into something more accurately asked. My answer would be; in reality humans are a domesticated self domesticating species.

You are absolutely correct, I do not know the difference (but personaly) between tame, wild and domesticated, this is why i ask, Is man a tame animal?
but would ask, does wild always precede tame, even domesticate?
Is tame and domestic the same state, what are the similarities, what are the differences?
Is tame not a state outside of tutorial?
Do the traits make for a already tame animal if not always yet as domesticated?
Can you be tame and not as yet domesticated?

Premanency being the progenitor application?
Feral then is not wild, is taught or learned?
Is man a tame animal?
Is man a wild animal?
Is it only the animal part that is the origniator?
Or is man the origin of said same human animal?

So the real question is are we wild and forced under control by something (tamed), always on the verge of wildness or are we domesticated/domesticable?
Another real question would be, Are we tame and forced under control by something (wild), always on the verge of tameness or are we feral/ferocious fed?

Submission to authority, relatively recent. And still ongoing, we must submit in order to survive because there are that many of us, which means as the populace grows so does the need for submission.
So to ask this question of Plato would be a differnt expression because there weren't as many people reliant upon the level of authority for submission.
Are we more submisive today than then?
Are we more tame today than then? Are we more wild?

---------- Post added 11-25-2009 at 12:23 AM ----------

So you agree thet man is indeed a tame animal?
Domesticatable self.

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@sometime sun,

Tamed and Domesticated, tamed is a wild born animal brought under control. Domestic is an animal bred for human use. A domesticable animal is an animal with behavioral properties that lend it to being domesticated, properties of which normally, housecats aside, are similar to human tendencies. Feral is a domestic animal left to its own devices that have started to mimic the behavior of wild animals because humans are not providing for it any longer.

Subjection to authority is not new, all primates, even ones that spend most of their lives alone do it, they can't help but do it. Chickens do it, Cows do it, Horses do it, Sheep do it etc... Put two people in a room and within 2 minutes a heirarchy of authority will be created, normally without any sort of outward confrontation. The difference between raaw physical authority and political authority is one of scale and scope, not one of function and behavior.

Can human ever be wild? all of us are born into a system and bred to serve that system, a sytem made of humans for the general benefit of humans. It is exactly these domstic traits that enable humanity to be what we are. If we were rational intelligent jaguars, we would not likely have done much but be successful hunters, or rather we would have never evolved as the rational intelligent species we are. Culture is a virus and material cultur doubly so, these things require social relations

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