The human condition can be defined as the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed from many perspectives, including those of art, biology, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religion.
Philosophers have provided many perspectives. An influential ancient view was that of the Republic in which Plato explored the question "what is justice?" and postulated that it is not primarily a matter among individuals but of society as a whole, prompting him to devise a utopia. Two thousand years later René Descartes declared "I think, therefore I am" because he believed the human mind, particularly its faculty of reason, to be the primary determiner of truth; for this he is often credited as the father of modern philosophy.[3] One such modern school, existentialism, attempts to reconcile an individual's sense of disorientation and confusion in a universe believed to be absurd.
Many works of literature provide a perspective on the human condition.[2] One famous example is Shakespeare's monologue "All the world's a stage" which pensively summarizes seven phases of human life.[4]
Charles Darwin established the biological theory of evolution, which posits that the human species is related to all others, living and extinct, and that natural selection is the primary survival factor. This led to subsequent beliefs, such as social Darwinism, which eventually lost its connection to natural selection,[6] and theistic evolution of a creator deity acting through laws of nature, including evolution.[7]
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Human_experience, and is written by contributors.
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