Human Versus Nonhuman: Binary Opposittion As an Ordering Principle of Western Human Thought

Although they have a long Western history, philosophical and otherwise, binary oppositions are not by any means endemic to the Western world. They are pan-cullural phenomena. The purpose of this paper, however, is to examine a fundamental binary opposition that, in its mode of expression in Western culture, is endemic: the human/nonhuman opposition. Its indigenous signature is readily apparent in the fact that it subsumes other oppositions basic to Western ways of thinking. Subsumed in its compass are the oppositions nature/culture, mind/body, thinking/doing, reason/ emotion. Subsumed also are subsidiary oppositions, ones having to do generally with behavior or behavioral capability ascriptions such as learned/instinctual, future planning/immediate action, articulate/mute, and the like. Following a brief historical introduction, what the examination will show first, in a quite summary way, is how the subsumption works; what it will show second is how the fundamental binary opposition is an ordering principle of thought that is inconsistently applied and that disregards a basic tenet of evolutionary theory; what it will show third is how the categorical and uneven opposition is evidentially unsound, myopically self-serving, and for philosophers especially, a particularly thin justification for cherishing their species.