Destructiveness: An Inner Drive of the Human Nature or a Fact of the Social Structure?

Year 2018, , 119 - 129, 20.06.2018

Ömer Ersin Kahraman

https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.405209

Abstract

According to natural sciences, destructivity is related to the competitive state of the natural selection. In this sense, nature is considered like a battlefield where all creatures only seek for their own survival in an unending rivalry. However, that perception of nature was not invented by natural sciences insofar as this pseudo-reality of universal conflict was already present in philosophy as a reflection of the social structure of the 16th and 17th centuries. Scientists borrowed that vision of nature as they observed the social structure in which they lived as universal and the state of war as an undeniable fact. This article aims to raise the question about the influence of political philosophy on the scientific paradigm and to understand the political and social source of destructiveness.

Keywords

Destructiveness, natural science, human nature, social structure, political philosophy

References

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