What Makes Man Truly Human?

Man is born knowing nothing in this world. But the question is, what makes man truly human? I believe

that, what makes man truly human is when man allows himself to be free and to discover the potentialities that are

naturally in him. As man makes himself free, he will be able to understand the world with consciousness, thinking

of knowing the right from wrong towards the people around him. In seeking, man sees the characteristics that a

human being should strive to develop for man to be called truly human.

There are fullness of life which human being can attain. As man develops, he will be able to reach a state

of fullness or excellence. Through development, man opens himself to different possibilities. Man will have the

ability to decide whether to do something or not after having analysed the options, pros and cons. Man will also

have an open-ended ability to imagine and reflect on different situations, that might lead to a deep-seated drive to

link the scenarios building in his mind together. As what Martin Heidegger says, man is “being-ahead-of-itself”1

Martin Heidegger`s quotation is related to Sartre`s which is, “Man is nothing else but that which he

makes of himself”.2 For Sartre man is not simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as

he conceives himself after already existing, as he wills to be after that leap towards existence.

I do believe that as man makes himself free, he will be able to try to understand life and get a grip on the

many facet of life, because it can be of great value for a man to learn to recognize the fundamental principles of

how life is lived to the fullest. Learning to recognize the good and evil forces of life helps man to make use of the

good ones for a man to be a fully developed human being. Perhaps it is useful to quote Socrates who once wrote,

“The unexamined life is unworthy of living.” 3 For Socrates, lives spent examining morality and living virtuously,

though meaningful, may be less rewarding, less happy, and not as fulfilling as some meaningful unexamined ones.

1
This is one of the characters of man as Dasein according to Heidegger. It means that man is capable of planning his future which is
ahead of his present time. This is only possible when man understand his own facticity or throwness into the world. He knows that he is
born in a certain and specific condition and understands his facticity as not of his own making. By understanding, he also accepts.
Through this, the world has already a meaning but Dasein reinterprets the given meaning of world by creating a new meaning
depending on his project towards the future. Despite of man’s throwness, he is still free to choose how is going to appropriate meaning
for himself towards future possibilities.
2
Jean-Paul Sartre, “ Man makes himself” [ online article] http://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/articles/sartre-a.pdf ( Retrieved on Febuary
26, 2017 )
3
Mark Maller, “The Unexamined Life Is Worth Living: A Socratic Perspective “ [online article]
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-2999120201/the-unexamined-life-is-worth-living-a-socratic-perspective ( Retrieved on
March 4, 2017 )
 There are certain characteristics or skills that a human being should strive to develop in order to

be truly human. The skills that man should develop in oder to be truly human are his bodily skills, social skills,

communication skills and his mental abilities.

Thus, what makes man truly human is when a man allows himself to discover many potentialities that

are naturally in him. These potentialities are not only embedded in his soul. He is born with it and made for it. In

seeking he makes himself ‘free’ as he opens himself to many possibilities. Through freedom, man becomes

responsible and understands himself more and the world that he lives in with more concern towards others who are

also free. In such an understanding of life, the fully human person is one who lives a life of a completely developed

human being.