La perception ontogénétique de la nature humaine : une réflexion sur la philosophie de Jean-Pierre Changeux

Abstract

The question of the ontogenetic perception of human nature in the philosophy of Jean-Pierre Changeux, finds ist foundation in the "educated materialism" according to which our brain functions, our sensations and our thoughts are "the product of the organization" of the matter. In this work, it is a question of answering the question of knowing: what is it that objectively or scientifically founds human nature? Human nature is a product of a bio-historical evolution of man or the consequence of a certain transcendence? For Changeux, man is a given of matter that evolves ontogenetically; that is to say from the embryonic phase to maturation. It is understood from the smallest cell or DNA to the higher functionalities of his brain. This materialist or physicalist posture of human nature is the antithesis of the metaphysical and spiritualist theses of the immaterial essence of man, postulated since Antiquity with thinkers such as Plato and later Descartes. Thus the problem of the foundation of human nature arises. However, according to Changeux, human nature comes from two sources: historical and biological. The first shows that Homo sapiens is the result of a long evolutionary history of a common ancestor of Australopithecus about three to four million years ago. The second, biological can be assimilated to ontogeny or biogenic and epigenetic development of the individual. This bio-historical process of human nature is in line with the democratitean atomistic mechanical materialism and Darwinian evolutionism which, dialectically; will be surpassed by "educated materialism"; that is to say, "projective"putting movement ant organization at the center of the matter. Thus, the brain appears as to be viscera of thought, knowledge and intelligence, but not the prerogative of an immaterial soul. Changeux will thus substitute Descartes "I think therefore I am" for the "I have a brain therefore I think". He will try to answer the Socratic anthropological question according to which: "Man know yourself, you know the gods and the universe", to that: "Man know your cerebral organization, you will know your health and a successful life". Such is the double epistemological and neuro-pedagogical scope of his philosophy as a pledge of a new anthropological humanism. The achievement of such a result has allowed us to adopt an analytical and critical approach that that human nature, is a dynamic construction which must also take into account the bio-historical character that the meta-cerebral of the human