The human condition encompasses the unique and believed to be inescapable features of being human.
It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not dependent on factors such as gender, race or class. It includes concerns such as the meaning of life, the search for gratification, the sense of curiosity, the inevitability of isolation, or anxiety regarding the inescapability of death.
The “human condition” is principally studied through the set of disciplines and sub-fields that make up the humanities. The study of history, philosophy, literature, and the arts all help us to understand the nature of the human condition and the broader cultural and social arrangements that make up human lives.
The human condition is the subject of such fields of study as philosophy, theology, sociology, psychology, anthropology, demographics, evolutionary biology, cultural studies, and sociobiology. The philosophical school of existentialism deals with core issues related to the human condition including the ongoing search for ultimate meaning.
Read more about Human Condition: Notable Theories, Use of The Term
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or condition:
“Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)
“We know of no scripture which records the pure benignity of the gods on a New England winter night. Their praises have never been sung, only their wrath deprecated. The best scripture, after all, records but a meagre faith. Its saints live reserved and austere. Let a brave, devout man spend the year in the woods of Maine or Labrador, and see if the Hebrew Scriptures speak adequately to his condition and experience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)