Rational animal
The term rational animal (Latin: animal rationale or animal rationabile) refers to a classical definition of humanity or human nature, associated with Aristotelianism.[1]
For the animal welfare organization, see Rational Animal (organization).Modern use[edit]
Freud was as aware as any of the irrational forces at work in humankind, but he nevertheless resisted what he called too much "stress on the weakness of the ego in relation to the id and of our rational elements in the faced of the daemonic forces within us".[8]
Neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer, in his work An Essay on Man (1944), altered Aristotle's definition to label man as a symbolic animal. This definition has been influential in the field of philosophical anthropology, where it has been reprised by Gilbert Durand, and has been echoed in the naturalist description of man as the compulsive communicator.[9]
Sociologists in the tradition of Max Weber distinguish rational behavior (means-end oriented) from irrational, emotional or confused behavior, as well as from traditional-oriented behavior, but recognise the wide role of all the latter types in human life.[10]
Ethnomethodology sees rational human behavior as representing perhaps one-tenth of the human condition, dependent on the nine-tenths of background assumptions which provide the frame for means-end decision making.[11]
In his An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, Bertrand Russell argues against the idea that man is rational, saying "Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it."[12]