Human Nature in Its Psychological Dimensions

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IF BY is meant the character . .. of a particular thing (Nature, in Webster International Dictionary) then a concept of human nature must satisfy two criteria: It must designate a class, human, on the basis of those character(s) common to the members of the class; and it must distinguish this class from the class, infrahuman, whose members do not share these character(s). Psychology and anthropology have arrived at peculiarly different conclusions with respect to the possibility of such a classification. While asserting the existence of a nature common to all humans, psychology has questioned the existence of essential differences between humans and infrahumans. Anthropology, on the contrary, has distinguished humans from infrahumans, but has entertained serious doubts concerning character(s) universal among humans. In short, both disciplines have tended to deny the existence of a generic human nature. An examination of the psychological dimensions of human nature must come to terms with these two positions.