What Does It Mean to Be Human? Looking at Bonobos

One day during class, when asked to give a definition of ‘Man,’ Plato claimed that man was a bipedal animal with no fur or feathers. Maybe this is what he imagined.

The next day his student Diogenes came back to class with a plucked chicken and said, “Here is Plato’s man.”

Diogenes was pointing out the difficulty in defining how humans are difficult from animals.

Humans are animals that . . . Pair work Come up with as many definitions of humans as you can using the form: Humans are animals that . . .

We are now going to watch a short video on Bononobos We are now going to watch a short video on Bononobos. Your job is to take notes and then write a comparison paragraph on the extraordinary ways in which Bonobos are similar to humans.

hard-wired in the brain But first here are some terms you will need: walking bipedal egalitarian society causal thought hard-wired in the brain