I think saying that a living organism is biological and not some supernatural entity is a little like saying that a rock is "physical" and is not merely that part of the physical that some call the mental. These are natural-kind terms that in an everyday conversation we use in common sense ways. To say that homo sapiens sapiens is not a biological organism, and what ever makes human history, personality, etc does not somehow, we don't know how, come out of our biological nature, does not make sense as a starting point for discussion, unless one wants to start from a "spiritual premise" of some kind.
These may be tautologies but sometimes you must agree on the tautologies in order to have a good conversation.
Jerry
Possibly there are no propositions of the form "Humans are X" that are
> both coherent and non-tautological. At least I've never come across a
> coherent discussion in which participants try to draw concrete
> conclusions starting out with universal propositions about humans.
>
> Carrol
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-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
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