Not a featherless biped! Unamuno, Life 1.2
Mankind
for Unamuno is individuals, not the collective. Behavior, not ideas. You can hear me read this passage <here>.
Porque
hay otra cosa, que llaman también hombre, y es el sujeto de no pocas
divagaciones más o menos científicas. Y es el bípedo implume de la
leyenda, el πολιτικὸν ζῷον de Aristóteles, el
contratante social de Rousseau, el homo oeconomicus de los
manchesterianos, el homo sapiens de Linneo o, si se quiere, el
mamífero vertical. Un hombre que no es de aquí o de allí, ni de
esta época o de la otra, que no tiene ni sexo ni patria, una idea,
en fin. Es decir, un no hombre.
El
nuestro es otro, el de carne y hueso; yo, tú, lector mío; aquel
otro de más allá, cuantos pensamos sobre la Tierra. Y este hombre
concreto, de carne y hueso, es el sujeto y el supremo objeto a la vez
de toda filosofía, quiéranlo o no ciertos sedicentes filósofos.
There
is another thing they call man,
and he is the subject of quite a bit of speculation, more or less
scientific. This is the featherless biped of legend, the political
animal of Aristotle, the signatory
party to Rousseau's social contract, the homo oeconomicus
of the Manchesterians (†),
the homo sapiens of
Linnaeus, or if you prefer, the mammal that goes upright. A man who
is not from here or there, who is not from this age nor any other,
who has neither sex nor homeland—an idea, in sum. In other words,
not a man.
Our
man is different, the man of flesh and bone. You and I, dear reader,
and that other fellow over there, and as many more as we may reckon
over all the earth. This man, concrete rather than abstract, is the
subject and at the same time the ultimate object of all philosophy,
whatever some self-styled philosophers may say.
---
(†)
A political movement from nineteenth-century Manchester, in England.
Led by Richard Cobden (1804-1865) and John Bright (1811-1889), the
Manchesterians supported free trade (ending mercantilism,
specifically the Corn Laws that imposed tariffs on imported grain),
an end to wars abroad, the abolition of slavery, freedom of the
press, and the separation of church and state. Benjamin Disraeli was
the first to dub their approach 'the School of Manchester'.