Symbol And The Essence Of Human Being

It is a permanent theme of philosophy to concern the essence of human being. As a being with self-consciousness, people will never stop pursuing the essence. Nowadays, science is changing quickly, but human self-cognition is falling into a crisis. In order to solve this problem, Cassirer describes human as a'symbolic animal'. As a carrier of the human'significance, symbol differs from animal sign. It possesses four significant characters, namely universality, variety, abstractness and creativity. These characters allow us to surpass the animal'instinct and exert the function of symbol. It forms self-consciousness, promotes social communication, and has great impact on human cognition and practice. In a word, human being is a kind of animal who can create culture through symbols. But social practice is the unification of symbol with the essence of human being ultimately. It is impossible to form symbol without social practice. It is of great significance to analyze the essence of human being from this angle. It finds a new way to study human, makes up the gulf between the natural science and humanity science, and deepens the essence conception of Marxism.