It is a fascinating term: Homo sapiens sapiens. It points to the self-consciousness of the human being. Man is not only born to become wise, there is a wisdom that makes this ‘sapiens’ more and more perfect: that is the wisdom with which one can know oneself.
In daily life we have a natural self-consciousness that is a gift of nature. When we are awake we all know, that we exist. It is the body that seems to give us this knowledge about existence. When we fall asleep, we forget that we are there, and when we wake up, we become aware of it again.
So, from a physical point of view this sapiens sapiens seems to be given by certain activities of the senses and the brain. But the awareness that one is there cannot be called wisdom yet. We are gifted with a higher faculty of knowing that we are there. When we take the term ‘sapiens sapiens’ serious, we find an exciting idea about being human. It would mean that we don’t only have the possibility to know that we exist, but also know ourselves becoming wiser and wiser, and to know that we can have this knowledge in a wise way. Sapiens sapiens.
From the moment I realized this, I felt a kind of moral affection. It would mean that there is a possibility to observe one’s own growing wisdom wisely. But then we would also have the faculty to see the lack of wisdom, the absence or shortage of knowing the truth. And it seems to me that it is the first step of homo sapiens to homo sapiens sapiens to get used to an awareness of something that is lacking something: the absolute sureness that one can have, when one does not know the truth. The first truth that we can have in absolute sureness is: I don’t know the truth in this or that situation, in this or that scientific question, in this or that political problem. It is a negative truth, but nevertheless a truth. The first lesson in being wise in wisdom is that one learns to be aware when something is indefinable, not complete.
The only way in which we can learn to be honest with ourselves about having or not having the truth is, that we learn to be aware that we are there, but not only as a physical existing being, but also as a knowing, moral being. This awareness can become more and more clear and differentiated a growing wisdom of human wisdom, which is a moral wisdom.
One develops a new sense, a ‘sapient’ sense that is apt for becoming aware of sapience. And by developing this sense one finds the true concept of what is called ‘belief’. If we can achieve a clear concept of ‘belief’, we can learn to distinguish a believed truth from a actual truth. It is not an awareness that is a kind of mindfulness. It is a thoughtful thinking that becomes clearer in every step that is taken. The second ‘sapiens’ brings us in a higher level than the mere human physical one.
Human thinking becomes the wisdom of being wise, and that is what we need to develop to be sure that we seek the truth in the layer of thinking that belongs to moral humanity. It is a self-conscious thinking that can learn to distinguish between truth and doubts or unconscious beliefs that dim our truthfulness. We need these differentiations to get a consciousness about the layers in which it is possible to think – or be thought.
In the next blog I will try to point out how science is partly based on beliefs, not only on evidence.
Annunciation, Angel by Fra AngelicoHomo sapiens sapiens by Mieke Mosmuller
