In class on Wednesday, we discussed Aristotle's claim that humans are social animals. Among the examples of humans' social natures we brought up were interpersonal relationships and also the possession of material objects created by other humans. There is also another important aspect of humanity's social nature which we touched on only very briefly, and upon which I would like elaborate slightly here - knowledge.
Even in the event that a human being is deposited, with no material possessions whatsoever, upon an island previously untouched by human activity, and manages to create tools and survive, that human is in fact relying on some sort of socialization. This is because, in order to know which tools to create, what resources to find, and how to create and find these things, the human is relying on knowledge about surviving gained from years of living amongst other humans.
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