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Allright, I'll throw out a few things, but they may not necessarily jive with your essay.

In asking any question, rather I should say trying to find an answer, it always hels that both the question and the answer are somewhat well defined. There may somewhere be a mathematical approach to it, which we don't know, but think about this. If you ask a priest what a man is, then ask a doctor, then ask a politician, you will probably get pretty different answers.

So that in a way indicates we haven't phrased the question in a precise way. We can flip a coin, and look at it as it lies on the floor, and answer the question about which side came up. But if somebody asked me "what is man" today, and I gave them an answer, they might well return tomorrow, ask me again, and get a somewhat different answer!

I am not invalidating the question. It is a very good question, for precisely that reason. To answer the question, we have to come up with enough bits and pieces to satisfy the priest, and the doctor, and the politician. So the answer has to be a very global type answer.
Physical
Spiritual
Emotional
Intellectual
Spiritual

Physically, man is not tremendously different from a large number of animals. Observations of species, not only mammalian, show many to be omnivores. Our tendency to build structures to inhabit is not unlike many activities in the animal kingdom, it is a difference of complexity, not purpose. Yet is physicallness enough to define man? Definitely not, as studies of feral humans have shown them to never really reach any semblence of what might be called human.

To be continued...

Anyways, physical, continued. Trying to write this inbetween making dinner and rebuilding my rototiller.

A somewhat cursory look at physical seems to make that quality not particularly needed for humaness. I think there is a natural tendency to do this when philosophers describe man.

That would make man very intrinsically different from say, a dog, who seems to be driven and build entirely on his physical structure. Man, we argue, has qualities vastly different from a dog, it is a qualitative difference, not a quantitative one.

But there are those who would argue against this point. Dancers, for instance. Prostitutes another. So we cannot delete the physical side to soon, we must admit that form and function are highly intertwined, but I won't now get into a chicken or the egg argument about that.

But it cannot be emphasized enough that when the question "What is man" is asked, it goes well beyond the physical. Mans physical needs are no different from other animals. One relation I'd like to mention though, is this: Man, as a physical creature, is not very threatening. He's not equipped with huge teeth, or tremendously bulging muscles. He can't jump or run very much faster or higher than most creatures. Man's relative lack of fierceness can only be explained by his head.

More to follow, I am trying to dovetail this with Betty's stuff...

Physically, man is not tremendously different from a large number of animals... Yet is physicallness enough to define man?

Apparently not, djf. What decisively separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom is that man, unlike other animals, is free to choose the pattern of his life. Animals can only execute their instinctual "program": A man may "order himself," while the animal is ordered solely by instinct. There are, of course, other differences. But I think this one is key to understanding the vast chasm that separates the human from the animal.

Physical Spiritual Emotional Intellectual Social

These are all items in the world. None of them are inner, although the psychic and the physical are often considered inner and outer. Inner is a third existentiall mode besides the psychic things. Teilhard, of course, thought there were only inner and outer, butsometimes confused psychic matter with inner.