Narratives Concerning the Emergence of Civilization

Many philosophers and thinkers studied the emergence of civilization but very few threw light on the dynamics of the process of civilization. Freud and Nietzsche are among those who presented genuine analyses about the development of today's western civilization in connection with the transformation of the human being through the process. Although, they challenged deep-seated ideas and altered the course of history of thought, an extensive tradition that dealt with the question concerning the emergence of civilization was bequeathed to them. Even so, the question was clearly delineated and demarcated by modern thinkers, especially by Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke. These pre-eminent philosophers sought to find the necessary conditions that give rise to civil societies and they thereby introduce hypothetical narratives about the transformation of the human being from the state of nature to civilized societies. Taking over this tradition, Freud and Nietzsche provide hypothetical circumstances of the human animal in the state of nature and try to render an account of the civilized societies and the situation of the civilized human being.