Humans are constituted by their social relations rather than an intrinsic essence

Evidence

Cf. the sixth of Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach : “The human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of social relations… .” — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2517

Categorization

• DEFINE: Directly quotes the defining Marxist claim that human nature is the ensemble of social relations, not an individual abstraction.
• XREF: This is the foundational premise Gramsci builds on throughout the Notebooks; connects forward to Islamophobia readings on how subjects are socially constituted. — connects to: The human race is constituted by free individual choices, not vice versa — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1222; Persons are understood as free unifications of responsibility rather than as substances; The totality of for-itself and in-itself differs from for-others by its absence of reciprocity (+29 more)