I’m sure it must have been discussed before, but in my philosophy discussion group we often come back to this theme, and I decided to put the question to you guys.
What distinguishes humans from animals?
A lot of people have thought about it and I’ll give a few examples:
Aristotle suggested that a human is merely an animal that has been able to create a society/political climate around itself: he calls humans ‘political animals’. So clearly for him, the ability to reason was the distinguishing factor between humans and animals.
some psychologists have gone further and have suggested that humans have developed a language, which is the defining feature of humans.
I personally think these explanations are true, but do not hold to a long extent:
for example: persons with a mental disability cannot always develop language, yet are considered humans, and they possess traits that definitely distinguish them from animals.
An argument against Aristotle’s is that in rural Africa there are plenty of civilizations without a political climate that are humans as well (e.g. nomads).
My answer to this question about the distinction between humans and animals would be thus:
Extrapolating the two previous explanations and perhaps trying to find a common feature in them, I think what distinguishes humans from animals is the ability to think linearly, to think in time. Because of this ability which in innate in humans, and hasn’t been found to exist in animals, humans are humans. However, one can say that animals who go to sleep at night, and wake up in the morning have a sense of time as well, but I’d rather think those are instinctive reactions of their body to external impulses rather than an internally created behavioral process.
Don’t know if i make sense? 
