How Should We Understand the Term ‘Social Being’ Since it is Used as the Particular Meaning that Defines the Essential Qualities of Man?

When we say that the term social being is used as the original meaning that defines the essential qualities of man in the Juche philosophy, we have to understand the social being with a meaning that the essential qualities of man are social ones.

Leader Kim Jong Il said:

Systematizing the Juche philosophy, we used the term social being as one having the particular meaning that defines man’s essential qualities.

Man is a social being with independence, creativity and consciousness. But it is a wrong viewpoint, if one considers the social being as the fourth qualities of man next to independence, creativity and consciousness, as one of the essential qualities of man.

That man is a social being with independence, creativity and consciousness does not mean that man is a being with independence, creativity and consciousness and also a social being, but means that independence, creativity and consciousness form the essential characteristics of man, the social being and that independence, creativity and consciousness are social attributes which are formed and developed socially and historically. As we see in this context the word social being does not mean one of the essential qualities of man, but it is a term defining his independence, creativity and consciousness.

In other words, we have to consider that the word social being which defines independence, creativity and consciousness as the attributes native to man who lives and acts in social relations and that they are the social attributes which are formed and developed socially and historically.

As the term social being is used to define the social characters of independence, creativity and consciousness, it becomes the starting point of philosophical consideration of man.