Module 3: Human Person as an Embodied Spirit PDF

MODULE 3 PERSON as an MJAF  01 WHO IS THE HUMAN PERSON HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT Who is the Human Person? Throughout the history, the philosophers have come up with the explanation of who the human person is. OXFORD DICTIONARY- define human being...

MODULE 3 PERSON as an MJAF  01 WHO IS THE HUMAN PERSON HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT Who is the Human Person? Throughout the history, the philosophers have come up with the explanation of who the human person is. OXFORD DICTIONARY- define human being as “a man, woman, or a child of species homo sapiens, distinguished from animals by superior mental development: – Power of articulate speech – Upright stance Those are the physical and mental traits. However some philosophers would say that human beings are also spiritual, ethical and existential beings. Why is it necessary to study the human person? Life is quite complex, as we know. Thus, you need to discover, who you are, what you’re capable or what you can become. Understanding your nature will help you improve and achieve your possibilities and help you live a life fully worthy of a human person. THREE ASPECTS OF HUMAN NATURE Somatic Behavioral Attitudinal THREE ASPECTS OF HUMAN NATURE SOMATIC ØRefers to the body, material Øcomposition, or substance of a human person. THREE ASPECTS OF HUMAN NATURE BEHAVIORAL Ø Refers to the human person’s mode of acting. Ø In the study of human behavior, B.F. Skinner (American psychologist): known for the theory of behaviorism. Any conditions that take effect on behavior must be taken to account. Ø By understanding and analyzing these conditions behavior may be predicted. Ø He therefore suggested that human behavior can be manipulated or controlled. THREE ASPECTS OF HUMAN NATURE ATTITUDINAL ØRefers to the human person’s inclination, feelings, ideas, convictions, prejudices and biases. ØIt is a person’s mental reaction to a certain stimuli or tendency to act. ØThese tendencies may define a person’s future action and what he or she values as right or wrong.  02 THEORIES ON HUMAN NATURE HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT Theories on Human Nature The Human Person as... 1. an Immortal Soul 2. a Composite of Body and Soul 3. a Thinking Thing HUMAN PERSON AS AN IMMORTAL SOUL One important theory on human nature is the claim that the human person has a soul. In Phaedrus, one of Plato’s work, Socrates asserts that “every soul is immortal, for that which moves itself is immortal, while what moves, and is moved by something else stops living when it stops moving… this is the very essence and principle of a soul, for every bodily object that is moved from outside has no soul, while a body whose motion comes from within, from itself has a soul. HUMAN PERSON AS AN IMMORTAL SOUL Thus, the human person in PLATONIC ACCOUNT has an immortal soul which is the source of movement, THEREFORE, you, a human person have a soul because you are moved from within. No outside force compels you to have a life or to have motion. HUMAN PERSON AS A COMPOSITE OF BODY AND SOUL Aristotle explained this theory through his work De Animus (1968) which explains all the capacities possessed by all living things. His work involves the relation of the psvche (soul) and the body; In order to understand the relationship between the soul and the body, Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of substance: matter, shape or form, and the product of both (composite of form and matter). He added that of the kind of substance, there are natural bodies which have life or do not have life; HUMAN PERSON AS A COMPOSITE OF BODY AND SOUL If the natural body has life, it is meant to have self- nutrition and growth and decay. Hence, every natural body which has life in it is a substance in the sense of composite. Matter (first substance) – your natural body is matter. As a corporeal being, the human person is material which is an affirmation of the somatic aspect of human nature; the body has organs which are so well organized and ready of their different functions for nutrition and growth. HUMAN PERSON AS A COMPOSITE OF BODY AND SOUL Soul (second substance) –it is not a body but the form of a natural body that has life potentially within it. This means that the natural body is “ensouled”; that is, you are with a soul, a non- corporeal substance that is the form (which is the actuality of the substance). For Aristotle, life, or having a soul, is the source of a human person’s being alive which enables him or her to do actions or activities that are suited to being a human person. HUMAN PERSON AS A COMPOSITE OF BODY AND SOUL In effect, Aristotle is basically saying that the body cannot be separated from the soul, because the soul is the form of the natural body. The soul is what makes the natural body which is a potentiality that becomes an actuality. Our soul is what makes us a human person. The capacity to reason, think, communicate, act, feel, and distinguish right from wrong. HUMAN PERSON AS A COMPOSITE OF BODY AND SOUL PLATO'S TRIPARTITE SOUL ARISTOTLE'S KINDS SOUL Rational | LOGICAL RATIONAL SOUL Spirited | EMOTIONAL SENSITIVE SOUL Appetitive | PHYSICAL VEGETATIVE SOUL DESIRES HUMAN PERSON AS A COMPOSITE OF BODY AND SOUL "A dead man is a Human in name only--it has the same body but it has lost its soul". This theory implies that without a soul, the body does not have life. HUMAN PERSON AS A THINKING THING Rene Descartes asserted that the human person is a thinking thing. Passage: "On the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non- extended thing (that is, a mind) and on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, non-thinking thing. And accordingly, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it." HUMAN PERSON AS A THINKING THING Descartes’ assertion is a philosophical perspective which believes that the nature of man is pure mind. This perspective states that there is a clear and distinct idea of a consciousness that through the mind, one thinks of the self, existing without extensions. He also claims that the mind is indivisible, while the body is divisible into parts. What does the claim imply about the nature of humanity? As a thinking mind, it is clear that as you doubt existence as a singular self, you will arrive at the distinct idea that you are, indeed, one self because the mind is indivisible. HUMAN PERSON AS A THINKING THING On the contrary, if the self is the body and since it is divisible and has parts, when you think about yourself you might be confused of your nature because two different parts may both exist but are of different nature.  03 BEING AND NOTHINGNESS HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT HUMAN CONDITION ØIt is the nature that defines a person. ØBut through condition that the nature of the human person is revealed. Human condition is defined as the inevitable positive or negative events of existence as a human being. While the three aspects of the human nature defines or characterizes human person, one will understand how to live according to this nature through human condition. BEING AND NOTHINGNESS Ø French Philosopher Ø Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on ontology (one of the best known work on Existentialism) He claimed that the human person has free will and they has to exercise this capacity because it is only in choosing t hat t h e h u m a n p e rs o n b e co m e s authentic. E x i ste nti a l i sm - A p h i l o s o p h i ca l tradition that focuses on the centrality Jean Paul Sartre of the human person's existence. BEING AND NOTHINGNESS Furthermore, he recalled from the philosophy of Edmund Husserl (German Philosopher) who formalized Phenomenology as philosophical tradition, the conception of consciousness as a consciousness of something. This means that consciousness posits a transcendent being. Transcendence - The state of excelling, surpassing or going beyond usual limits. Two types of Being: 1. Being-in-itself 2. Being-for-itself BEING-IN-ITSELF Ø Being-in-itself is completely constituted. Ø It is dissolved in identity- a “what is”. Ø This is the reason why it is the being of material objects ; without consciousness, they are explicitly made or an actuality which is solid or opaque. Example: The identity of the table as a table is to function as furniture- it has no other possibilities of becoming something else being is already an absolute. As stated, consciousness requires transcendence or surpassing itself; that table without that consciousness, however has no transcendence. BEING-FOR-ITSELF Since consciousness is characterized with an essential structure of transcendence, then it cannot coincide with itself in full equivalence as characterized like the being-in- itself. It is the exact opposite of the being-in-itself because it is the decompression (to restore or reconstruct) of being. The being-for-itself is the consciousness to itself or the being of action. Another concept central to existentialism is the concept of Nothingness. NOTHINGNESS Man, as consciousness, a being-for-itself who as co n s c i o u s n e s s i s p re s e nt to i t s e l f. H av i n g transcendence, as its essence, man has to excercise this freedom -- the nothingness perpetually in question at the very heart of his being. Since man has no definite essence because he is a transcendent being, man has to create himself from the nothingness which reveals his lack of self identitiy.  04 HUMAN NATURE AS EMBODIED SPIRIT HUMAN NATURE AS EMBODIED SPIRIT The soul is the source of these phenomena and is characterized by them viz. by the power of self nutrition, sensation, thinking and movement, further, since the soul by which primarily we live, perceive and think - it follows that the soul must be an account and essence, not matter or subject... it is the soul which is the actuality of certain kind of body. - Aristotle, De Anima II HUMAN NATURE AS EMBODIED SPIRIT "The body is not the essence of the soul; but the soul by the nature of its essence can be united to the body, so that, properly speaking, not the soul alone, but the "composite" is the species. And the very fact that the soul in a certain way requires the body for its operation proves that the soul is endowed with a grade of intellectuality inferior to that of an angel, who is not unified to a body." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica HUMAN NATURE AS EMBODIED SPIRIT In Summa Theologica, he also addressed the concerns about the nature of the soul as a body: (1) it is the body's moving principle; (2) knowledge of corporeal things is caused by likeness; hence, to know of the body is to be like it in nature; and (3) the soul moves the body and movement happens through contact; hence, the soul be a body because contact happens between bodies.  05 PHENOMENOLOGY HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT PHENOMENOLOGY In the contemporary period of the history of philosophy, these problems of how the body interact if they have different natures and how the human person can really know things in the world through the soul when the one connected to the wo rl d o r i s i n the wo rl d i s the bo dy, we re addressed through the philosophical tradition called phenomenology. PHENOMENOLOGY From the root word phenomenon, this philosophical movement is concerned with the study of phenomena or appearances of things as they are experienced. Thus, phenomenology is the study of conscious experience as experienced from the first-person point of view. PHENOMENOLOGY Edmund Husserl, a German philosopher and founder of p h e n o m e n o l o g y, d i r e c t e d h i s s t u d i e s t o w a r d understanding the body naturalistic presuppositions about it and the embodied personhood giving a description of an embodied experience. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, another phenomenological philosopher, expands on Husserl’s perspectives and asserts that the theory of the body is a theory of perception. PHENOMENOLOGY Gabriel Marcel used the concept of “my body" to explain the unity of body and soul. In his work, The Mystery of Being, he analyzed the meaning of experiencing "my body.” THE PROBLEM OF THE SOUL In the 19th century, apparently, science became interested in trying to understand human nature and provide a possible scientific explanation devoid of immaterial parts. What does this interest imply about the soul? Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy and neurobiology at the Duke University, in a work titled problem of the soul, presented the concept called De-souling Persons. According to science, it is not agreed upon what the nature of man is, there is a certainty that there are no such things as souls or nonphysical minds. THE PROBLEM OF THE SOUL ØF l a n a ga n a rg u e d t h at to s e e e vo l u t i o n a s t h e explanation of human nature together with the natural selection does not mean that life has no purpose; it only means that meaning and purpose were not handed down by a supreme being. ØMore than 2000 years ago, man, in his desire to understand himself and his nature as well as his environment, sought to determine what he is, how he behaves, and what he can achieve as a being with a body and a consciousness or soul/mind (spirit). THE PROBLEM OF THE SOUL Yet, up to this moment, he is still uncertain if his nature can be fixed. This does not mean that to seek is futile; it only means that it is up to man to discover the many possibilities before him and transcend the limits that is set before him. END OF MODULE 3