Man as a Living Being - Yepes - Notes

Man as a Living Being [Yepes: Private Notes] Man is a Living Being The Intellectual Principle of Human Conduct The Body as a System Dualism and Duality The Concept of the Human Soul The Senses and the Sense Functions The Appetitive Functions On the Origin of Man -----------------------...

Man as a Living Being [Yepes: Private Notes] Man is a Living Being The Intellectual Principle of Human Conduct The Body as a System Dualism and Duality The Concept of the Human Soul The Senses and the Sense Functions The Appetitive Functions On the Origin of Man ----------------------- Anthropology, as the name implies, is the study of man. We can study man from many different points of view. Medicine studies man from the biological, biochemical and physiological points of view. Political studies regard man from the point of view of being social in nature. Economics studies man as the maker and user of material goods. Anthropology studies man from the point of view of his humanity and his personhood. Scientific anthropology seeks to know the origins of man. Philosophical anthropology seeks the ultimate truths about man. Man is a Living Being What does it mean “to be alive”? For a living being, to be alive means the same as “to exist” because a living being ceases to exist if it ceases to live. There are these five characteristics of living beings: 1) Living beings have “self-movement”. They have inside themselves the principle of their movement. They do not need an external agent to propel them in order to move. A watch seems to move by itself. But we know that the watch needed to be assembled by a watchmaker and needs a battery in order to move. Its movement can be explained by things outside of it and were put into it. Not so a cat. 2) Living things exhibit a strong unity in themselves. They cannot be divided. They will lose their lives if they were divided. Cut a rock in half and you have two rocks. Cut a cat in half and you have a dead cat. Some living things multiply by division (like a worm) when you divide it you get two living beings. 3) Living things are characterized by immanence. They have “interiority”: an internal world. They have actions whose effects remain inside of them. We can perform “transitive” actions like baking a cake, making a statue, etc. We can also perform immanent actions like reading, thinking, desiring, etc. 4) Living things develop: they unfold themselves in time. Living things develop towards a goal: their mature state. They grow. 1 5) Living things go through a rhythmic cycle that is harmonious. They develop by a process that involves repetitive movements. These movements follow a harmonious pattern. Trees sprout leaves, then flowers and then fruits, following an annual or semestral or quarterly cycle. Living things have to feed regularly. Living things have a cycle of activity and rest. The characteristic of immanence found in living things admits of degrees. There are living things that exhibit more immanence than others. We can observe these degrees: 1) Vegetative life. These living things exhibit these three principal functions: nutrition, growth and reproduction. By nutrition, inorganic substance become part of the organic system of the living thing. Nutrition makes the living thing grow. By reproduction, the living thing gives rise to an individual of the same nature. 2) Sensitive life. This kind of life distinguishes the animals from the plants. Animals have a system of perception. They fulfil the vegetative functions through the perception of external stimuli and their responses to these stimuli. These can be what is present, near or far, past or future. External stimuli provoke all sorts of responses from living beings. These stimuli are grasped by the external senses. Living things also have internal senses The responses to external stimuli, in the animals, are governed by instinct. These responses cannot be modified by the animal: they are automatic, fixed and constant. Animals don’t have free will. Knowledge in animals can influence their behaviour, but their knowledge is not the cause of their behaviour. This is an automatic response to the external stimuli. They have “goals” but these are not individual goals but those that are common to the entire species (birds build nests, beavers make dams, salmons swim upstream to lay their eggs, etc.) 3) Intellectual life. This is the life that is proper to man. In man the closed circuit “stimulus-response” is broken. Man is a being who moves for an end that he has set personally for himself. This task cannot be achieved without the intellect and reason. It is reason that makes man see the connection between the end and the means to attain the end, subordinating the means to the end. These are the characteristics of man: 1) By means of his intellect, a man chooses his own ends. He is not satisfied with the ends of the species (growth, survival and reproduction). He also has personal ends. He has personal ends: my career, my house, my clothes, my wife,… He has at hand the task of mapping his own life. He has to write his own personal history. 2 2) In man, the means to achieve his ends are not constant or automatically given. He has to look for them and find them. External stimuli can cause different persons to react in different ways. Each person is unique. He makes “choices” when confronted with problems and needs. The Intellectual Principle of Human Conduct A great part of the activities of a person arise from his personal choices and from learning. In man, instinct is replaced by learning. We have to learn to eat, to walk, to talk, to dress, to work,… Our “dependent” stage is long: the stage of life when we need very much the help of others to manage to survive. In a man’s life learning occupies a more central position than instinct. For a person to achieve his full development, it is not enough to be born, to grow, to reproduce and to die. A man is a much more complicated thing than a bird or a cat. The way we develop our lives is not “automatic”. We have tasks to face and to do. We can either succeed or fail. Man is the only animal who can fail in his existence, if he so chooses. At the same time he is the only animal who can achieve higher and higher levels of fulfilment if he so chooses. This characteristic of human life is a consequence of his intellectual nature, which also has a corollary: free will. By means of his intellectual knowledge and free will, man is the lord of his own existence. Behavior that is properly human is the result of intellectual knowledge. Human behavior comes about when a man makes choices: he chooses his personal goals and the means to achieve these goals. He is able to do this because he knows the different options open to him: he can choose to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, an architect. He is not constrained to any one particular possibility. Because of intellectual knowledge, there is the possibility of choice. In man, his intellect is as natural and radical to him as his lungs and stomach, so much so that the human “biology” can be understood adequately only by taking into account his intellectual nature. Because of his intellect, man is not subservient to his instincts. His reactions to external stimuli are not “automatic”. The fact that I am hungry does not necessarily mean that I will eat right away or that I will necessarily eat a McDonald’s hamburger. I can choose to eat later and to eat a Shakey’s pizza instead. In persons, the satisfaction of the instincts requires the involvement of the intellect. Even when it comes to matters that are so related to instincts, like survival, the intellect and reason intervene very much in a person’s behavior. A person reasons out how he will survive. If a person does not control his instincts by the use of his reason, he ends up not only not controlling his instincts but also himself as well. And when he 3 does not control his instincts by the use of reason, he does harm to himself. If instincts are not controlled, they become disorderly and unreasonable. This phenomenon does not happen in the case of animals. When a person is not rational or reasonable, he is worse than the animals. His instincts become a predominant force in him, overpowering his other faculties. The Body as a System The intertwining of biology and reason in man can be better appreciated in the form and structure — morphology — of the human body. In the human body, biology is at the service of the intellectual functions. There is a correspondence between the intelligence and the morphology of the human body. The human body is not a specialized body. It is open to an indefinite number of possible situations: it can live anywhere on the planet, it can wear all sorts of clothes, it can do all sorts of activities, it can make all sorts of things,… Man uses his hands to adopt to the world and to adopt the world to his needs. By his hands, man “humanizes” the world. With his hands, he fabricates instruments and tools. He can write. His hands are expressive. Its gestures can convey meaning. The hands are non-specified. They are multi-purpose. They are instruments of instruments and of languages. The hands can grasp, shake, scratch, touch, caress, greet, point, show welcome or rejection. They are multi- purpose because they are how they are: they are not claws or talons. They are an “open” reality. His face is also expressive. His face has a close connection with his hands. He can smile. He can pout. Through his face a man can exhibit: wonder, surprise, anger, fear, courage, joy, etc. The hands, too, can convey these meanings. His posture is upright. He does not walk on all fours. That way, his hands are free, so that it can be occupied with work. His speech is articulated and conveys meaning. A person does not just make noises with his voice. He pronounces words that make up his speech. His speech requires special organs: tongue, vocal chords, lungs. These organs allow 4 a person to modulate the sounds he makes converting them into words that convey meaning. If we did not have these bodily parts that allow us to speak, we would not have the power of speech. His eyes are frontal, so that he can confront the world. So, if his body were not adequately adopted to his intellectual nature, his adaptation to the world and to other persons would be hampered. The human body is systemic. By this we mean that all the elements in the human body are functionally inter-related. We cannot understand the purpose of the hand unless we relate what it can do and what it does to what goes on in our mind. Nor can we explain what the face is trying to say, if not in relation to what the person is thinking. All the parts of the body form a whole, a unity. And each part can fulfil its role only when united to the whole. The upright posture, the hands, the feet, the face, the voice box, the head find their meaning as integral parts of the entire person. All these features serve the human body and the human spirit. The human body is configured to fulfil organic and non-organic functions: to think, to love, to speak… A person is an intelligent body or a bodied intelligence. Dualism and Duality Man has a dual constitution: body and soul. Pairs are also present in man’s life: life and death, love and hatred, good and evil, pain and pleasure, right and left,… A vision of things that exaggerates this feature of human life is dualism. It gives emphasis to one end of the pole to end up making the two extremes oppose and exclude each other. Thus, dualism will regard there to be irreconcilable opposition between body and soul, matter and spirit. These two, dualism will say, can be juxtaposed, but cannot be united. This vision of things began with Pythagoras (6th c. BC). He thought that the body is the tomb of the soul. The soul is like imprisoned in the body. This conception does not recognize the humanity of the body. Another form of dualism matter-spirit is materialism. The materialists will consider the emotions and thoughts as simply biochemical reactions and the interplay of neurons. They are just material states. This conception views what is properly spiritual in man as belonging to the realm of matter. And so, there is no spirit: just matter. 5 Both instances are dualists. In the first, man is regarded as a mixture of matter and spirit, not a unity. In the second, the spirit is negated. This is usually the result of scientism: the reduction of all knowledge to scientific knowledge. But in reality, there are only animated human bodies. A body exists only when it is alive, i.e., when it is united to the soul. The Concept of the Human Soul In the Aristotelian tradition, the concept of the human soul is not dualist. For Aristotle, the soul is fundamentally a biological concept. It is what makes living beings alive. So, for him, plants and animals also have a soul. The soul is not something that “opposes” and “negates” the body. It is something very united to the body. A living thing has two dimensions: its matter and that which organizes the matter and makes it alive. The soul is the vital principle of living things. It makes them alive, exist and become what they ought to be. Philosophy calls the soul the “form” of the body. Matter is what is common and indeterminate in things. Form is what determines and organizes the matter to be this specific body or thing. In living things the form is their soul. The soul is not a pre-existent being or entity. It comes into being together with the body. 6 Persons have the common experience that when the body is healthy, the disposition is one of happiness. From the personal point of view, the unity of soul and body is very obvious and cannot be denied. The Senses and the Sense Functions The faculties of the soul are the different possible acts the soul can perform. To sense and to perceive are acts the person can perform because of the human soul. A person has sensations and this is possible because he has external senses and internal senses. To sense is to know the real concrete things that surround us. Sensation is the most elementary form of knowledge. What is knowledge? Knowledge is a richer level of being and living. One’s being ‘is’ more by knowledge because when one knows, one possesses the forms of things without thereby losing one’s own. Rather one’s own form is enriched by possessing in some way the forms of other things. Also, by knowing, one does not alter the form of the thing that is known. Instead one conforms one’s knowledge to it. By sense knowledge, a person possesses the sensible forms of things. Sensing begins with the external senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. These external senses are continued by the internal senses: perception, imagination, the estimative sense, and memory. Let us see briefly these senses. The External Senses The external senses grasp the sensible qualities of material things. The sight can grasp colour, the touch can grasp texture and temperature, the smell odour, the taste flavour, the hearing sound. The external sense can capture only that sense quality that is proper to it. The external sense cannot grasp the totality of the thing and so it cannot capture the nature or the essence of the thing. The external sense makes use of receptors that are bodily parts that react to the external stimuli coming from the things themselves. But the act of sensing is not just the alterations suffered by the bodily part. It is much more than that. A sleeping person’s ears might be suffering alterations when another person is whispering to his ear, but yet he is not hearing the person. The Internal Senses (a) Perception Perception is the internal sense that integrates the different data provided by the external senses. In reality, it may be the same object (for instance, a horse) whose qualities (colour, shape, size, noise, texture, speed, position) the external senses capture. If there were no sense of perception, the different sensations 7 we have would not be integrated and we would not perceive that there is a horse in front of us. The perception is also able to grasp the common sensibles: number, movement or rest, shape, size, quantity. These are qualities that can be grasped by more than one external sense. The internal sense that performs the integration of the different data from the external senses is called by classical philosophy as the “common sense”. (b) Imagination The perceptions that we form are gathered together in the imagination. This faculty can store and reproduce the objects we have perceived. It can also combine the objects to come up with purely imaginary objects: a lizard with wings breathing fire: a dragon. The imagination enables our sense knowledge to have continuity. It stores images of things we have perceived and enables us to recognize once more those things once we perceive them again. We might have seen a person once. But when we see him again, even from a different angle we recognize him to be the same person. The imagination stores these images in some kind of order, so that we can locate things. We are able to construct like a kind of map of the world that surrounds us. The intellect needs the imagination in order to think. We cannot think without images. And thanks to the imagination we have the images we need for thinking. All our speech, our affections, and our expressions are full of images that are products of the imagination. The imagination can be a very powerful faculty of the human soul. It can be very creative and active. Creativity is the intelligent use of the imagination. The imagination can be so strong in some people to the point that these people live in an “imaginary” world. 8 We sometimes use “images” to express thoughts, feelings and affections: “Your eyes are like the stars: they twinkle and are so far apart.” We speak in metaphors, even in ordinary language: “He’s a bright student.” “The fellow is thick-faced.” Metaphors are images we use to convey further and deeper meanings. It is a clear indicator that the human spirit is embodied in a material human body. (c) Estimative Sense The estimative sense is the faculty that relates our perceptions with our own organic state and with our life. When I prefer to wear a light, short-sleeved shirt to a heavy long-sleeved shirt, I have used my estimative sense in making the judgment and the choice. I have related what I perceived (two shirts in front of me in my wardrobe) to my organic state (I feel warm today) and to my life (I’m going out with some friends, so it’s fine to wear casual clothes.) Through the estimative sense, I perceive what is appropriate for me, what is advantageous, what is dangerous, what is risky, what is boring, what is tiring, what is exciting, what is challenging and so forth. The estimative sense anticipates something in the future. And when it senses something in the future, it influences our acts regarding that object that is perceived. When I see a lion inside my house my estimative sense tells me that my future is very uncertain beside this animal. I will run away from it not because the lion is an especially ugly animal but because my sense tells me: “Man, this animal is dangerous. It can bite you and you’re dead.” If I didn’t have this sense, I would perhaps come close to the animal and try to caress it. And God knows what can happen next. The estimative sense in animals works by instinct. The sheep, by instinct will run away from the wolf because it “knows” that the wolf is dangerous. But in the case of man, the estimative sense is suffused with his intelligence. Just like any faculty of man, the estimative sense develops by experience and learning. What we experience is stored in it so that we don’t have to repeat the same mistake: “Never try to caress a lion.” 9  (d) Memory The memory preserves the evaluations made by the estimative sense, as well as all the acts (internal and external) done by the person. Aside from preserving these acts, the memory “localizes” them in time. It can tell us when the act was done: “I read this book last week, but I watched the movie of it two years ago.” The human memory can be sense memory: of things we have sensed or perceived. I can remember last summer was very hot or it was so cold in winter. The sense memory has an organic basis (it can be localized in the cerebrum). The human memory can also be intellectual memory: of thoughts, desires or judgments. In this case, no organic basis is needed, at least partially. Since we always need the imagination to think or remember, and the imagination is a material sense, then even the intellectual memory will need to use at least in part an organic basis. 10 The human memory has a tremendous importance in human life. Through it, we are able to preserve our identity and connect our present with the past. When we lose our memory, we lose our identity. A person who does not remember his name, who he is, where he came from, what he studied, who his loved ones are, where he lives, etc. is totally lost. Because we have memory, we can recount stories and construct histories. We are able to give unity and cohesion to our own selves and to our surroundings. The Appetitive Functions The appetitive functions are tendencies inherent in our nature that move us towards our development. These tendencies give rise to impulses and drives. Impulses and drives, in turn, give rise to our behavior. One of the characteristics of a living thing is that it develops and unfolds itself in time. We have called this self-development or growth. The growth and development of a living thing is related to what is good and appropriate for it. What is good and appropriate for it makes it grow and develop; what is bad or inappropriate can stunt its growth. To rest and sleep is good for growth: it is good to rest and sleep. To lack rest and sleep can cause sickness: so then, it is not good. In this context, we understand “good” to mean what contributes to development or well-being. It is not yet a moral value. It just means what is appropriate for our well-being. Aristotle said, “The good is what all things desire”. St. Thomas said, “all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil” (S.Th., I-II, q.94, a.2, in co.). As we have said, the good here is not yet a moral value but only refers to what is appropriate for the well-being of the person. The appetites or inclinations that lead us to what is appropriate for us can be sensible appetites or intellectual appetites. They are sensible appetites if they incline us to sensible goods: to water when we thirst or to heat when we feel cold. They are intellectual appetites if they incline us to intellectual goods: the truth behind a mystery. The sensible appetites move man through the estimative sense. The intellectual appetites move him through his practical reason and the will. The sensible appetites are divided into two main types: the desires (concupiscible appetites) and the drives (the irascible appetites). The desires are movements of our appetites that are directed to some material good that is actually perceived. When these appetites are satisfied they produce a certain sensible pleasure. The satisfaction of these appetites require the possession of the material good. I am hungry. I go and get food. I eat and I’m satisfied. 11 The drives are aggressive in nature. These appetites concern a good that is difficult to obtain because there is usually a hurdle to overcome in order to obtain the good. I want to obtain a promotion. To get it, I have to work hard and produce results. Though I’d rather take it easy, I’ll work hard to get that promotion. The drives have their source in the desires. I want to satisfy my need for material goods, that’s why I’m driven to work hard. The good that is difficult to obtain requires more effort than the good that is already within the reach of the person. But the difficult good enriches a person more than the easy good. The difficult good makes a person have projects and ambitions. A person like this has “drive”. The interior world of such a person is very rich. He does not conform to what he has achieved so far. He strives for greater goals and achievements. The desires in man incline him towards repeated satisfaction. In him the repeated satisfaction of the desires are not necessarily related to his organic needs, not like in most animals. Because he has reason and will, he can propose to himself and will the repeated satisfaction of his desires. Human Sensibility vs. Animal Sensibility Sense perception in man is united to his intellectual functions. For this reason, human sensation is more “perfect” (as far as it is richer in content and meaning) than sensation in the animals. There are four main differences between the two types of sensibility. First, man is able to grasp the essence of the thing as it is in itself, without any reference to his organic states or needs. Man does not see the world with reference to his physiology: he sees the world as it is in itself. A cat will see a fish as an object to satisfy its hunger; but the cat will not know what a fish is in itself. Man can do that: he can know the fish as a tropical fish, a freshwater fish, that it lives on plankton, etc. Our knowledge of things is not determined by the desire to satisfy our instincts. Second, in man, the manner of satisfying his instincts is not determined. Because he is intelligent and free, he can choose the way he will satisfy his needs. Man can cook food in a thousand different ways. He can construct houses in an indeterminate number of ways. Pigeons always build nests in the same way. Man’s intelligence always intervenes in the satisfaction of his needs. Third, man is able to aim for ends that are higher than his organic needs. He is able to make music, art, write novels, chat with people, take a walk in the park, read a book, watch a movie, …He has higher goals: he can do things for the sake of culture, or faith in God. 12 Fourth, man is capable of habits. Habits are dispositions in man that are not innate but acquired through the repetition of acts and that incline him to do certain things more easily and even with some kind of pleasure. Habits are acquired by learning. Learning occupies an important role in man’s life. It takes the place of instinct in the animals. We have a survival instinct. But to survive, we have to learn to survive. We want to live, but we have to learn how to live. And the quality of life depends on the level of our learning. We can see this in the lives of people: the quality of life in our age is better than that of former ages, because of advances in science, technology and culture. On the Origin of Man Where did man come from? If he has a non-specialized body and very well adapted to his intelligence, how did this adaptation take place? If his behavior and tendencies differ from that of the animals, when did he begin to be different? Is man not just a more developed and evolved animal? These are questions about the origin of man. The difficulty about answering these questions is that the origin of man is not an observable phenomenon (not like observing where a banana comes from). Science can only go so far as to propose theories. Because of certain limitations, science cannot give definitive answers. But we can arrive at certain conditions regarding the origin of man that result from philosophical and anthropological reflections. What is clear is that the origin of man has to be understood in the context of the origin and evolution of life in the universe. The facts that science can discover about the origin and evolution of life are uncertain and to interpret these facts, one requires a philosophical outlook and assumptions that are not even supported by science itself. There are fundamentally two sets of assumptions. 1) The first regards life as a product of chance events. Life began as a result of a chance combination of elements and compounds to form the first living cells. These in turn mutated to form the most elementary forms of life. These in turn further evolved and developed to form more complex forms of life. The equilibrium, harmony and order in nature can be totally explained by the struggle of these living organisms to survive and the survival of the fittest. Life came about by chance and each species is the resultant of events determined by the struggle of each living thing for 13  survival. This is the theory of Darwin and it is called emergent evolutionism. 2) The second theory is this: the origin of life is part of a cosmic law and of an intelligent ordering. This order is given by a Creative Intelligence which has given the cosmos an intrinsic dynamism so that it is able to move towards its proper ends. This theory is called creative evolutionism or creationism. As far as man is concerned, both theories accept in principle that evolution of life on earth prepared the emergence of man through the appearance on earth of sufficiently evolved animals called hominids. This pre-human part of human evolution can be called the process of hominization. The two theories differ in their account of what happened after the hominid became human: how he became human, how he became more aware of himself as human and how he became aware of his environment. This second part in the history of the origin of man is called the process of humanization. Paleontological research seeks to discover the exact origins of man from the scientific point of view. The main problem this science tries to solve is to explain why, when and how the bodies of the hominids evolved up to the point of becoming similar to the actual bodies of humans. It tries to explain the bodily characteristics of humans: the volume of the cerebral cortex, bipedalism, the free position of the hands, the lessening of the frontal dentition. By contrast, the two theories differ in how they explain the process of humanization. For emergent evolutionism, the coming to be of the human person is the resultant of a continuous process defined by chance events and spontaneous mutations that are brought about by the struggle to survive and the survival of the fittest, reacting to their environment and the changes therein. There is no difference between the process of hominization and humanization: it is the same continuous process. This theory poses very difficult problems. To say that things human came about by chance does not seem to be very convincing. It is like expecting to have a sonnet of Shakespeare appearing when you throw alphabet blocks in the air and let them land on the ground. Moreover, the entire human world cannot be sufficiently explained by appealing to chance events. Such explanation is not convincing. The theory of creative evolutionism makes a clear distinction between the process of hominization and the process of humanization. The appearance of man on the scene finds its explanation in the appearance of the human soul, a being that can only come about by the creative will of God. 14