PERSONHOOD

PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY:
- study of consciousness and experience of reality
- reflects on and from a given human phenomena and pushes reflection towards
ontological studies
- a careful analysis and description of the experience of processes that reveal realities of
which we are introspectively aware of w/o making assumptions

METAPHYSICAL PERSPECTIVE:
- goes beyond sensible things and it is the universal truth
- Ontological dignity of human person does not depend on a specific capacity or
character
- a human individual is worthy of respect because he is a person from his very existence
- he has dignity because he is a person

WHAT IS A PERSON IN METAPHYSICALL POV ?

- By Severinus Boethius, a person is an individual substance of a rational nature
- INDIVIDUAL: means oneness or un-dividedness from itself and separated from the rest
who are also individuals because of his autonomy (transcend whatever is received from
outside world)
- SUPPOSITUM: man is the existing substance upon which all his qualities inhere such as
body structure, complexion, height, IQ, EQ, temperaments, etc.
- RATIONALITY: will and intellect capacity of man
- NATURE: means ESSENCE; principle activity or operation: we eat, laugh, capacity to
think and act, and speak. In general, it something common and not unique because
human nature is common to all humans
- Philosophical anthropology main concern is human being and one of its central theme is
PERSONHOOD

METAPHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
1. INALIENABILITY
- Man does not inhere in something else because he subsists in and for himself
2. UNREPEATBILITY
- Person exists on his own original singularity with his own distinguished characteristics
3. COMPLETENESS
- By virtue, it is the richness of his act of being because the person is a complete reality
- The person is an absolute being. An absolute because the person is an end into himself
and never simply a means. Thus, a person is not an object to be used for something else.
- The person is relative because there’s another source from he receives his absolute
character which is his dignity
- This allows one to be respectful of absoluteness of others
 - I should respect you and you should respect me; thus, dignity can’t come from human
person, but from God which Him and revelation become relevant

4. INTENTIONABILITY
- It is the openness to reality and to others
- It is the capacity to establish relationships to orient towards the world and towards
others to five onself
- Concept of a person implies both relationship with the self or self – belonging and the
self (others)

PERSONHOOD:
- ultimate source of human dignity and man’s reason for inviolability
- I have the form and existence explains the question “What am I ?”
- ANSWER: to that question is HUMAN BEING
- HUMAN BEING: is to locate one’s identity within biological category, human species, I
am a human being coz he or she possesses human nature
- HUMAN BEING who possesses human nature
- Human being is collective criterion of identity because belong to same species
- Thus, I am not unique as a human being and by having human nature
- But, through PERSONHOOD, I am UNIQUE AS A PERSON

BASIC FEATURES OF PERSONHOOD:

1. SELF OR “I”
- Possesses intimacy or inner world
- To intimacy is to open one’s own inner world
- This enables a person to grow in inside and create what is not yet been revealed
- Example: to have dreams, to have goals, and to have plans
- INTIMACY is dynamic coz’ it’s a source from which new things arise
- A person is being who can cause something new
- The person’s “ I “ is capable of new things; thus, that person is unique
- a person can create new things coz’ of immanence and immanence shows activities of
knowing and loving
- a person’s intimacy is what makes him or her unique because a person isn’t something
or somewhat.
- The “I” is the indication of personhood and no one else

2. PERSON TENDS TO AND MANIFEST HIS INTIMACY

- Sentiment of shame protects sanctuary of one’s inner world
- It’s the right to one’s privacy or intimacy
- Expression of a person is always contextual
- Example: it requires context of trust or confidence because it means they can be
written, engraved, to endure time and individual or collective existences
3. A PERSON IS FREE
- free to manifest his or her intimacy because he is the lord of his/her intimacy; he is the
lord of his manifestation of himself

4. A PERSON HAS THE CAPACITY TO GIVE

- It is the act of showing himself in taking something from his inner life that is valuable
and then offer to another
- Shows act of loving by giving oneself to the beloved
- LOVE is sublime activity CAPABLE OF THINGKING AND WILLING
- Giving one’s self is fulfilling the self
- Give one’s intimacy needs a receiver of intimacy
- SELF – GIVING is a real giving that require self – receiving
- To be a recipient of intimacy: TO ACCEPT and ADMIT a given intimacy (gift) into one’s
own intimacy
- Once the receiver receives the gift, then it is also part of the act of love

5. A PERSON HAS THE CAPACITY TO DIALOGUE

- Meaning a person has the capacity to speak across with others because self – giving
entails another self – receiving intimacy
- Dialogue is reciprocal exchange of intimacies of the selves’ inner worlds
- A person is “Diological” when sharing of intimacies is social and communitarian
- Dialogue takes place and grows in inter-subjectivity
- INTER-SUBJECTIVITY: The awareness that one’s self, one’s “I” is recognizable because of
the presence of a “you”; employed to enter to a communicative exchange of inner
worlds with him
- Each of us share our own intimacy and we learn from the intimacy of the other; as a
result, we enrich our inner world
- Growth and development can’t take place when the person dialogues or speaks to
himself alone or something
- Dialogue is mediated by language. Language is useless unless it is open to others
- Human personhood, human personality, and education is not the accumulation of
information but through dialogue with others

6. A PERSON CAN HAVE INTIMACY

- A person can possess:
1. Have the body as person possess material things
2. possess intelligence as person possesses knowledge
3. have or possess habits insofar as persons forge habits and thus create culture
- third is an important possession because habits form a person to be what he or she is
or what he or she wants to be.
 7. A PERSON IS IN TIME AND SPACE
- Historical and temporal
- Develops himself in time and within time
- Tries to overcome in different ways
- Recalling the past is a desire that endures the present
- through hope, a person can imagine and projects for the future
- the convergence of past, present, and future show the person possesses something that
enables him to desire eternity and not in time & space

8. A PERSON HAS RELIOGOSITY:

- The person is open to unrestricted truth and goodness
- A person is freely destined towards the Absolute Being in whom he finds his ultimate
perfection

CONTEMPORARY INTERSUBJECTIVITY:
1. Technological inter subjectivity to the digital self through media
2. Dialogue vs affirmative
- Through and around digital
- In and out
- Hashtag: symbol for the ephemeral (opposite of permanent)

RESOLUTION:
- What is learned through dialogue is contemplated by the silence of inner world