Introduction to Philosophy of

Human Person
The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

➔ The body is
not separated
from the soul,
➔ The point of convergence just as the soul
between the material and is not
spiritual entities. separated from
the body.
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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

I m p o r t a n c e of E m b o d i e d S p i r i t
➔ It enables us to know our potentialities and
limitations.
➔ It exposes us to a thorough and deeper
understanding of ourselves as a unique
creature united by body and soul.

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

SOUL
● The spiritual or immaterial part of a human
being or animal, regarded as immoral.

HUMAN BODY
● Consist of biological systems that carries
specific functions

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

Aristotle’s Kinds of Soul:

● Rational soul - capable of thinking, reasoning,
willing, reflecting, and deciding apart from
sensing and growing.
● Sensitive soul - it feeds itself, it grows, it
reproduces, and has feelings.
● Vegetative soul - capable of feeding, growing,
and reproducing itself.
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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

EMBODIED
It is being materialized or incarnated

“Embodied Spirit”
● A spirit being incarnated
● Does not necessarily refer to the
incarnation or materialization of
spirit as an immaterial entity.
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Transcendence in the Global Age

● Is life in our contemporary world dictated

by technology?
● Are selfies any indication that we are not
zombies?
● Are we pushing the responsibility for our
existence on to society, instead of facing
the questions of who we are?
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The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

“There is no other way for us to

find who we are than by finding in
ourselves the divine image”

-Thomas Merton (1948),

a Trappist monk.

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Transcendence in philosophy convey its literal

meaning of climbing or going beyond.

There are many beliefs of transcendence but this

lesson shall focus on these three main philosophies:
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity.

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HINDUISM
Brahman is Selfhood

Self-hood
➔ The quality that makes a person
or thing different from others.

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

At the heart of Hinduism lies the idea of human

beings’ quest for absolute truth, so that one’s soul
and the Brahman or Atman (Absolute Soul) might
become one.

Indians consider Brahman or Atman as the God from

which all reality and souls came from and will return.

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

For Indians, God first created sound and the universe

arose from it.

Aum (Om)
➔ the most sacred sound
➔ the root of everything that exists
➔ continues to hold everything together

Sound, not sight, is the basis of reality and existence.

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

Hinduism
● Human beings has dual nature
○ The spiritual and immortal essence (soul)
○ Empirical life and its trait

➢ It is the soul that is ultimately real.

➢ A body is considered as an illusion,
○ an obstacle to an individual’s realization of one’s
real self.
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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

Hindus believe that soul is eternal but is bound

by the law of karma (action), to the world of
matter, which it can escape only after spiritual
progress through an endless births.

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

God allots rewards and punishments to all

beings according to their karma. A soul can be
temporarily encased in his body. That is why,
humanity’s basic goal in life is the liberation
(moksha) of the spirit (jiva).

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Moksha Brahman
➔ enlightened state, ➔ the One,
➔ one attains true ➔ the Ultimate Reality,
selfhood and find ➔ the
oneself with Brahman: All-Comprehensive
Reality.

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Hinduism holds that humanity’s life is a continuous

cycle (samsara).

● the spirit is neither born nor dies

● the body goes through a transmigratory series
of birth and death.

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 The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

Transmigration or metempsychosis
- A doctrine that adheres to the belief that a
person’s soul passes into other creature, human
or animal.

Transmigration of Soul
- The transfer of soul depending on the person’s
good or bad karma.
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Ultimate Liberation
➔ Freedom from rebirth
➔ Achieved after a series of good acts are done
over a long period, decades or centuries
➔ Escape from the cycle of deaths and rebirths.

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Ultimate Moksha leads the spirit out of samsara

(cycle of life and death) to a state of “nothingness”

The bliss of being one with Brahman

compensates for all the sufferings the individual
underwent in the physical world. - Andres (1994)

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True knowledge (vidya) consists an

understanding and realization of the
individuals’s real self (Atman).

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Spiritual knowledge is more important than

knowledge brought by sight, hearing, taste, and
touch.

Sensory knowledge is an illusion that cause

wrongdoings in life.

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Concept common to all expressions of Hinduism:

➔ Oneness of reality
➔ Four primary Values
◆ Wealth
◆ Pleasure
◆ Duty
◆ Enlightenment

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HINDUISM

The idea of human being's quest for absolute

truth, so that one's soul and the Brahman or
Atman (Absolute Soul) might become one.

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BUDDHISM

From Tears to Enlightenment

Nothing exist without a cause. There is no

independent, categorical and permanent self.

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Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha

➔ The founder of major Eastern tradition:Buddhism.

➔ Lived from 560 to 477 B.C
➔ Search for answers to the riddle of life’s
sufferings, disease, old age, and death.

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While resting and meditating in a grove of trees,

he came to a clear realization that the solution lay
in his own mind.
(Puligandla, 1997)

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Dharma
➔ Law of Salvation
➔ Simple presentation of the Gospel of inner
cultivation or right spiritual attitudes.
➔ Coupled with a self imposed discipline
➔ Bodily desires would be channeled in the right
directions.
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Upanishads
➔ Collection of texts.
➔ Contain some central philosophical concepts
of Hinduism.
➔ Contain utterances about the nature of
ultimate reality.
➔ Describe the character and path to human
salvation.
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The Four Noble Truth, by Gautama:

1. Life is full of suffering.
2. Suffering is caused by passionate desires, lusts, and
cravings, caused by the bodies and emotions of
people.
3. Only as these are obliterated, will suffering cease.
4. Such eradication of desire may be accomplished
only by the Eightfold path of earnest endeavor.
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Eightfold Path of earnest endeavor:

A. Right belief in and acceptance of the Fourfold
Truth
B. Right aspiration for one’s self and for others
C. Right speech that harms no one
D. Right conduct, motivated by goodwill toward
all human beings
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E. Right means of livelihood or earning one’s

living by honorable means
F. Right endeavor or effort to direct one’s
energies toward wise ends
G. Right mindfulness in choosing topics for
thought
H. Right meditation or concentration to the point
of complete absorption in mystic ecstasy.
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Nirvana
● Highest state of enlightenment
● The effects of the law of cause and effect (karma) are
overcome.
● The cycle of rebirths is broken.
● One may rest in the calm assurance of having attained a
heavenly bliss that will stretch into all eternity.

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Four states of sublime condition;

- Love
- Sorrow of others
- Joy in the joy of others
- Equanimity as regards of one’s own joy and
sorrow
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Buddhism

One of the most widespread Dharsanas (school of

thought), from tears to enlightenment, searching for
answers to the riddle of life's sufferings, disease, old
age, and death.

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CHRISTIANITY

The Biblical God and Humanity

Based on the love of God, Augustine's, Aquinas',

and Anselm's arguments are basically rooted.
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Augustine’s writing is considered to be the most

influential in the early medieval period. This looks
at the rationality of belief in God’s existence. That
is why we shall treat the statement “God exists” a
hypothesis, which we call the theistic
hypothesis.

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Religious people do not treat God’s existence as

a hypothesis, for God is a constant presence,
rather than a being whose existence is accepted
as the best explanation of available evidence.

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Proving God’s existence would be as pointless

as trying to prove the existence of the air we
breathe.

The religious problem reflected in the Old

Testament narratives is not atheism but
polytheism:
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Atheism
● lack of believe or strong disbelief in the
existence of god or any gods.

Polytheism
● The belief that there is more than one god.

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In the New Testament, the reality of God is

unquestioned due to the conviction that Jesus of
Nazareth the eternal God became flesh and
dwelt among human beings.

In the earliest missionary endeavors, Christians

directed their preaching to Jews who accepted
the reality of God.
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For Augustine, philosophy is amor sapiential,

● the love of wisdom;
● its aim is to produce happiness

However for him wisdom is not just an abstract

logical construction, but is substantially existent
as the divine logos. Hence, philosophy is the love
of God: it is then, religious.
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It should be taken as a humble acceptance of the

fact that human beings alone, without God, are
bound to fail.

Only the pure in heart shall see God, the

progress in knowledge and wisdom is not only
speculative, it is more fundamentally practical
and moral.
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Augustine’s theory of knowledge is one with the

procedures of speculative mysticism. From this
mystic love and intuition of God follow all the
principles to direct humanity in all their
undertakings.

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For Thomas Aquinas,

● Medieval philosopher
● Only human beings have the unique power to
change themselves and things for the better.
● Treatises: Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa
Theologica.
● Through spirituality, we have conscience. Thus,
choosing to be “good” or “evil”, becomes our
responsibility.
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Evaluating One’s Own LImitations and the Possibilities

for Their Transcendence (freedom of the soul from the
body)

A. Forgiveness
a. Counseling
b. Talking to God
c. Emmaus method
d. Forgiveness method
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B. The Beauty of Nature

● There is perfection in every single flower; this is what
the three philosophies believed.
● For a hug, for every sunrise and sunset, to eat
together as family, are our miracles. These kinds of
experiences can be truly moments of grace.
● They touch us deeply and the human heart is
spontaneously lifted.
● During this experience we need to offer praise.
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C.VULNERABILITY

● To be invulnerable is inhuman.
● We need to acknowledge the help of other
people in our lives.
● Dependence in others is not a sign of
weakness but being true with ourselves.
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D.FAILURE
● Our failure force us to confront our
weaknesses and limitations.
● Such acceptance of failures makes us hope
and trust that all can be brought into good.
● Even if we have sinned, as Augustine had,
there is trust, hope, and forgiveness.
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E. Loneliness

● Rooted from man's sense of vulnerability and

fear of death.
● With loneliness we realize that depending on
others is possessiveness that we can be freed
from.
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F. Love

● To love is to be able to experience richness,

positivity, and transcendence.
● The more we love, the more we risk and fear.

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Recognizing That the Human

Body Imposes Limits and
Possibilities for Transcendence

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A. Hinduism: Reincarnation and Karma

a. Our Spirituality separates us from other

creatures. Through spirituality, we have
conscience. Thus, choosing to be “good” or
“evil”, becomes our responsibility.

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B. Buddhism: Nirvana
● State which one is free from all forms of bondage
and attachment.
● To overcome and remove the cause of suffering.
● State of perfect insight into the nature of existence.
● He who has perfect knowledge, perfect peace, and
perfect wisdom. - (Aguilar, 2010)

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A false conception regarding nirvana is the one who

attains it, cuts himself off from the world of toil, tears,
and turmoil and spends his life in a state of total
inactivity and indifference to the world around him.

One desires nothing for himself but always works for

the well-being of others.
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C. Augustine of Hippo and Aquinas: Will and Love

● Physically humans are free, yet morally bound to obey the
eternal law (God).
● Humanity must do well and avoid evil.
● We are responsible to our neighbors as we are to our own.
● All are called to be holy, pure, and chaste.
● Rightness means pleasing God.
● A choice to discern between right and wrong.
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