LESSON 6:

INTERSUBJECTIVITY

WEEK 3
QUARTER 2
 PRELIMINARIES

Prayer
Checking of
Attendance
 PRELIMINARIES

Ulat ng Pagkatuto
Update on Week 2 Output
IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGIES
 Intersubjectivity as Ontology: The Social
Dimension of the Self

 Martin Buber & Karol Wojtyla

 Both philosophers were influenced by their religious
background.
 They believed in the notion of concrete
experience/existence of the human person.
 They think that one must not lose the sight of one’s self
in concrete experience.
 They both refused to regard human person as a
composite of some kind of dimensions, such as animality
and rationality.
 For both views, the human person is total, not dual.
 MARTIN BUBER

 A Jewish Existentialist Philosopher.

 Born in Vienna; was brought up in the Jewish Tradition.
 In his work, I and thou (Ich and Du) (1923), he conceives
the human person in his/her wholeness, totality,
concrete existence and relatedness to the world.
 I-thou philosophy is about the human person as a
subject, who is a being different from things or from
objects.
 The human person experiences his wholeness not in
virtue of his relation to one’s self, but in the virtue of his
relation to another self. The human person establishes
the world of mutual relation, of experience.
 MARTIN BUBER

 In contrast, to realm of meeting and dialog, Buber

cites the I-It Relationship. This I-It Relationship is a
person to thing, subject to object that is merely
experiencing and using; lacking directedness and
mutuality (feeling, knowing, and acting).
 KAROL WOJTYLA

 Saint Pope John Paul II

 Born in Wadowice, Poland
 He was elected to the Papacy on October 16,1978
(264th Pope) and was considered a great pope (88%)
during his lifetime.
 An architect of Communism’s demise in Poland.
 In his encyclical letter, Fides et ratio, he criticized
the traditional definition of human as “rational
animal”. He maintains that the human person is the
one who exists and acts (conscious acting, has a will,
has self-determination).
 KAROL WOJTYLA

 Action reveals the nature of the human agent.

Participation explains the essence of the human
person. Through participation, the person is able to
fulfill one’s self. The human person is oriented
toward relation and sharing in the communal life for
the common good. As St. Augustine of Hippo said,
“No human being should become an end to
him/herself. We are responsible to our neighbors as
we are to our own actions”.
 6.2 Appreciate the talents of persons
with disabilities (PWDs) and those
from the underprivileged sectors of the
society and their contributions
A. on PWDs
• Identifying your child is handicapped, for a
parent will include the feelings of shock,
bewilderment, sorrow, anger and guilt.

DENIAL IS UNIVERSAL
 “ Why me?”
• According to Mapp (2004), some parents
turn to religion and consider “heaven sent
blessing in disguise.” However, this denies the
real implications of the disability.
• Total communication is recommended, examples are sign
language and finger spelling, for the deaf because study
shows in North America that 50% of deaf children read
less than others.
 What to do as a parent
and a family member?
• Take constructive action
• Accommodate the communicative as well as the
educational needs of the person with disability
What to do as part
of the community?
• Have sensitivity
• Have a positive and supportive attitude toward
them
B. on Underprivileged
Sectors of the Society

“Poverty is
multidimensional”
COMMON CHARACTERISTICS
• Income
• Health
• Education
• Empowerment
• Working condition
• Most common measure of underprivileged
is income poverty, defined by consumption
of goods and services
• Health deprivation had become a focal
point for the underprivileged as well.

•Human rights on global poverty e.g. justice

denied for some sectors
C. on the Rights of Women
“Women should be educated to please men.”
“Women should be useful to men, should take
care, advise, console men, and to make men’s
lives easy and agreeable.”
-Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712)
• Mary Wollstonecraft, in
Vindication on the Right of Women,
argued that such education would
produce women who were mere
propagators of fools.
 Words by
Mary
Wollstonecraft
 “Women must
be united to men
in wisdom and
rationality”
“Women should not just be valued
until their beauty fades; it is the fate
of the fairest of flowers to be
admired and pulled to pieces by the
careless hand that plucked.”
“Women must
learn how to
respect
themselves”
Women should
not marry for
support, they
should earn
their own
“bread.”
6.3 Explain The Authentic Dialog
That Is Accepting Others
Regardless Of Individual
Differences
 WE ARE A
CONVERSATION
 “Humankind is a
conversation.”
- Martin Heidegger

Conversation is more that an idle talk but a dialog.

Meaning humanity is progressively attuned to
communication aboutbeing.
LANGUAGE
• Creates human world
• Tool for communication
• Information
• Social interaction
• Amazement
DIALOG
A conversation that is attuned to
each other and to whatever they are
talking about
 “Allconversationsarereallyoneconversation,thesubjectof
whichisBeing(God,TaoorYHWH)”

“Aconversationiscreative,poetic,anddeepthatallowshumanity
toexistasmorethan entities”
-Heidegger (1997)
“Aconversation attemptstoarticulate who andwhatweare,not
asparticular individualsbutashuman beings.Wearehuman
beingswho careaboutmorethaninformationandgratification.”
“A life of dialog is a mutualsharing of
our inner selves in the realm of the
interhuman.”
-Buber
 I-thou
RELATION
An authentic dialogue entails a
person-person, a mutual sharing or
selves, acceptance, and sincerity.
 I-YOU
RELATION
Refers to the interpersonal
which fulfills and actualizes
oneself.
For Wojtyla, in participation, we share in the
humanness of the other. We cannot escape a
world that is also inhabited by others.
• They support and help PWD’s in landing a job
• Provides laws that protect and benefit the
PWD’s
• Views PWD’s as a developmental issue of the
country
• Provides livelihood activities and support for the
technical skills of PWD’s
• TRANSPORTATION TO THE WORKPLACE
• DISCRIMINATION
• NEGATIVE PERCEPTION
• POVERTY
• LACK OF MARKET FOR THEIR PRODUCTS
• HARDLY IMPLEMENTED PROTECTIVE
LAWS
• PWD’s are usually related to poverty
• Poverty may increase the risk of
disability
• Lack of health care
• Costlier transportation
• Special diets
• HUMAN TRAFFICKING (Modern-day slavery)
• Criminal enterprise or “crimes against humanity”
as said by Pope Francis
• Fighting for dignity and sacredness of the
human life.
• Referred to as the I-IT relation by Martin Buber
• HUMAN=OBJECT