Human Person as an

Embodied Spirit.
 Philosophy define the Human
Person
• Philosophers also think about upon the
concept of the Human Person and what makes
him or her a different in nature and entity.

•“Human Person” refers to the individual, and

all the attributes and characteristics that set
him or her apart from other human beings.
•Like all other animals, human beings posses
SENTIENCE –The ability to feel and experience
and perceive things.
 The Body As Intermediary

• Intermediary Connotes two meanings: as bridge

and as wall

• Because of my body, an encounter and agreement occur

between myself and the world. Through my body, my
subjectivity is opened to the world and the world is opened to me.
• On the other hand, because also of my body, I
experience the world as separate from me. I am hidden
from the world, and the world is hidden from me.
 The Body As Intersubjectivity

• My body is not only an intermediary between me and the

world but also between me and others. I show myself to the
other and the other also shows himself to me through my
body.

• Yet it’s also my body that I hide myself from them,

and they hide themselves to me.
 The Value of The Body

• As the appearance and subjectivity , my

body has a unique value and dignity. It
directs me not only to the world and others
but also to God.
 According To The West

The Notion of The Human Person

As Embodied Spirit.
 Aristotle’s Concept of Man
• While Plato thought of a dichotomy between
the body and soul, according to Aristotle,
there is none
• The body and soul are in state of unity – in his
so-called hylomorphic doctrine.
• Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) explains to us the
four orders of beings in this world which are
properly called hylomorphic namely, non- living
bodies, plants, animals, and men.
• Hylomorphic derived its etymology from two
Greek words, hyle which means “matter” and
morphe which means “form”.
• The soul acts as pure actuality of the body
while the body Is a material entity that posses
the potentiality for life.
 Aristotle presented the concepts of
the kinds of soul:
• Rational Soul – Ranks the highest for it takes
responsibility the functions of vegetative and
sensitive souls. It is capable of thinking,
reasoning, willing, reflecting, and deciding
apart from sensing and growing.
• Sensitive Soul – It feeds itself, it grows, it
reproduces, and it has feelings
• Vegetative Soul – Capable of feeding, growing
and reproducing itself.
 A.) Man Rational Animal
• Man as rational animal. He can cognize things
sensitively and intellectually. He is called
animal because he is no different from any
other animals
• Man can see things as it is and then undergo
an intellectual process – called ideogenesis –
to give its meaning.
 Scholastic (Thomistic) Concept of the
Human Person
• He was regarded of Christianizing the philosophy of
Aristotle
• St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was significantly
influenced by the thinking of the great Greek
philosopher Aristotle.
• The presupposition that the body and the soul are 2
distinct entities of totally different natures, having
completely distinct casual powers rooted in its
different natures, in which has become accessible to
us for observation in thoroughly diverse ways.
The universal element common in all living beings is
The body and the the
soulsoul.
are distinctive parts of
the same entity. St. Thomas would often
reiterate unum convertitur cum ente (there is
one entity, absolutely speaking, at any time
there is a being having one act of existence,
even if the being in query is composed of
numerous parts).
• Both Aristotle and St. Thomas
studied them as a function of the
whole of which it is a part
 Rene Descartes
• Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was the father of
modern philosophy and analytic geometry.
• He contended that all extended beings (meaning,
bodily beings) including man’s body, are subject
to change and hence, uncertain
• To get rid of illusion in order to secure that which is
certain as the foundation of any inquiry, he introduced
a methodic doubt in which he subject every extended
being into doubt and claimed that whatever is that
which will pass the test shall be held as certain and
real.
• He realized that even if almost
everything can be doubted, there is
one thing that cannot be doubted.

Cogito ergo Sum – “I think,

therefore, I am”
then metaphysics, then cosmology and ends with
philosophicalPHENOMENOLOGICAL
psychology or philosophical METHOD
anthropology (philosophy of man)
1.1 Man defined by traditional scholastic philosophy as
rational animal, a composite of body of soul.
1.1.1 Under the aspect of body, man is like any other animal, a
substance, mortal, limited by time and space.
1.1.2 Under the aspect of soul, man is rational, free, immortal.
1.1.3 The soul is deduced from the behavior of man to think and
decide.
dualistic; ( b) it looks at man more as an object, an animal; (c) it
proceeds from external to internal.
3. The phenomenological approach, on the other hand, is: (a) holistic;
(b) It describes man from what is properly human; (c) proceeds from
internal to external.
4. Phenomenology was started by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
whose aim was to arrive at “philosophy as a rigorous science”
4.1 By “philosophy as a rigorous science” Husserl meant
“presuppositionless philosophy”, a philosophy with the least
number of presuppositions.
 4.3.2 In particular, he was reacting against the naturalistic psychology
which treats mental activity as causally conditioned by events of
nature, in terms of S-R relationship (stimulus-reaction).
Presupposition here is that man is a mechanistic animal.
5. So, Husserl wanted philosophy to be “science of ultimate grounds”
where the presuppositions are so basic and primary that they cannot
be reduced further.
6. How does one arrive at Philosophy? By transcending the natural
attitude.
 become scientistic.
6.2 The scientific attitude observes things, expresses their workings
in singular judgments, then by induction and deduction, arrives at
concrete result.
7. But this attitude contains a lot of assumptions:
7.1 It assumes that there is no need to ask how we know.
7.2 It assumes that the world (object) is out there, existing and
explainable in objective laws, while man the subject is pure
consciousness, clear to itself able to know the world as it is.
7.3 It takes for granted the world-totality.
8. In short, the natural attitude looks at reality as things, a “fact
world”.
8.1The way of knowing in the natural attitude is fragmented,
partial, fixed, clear, precise, manipulative, and there is no room
for mystery. It was moving away from the heart of reality.
9. So, the motto for Husserl and the Phenomenologists was
“back to things themselves !”
9.1 By “back to things Themselves” Husserl meant the
entire field of original experience.
 Phenomenology attempts to go back to the
phenomenon, to that which presents itself to man, to
see things as they really are, independent of any
prejudice. Thus phenomenology is the “Logos of the
Phenomenon”.
 IMPORTANT STEPS
IN THE
PHENOMENOLOGICAL
METHOD
• Epoche literally means “bracketing” which Husserl borrowed
from Mathematics and applied to the natural attitude.
• Epoche is my natural attitude towards the object I am investigating,
my prejudice, my clear and conceptual knowledge of it that is
unquestioned.
• When I bracket, I do not deny nor affirm but simply hold in
abeyance: I suspend judgment on it.
• Epoche is important in order to see the world with “new eyes” and to
return to the original experience from where our conceptual
natural attitude was derived.
EIDETIC REDUCTION
Eidetic Reduction is one of the important reductions in
the phenomenological method.
“Reduction” is another mathematical term to refer to the
procedure by which we are placed in the “transcendental
sphere” the sphere in which we can see things as they
really are, independent of any
prejudice.
“Eidetic” is derived from “eidos” which means essence.
In eidetic reduction I reduce the experience to its
essence.
For example, I am doing a phenomenology of Love. I
start bracketing my biases on love. Then I reduce the
object love to the phenomenon of love. In eidetic
reduction, I begin with an example of a relationship of
love between two people. I change their age, race,
social status and all these do not matter in love. What is
it that I cannot change? Perhaps, the unconditional
giving of self to the other as he is. This then forms part
of the essence of Love.
 Phenomenological Transcendental
Reduction
Phenomenological Transcendental Reduction reduces the
experience further to the very activity of my consciousness, to
my loving, my seeing, my hearing..etc.
Here I now become conscious of the subject, the “I” who
must decide on the validity of the object.
I now become aware of the subjective aspects of the object
when I inquire into the beliefs, feelings, desires which shape
the experience.
The object is seen in relation to the subject and the subject in
relation to the object.
In our example of love, the Phenomenology of Love
can be reduced to the following:

1. as giving of oneself to the other (my perspective

as a lover)
2. Love is more receiving than giving (perspective of
the beloved)
3. Love as an activity of God (Religious perspective)
It is the Phenomenological Transcendental
Reduction that Edmund Husserl came up
with the main insight of Phenomenology:
“Intentionality of consciousness”
Intentionality of consciousness means that
consciousness is intentional, that
consciousness is always consciousness of
something other than consciousness itself.
Gabriel Marcel uses a Phenomenological
Method less technical than Husserl. He
calls it Reflections
 Primary and Secondary Reflection
Primary reflection is when we look at a particular thing objectively.

In this matter, the body studied in primary reflection is not

my body anymore but only “A Body”.

This is the body talked about in physiology, anatomy and

other sciences.

It is very important that we study Primary reflection.

Secondary Reflection recuperates the
unity of original experience. It does not go
against the data of primary reflection but
refuses to accept it as final.
Primary Reflection: I am so and so…,born on this
day…, in such a place…, with height and weight…
etc.. items on the I.D. card.

Secondary Reflection: I am more than the items

above.. I enter into my inner core.
Example#2: My Body

Primary Reflection: a body is like other bodies.., detached from the

“I” , the body examined by a doctor, studied by medical students, or
the body sold by the prostitute.

Secondary Reflection: I am my body, I feel the pain when my dentist

pulls my tooth. I feel a terrible feeling when I sell my body( prostitute).
 HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY:

From the “I” to the “Other”

 “The law of I”

• is a thinking that starts from myself, goes out to

the other, and returns to myself.
 “The Law of the Other”

• is a thinking that moves from the I to the other without

returning to the I.
 The Autonomy of the Self

• the act of preservation that describes itself

as a being – the going out of being from the
“self” to the “other” but return to the “self”
again.
 The Heteronomy of the Other
• what is most important is not the self/ego but the
neighboring/ other.
• there is ethical responsibility for the “other,” that the
“other” must not be taken for granted anymore.

• always consider the ethical responsibility of the

“self” to the “other,” for the “other”
Man as “Capable Human Being”: Transcendence
Transcendence:
• An act of rising above something to a superior
state
• State of excelling or surpassing or going
beyond usual limits of material experience
• Comes from the Latin prefix trans-, meaning
“beyond”, and the word scandare, meaning to
climb.
Man as “Capable Human Being”: Transcendence
• Man has the capacity to tell a story in order to ascertain that there are things in life left
undone.
• The narrative of our life must use the capacity of both to understand its hidden
possibilities
Narrative Identity
• -the dynamic way of interpreting identity
• -The hermeneutics of the self- a transition from man’s servile way
3 things to be highlighted in our life in quest of the narrative

• Not to see life as something routinary/ mechanical

• To find its meaning again and again
• To accept things in life as they are, but one should go beyond these lived human
actions .
I. Not to see life as something routinary/mechanical - identity is not just
keeping the same, but changes in time and always in the making -to see life as
routinary or mechanical is to make it tautologous -for Paul Ricoer, ‘the enemy of
memory is repetition’ -always see life everyday as a new beginning

II. To find its meaning again and again -MEANING in Filipino is kahulugan Ka:
kaputol or kapatid, binds or connect something Hulog: put into a deeper level in order
to grasp the real essence of being -In our life, there is a tendency to see it as
routinary/mechanical leading to its Absurdity.
-Paul Ricoer is suggesting to us the idea to always anchor our lives to the ultimate
source of meaning
III. To accept things in life as they are, but one should go
beyond these lived human actions - To struggle with the
text is tantamount to saying to struggle with the reality of
life - For Paul Ricoer, struggling with life is finding its true
meaning -struggle is inevitable in life, but to experience the
reality of life is for human to grow and go beyond the lived
experience in order to find its essence
 The Formation of the Human Being

• the aim of self-formation is to make each human being

becomes what God wants him to be

• Man must free himself from mere conformity and imitation

• Self- formation is very essential in life where we realize the plan

of God in us

• Life is an endless search for meaning