Perspectives of

Human
Limitations
Activity 1: Define Death
Directions: Write an acronym meaning about death. You can put words or
phrase/s based on what you have learned.
D-_____________________________________________
E-_____________________________________________
A-_____________________________________________
T-_____________________________________________
H-_____________________________________________
Traditional and Legal

Definition of Death
Traditional Definition
Death was a simply equated to the stopping of heartbeat and breathing.
Legal Definition:
Section 2, paragraph (j) of the Organ Donation Act of 1991 (Republic Act 7170): “Death”- the irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or
the irreversible cessation of all the functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. A person shall be medically and legally dead if either:
(1) In the opinion of the attending physician, based on the acceptable standards of medical practice, there is an absence of natural respiratory and cardiac functions
and, attempts at resuscitation would not be successful in restoring those functions. In this case, death shall be
deemed to have occurred at the time these functions ceased; or
• (2) In the opinion of the consulting physician,
concurred in by the attending physician, that
based on acceptable standards of medical
practice, there is an irreversible cessation of all
brain functions; and considering the absence of
such functions, further attempts at resuscitation
or continued supportive maintenance would not
be successful in restoring such natural functions.
In the case, death shall be deemed to have
occurred at the time when these conditions first
appeared. What happens to the human person
after death?
•Concepts of life
after death in
Christianity
• The Christian end-time expectation is
directed not only at the future of the
church but also at the future of the
individual believer. It includes definite
conceptions of the personal continuance of
life after death. Many baptized early
Christians were convinced they would not
die at all but would still experience the
advent of Christ in their lifetimes and
would go directly into the Kingdom of God
without death.
• Others were convinced they would go through the
air to meet Christ returning upon the clouds of the
sky: “Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air; and so, we shall always
be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). In the
early imminent expectation, the period between
death and the coming of the Kingdom still
constituted no object of concern. An expectation
that one enters into bliss or perdition immediately
after death is also found in the words of Jesus on
the cross:
“Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). In the Nicene Creed the life of the Christian is characterized as “eternal life.” In the Gospels and in the apostolic
letters, “eternal” is first of all a temporal designation: in contrast to life of this world, eternal life has a deathless duration. In its essence, however, it is life according
to
God’s kind of eternity—i.e., perfect, sharing in his glory and bliss (Romans 2:7, 10). “Eternal life” in the Christian sense is thus not identical with “immortality of the
soul”; rather, it is only to be understood in connection with the expectation of the resurrection. “Continuance” is neutral vis-à-vis the opposition of salvation and
disaster, but the raising from the dead leads to judgment, and its decision can also mean eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46). The antithesis to eternal life is not
earthly life but eternal death.
• Eternal life is personal life, and precisely
therein is fulfilled the essence of humanity
created according to the image of God.
Within eternal life there are differences. In
the present life there are variations in talent,
duty, responsibility, and breadth and height
of life, just as there are also distinctions in
“wages” according to the measure of the
occupation, the sacrifice of suffering, and
the trial (1 Corinthians 3:8).
Correspondingly, the resurrected are also
distinguished in eternal life according to
their “glory”.
• Other Beliefs:
Reincarnation
It is the philosophical or religious
concept that an aspect of a living being
starts a new life in a different physical
body or form after each biological death.
How can we know for certain?
“No man knows whether death may not
even turn out be the greatest blessing
for a human being; and yet people fear it
as if they knew for certain that it is the
greatest of evil” –Socrates
• Socrates on Death
Death is either:
-Possibility #1- dreamless sleep
- Possibility #2-Passage to another life
Therefore, either way, death is nothing to fear. “After all, to the
well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
-Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
But what if there is no afterlife?
Would you still fear death?
Maybe what we fear is the process of dying. How does death
feel?
Epicurus on death
- All sensation and consciousness end with death.
- When a man dies, he does not feel the pain of death because
he is no longer is and therefore feels nothing.
- Fearing nonexistence gets in the way of enjoying life
Who am I? What is the meaning of life?
A. Socrates
Socrates, a great teacher in Athens around 469 BC, believes that knowing oneself is a condition to solve the present problem (Berversluis 2000).
Socrates in Clouds is the head of the school; the work of the school comprises research and teaching. Socrates has two different ways of teaching.
His expository method answers the student’s direct or implied questions, fills the void ignorance with information, proceeds by analogy and
illustration, or clears the ground for exposition by demonstrating that some of the beliefs hitherto held by the student are irreconcilable with other
beliefs or assumptions. His “tutorial” or well-known
• Socratic method is: (1) to assess by questions the
character of the student; and (2) to set him problems,
exhort him to reduce each problem to its constituent
elements, and criticize the solution that he offers.
The first process is also called ironic process, a process
that serves the learner to seek for knowledge by ridding
the mind of prejudices and then be humbly accepting his
ignorance. The second process has cleared the mind of
the learner of the ignorance, and then draws truth out of
the learner’s mind. This can be done by means of a dialog
or a conversation. This method considers, examines,
compares, and studies the similarities and dissimilarities
of the idea being discussed, so that the clear and precise
notion of the idea is achieved.
• Happiness
For Socrates, for a person to be happy, he must live a
virtuous life. Virtue is not something to be taught or
acquired through education, but rather it is merely an

awakening of the seeds of good deeds that lay dormant

in the mind and heart of a person. Knowing what is in
the mind and heart of a human being is achieved
through self-knowledge. Thus, knowledge does not
mean only theoretical or speculative, but a practical
one. Practical knowledge means one does not only
know the rules of right living, but one lives them.
Hence, for Socrates, true knowledge means wisdom,
which in turn, means virtue.
• Socrates’ major ethical claims were: (1) happiness is impossible
without moral virtue; and (2) unethical actions harm person who
performs them more than the people they victimize. Although it is
not totally clear what Socrates meant by these notions, he seems to
have believed that an unethical person is weak, even
psychologically unhealthy. He apparently thought that we, today,
would call that cognitive and non-cognitive capacities are harmed
as the unethical person gives into his or her desires and ultimately
becomes enslaved by them.
Someone in the grip of corruption can no longer be satisfied and
endlessly seeks new pleasures. In addition, the individual’s intellect
and moral sense are impaired. Socrates, thus, saw someone
steeped in vice as lacking the freedom, self-control, and intellect
clarity that are needed to live happily. The immoral person literally
become a slave to his desires.
B. Plato
Contemplation in the mind of Plato means that the mind is in communion with the universal and eternal ideas. Contemplation is very important in life of
humanity because this is the only available means for mortal human being to free himself from his space-time confinement to ascend to the heaven of
ideas and their commune with the immoral, eternal, and the infinite, and divine truths. This contemplation does not mean passive thinking or
speculation, or knowing and appreciating what is good; rather, it is doing well in life. Human beings, therefore, are in constant contemplation of the
truth, since the things we see here on earth are merely shadows (one appearance) of the truth (reality) in the world of ideas; the good, since here on
earth, the body is inclined to evil things; the beauty, since the things we see here on earth are not fair or foul to others. Hence, humanity should
contemplate beauty that is absolute, simple, and everlasting.
Plato’s Theory of Immortality
According to Plato, the body is the source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food,
and is liable also to disease, which overtake and impede us in the search after true being it fills us full of love,
lusts and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolishness. For example, when war comes, money must
be acquired by and for the sake of the body. The body, for Plato, causes us turmoil and confusion in our
inquiries. Thus, to see the truth, we must quit the body-the soul cannot have pure knowledge.
C. Aristotle
Realizing Your Potential
Aristotle’s account for change calls upon actuality and potentially (Hare et al. 1991). For Aristotle, everything in nature seeks to realize itself- to
develop its potentialities and finally realize its actualities. All things have strived toward their “end”. A child strives to be an adult; a seed strives to
be a tree. It is the potentiality to be changing. Aristotle called the process entelechy, a Greek word for “to become its essence”. Aristotle has much
more to say about change. Change takes place in time and space. Since space and time are infinitely indivisible, Aristotle analyzed the
notion of infinity.
• Entelechy means that nothing happens by chance. Nature not only
has a built-in pattern, but also different levels of being. Some
creatures, such as humans, have more actuality than potentiality and
some, such as bees, have more potentiality than actuality. However,
for the world of potential things to exist at all, there must first be
something actual (form) at a level above potential or perishing things
(matter).
Aristotle divided everything in the natural world into to two main
categories: nonliving things and living things (Price 2000). Nonliving
things such as rock, water, and earth have no potentiality for change.
They can change only by some external influence. Water changes into
ice, for instance, when the external temperature reaches freezing.
However, living things do have the potentiality for change.
At the top of the scale is the Unmoved Mover (God), pure actuality
without any potentiality. All things in the world are potentially in
motion and continuously changing. Therefore, said Aristotle, there
must be actual motion, and which is moved by nothing external. He
called this entity the Unmoved Mover.
For Aristotle, all things are destructible, but the Unmovable Mover is eternal,
immaterial, with pure actuality or perfection, and with no potentiality. Being eternal,
it is the reason for and the principle of motion to everything else. Because motion is
eternal, there never was a time when the world was not. The Unmoved Mover has
neither physical body nor emotional desires. Its main activity consists of pure
thought can only be itself.
• Striving to realize themselves, objects and human beings move
toward their divine origin and perfection. Our highest faculty is the
reason, which finds its perfection in contemplating the Unmoved
Mover. Aristotle explained how an Unmoved Mover cause motion of
the world and everything in it by comparing it to a beloved who
“moves” its lover by the power of attraction. The object of love is the
cause of a change in the lover, without itself being changed.
Similarly, God is the
object of the aspirations of other substances but is not Himself
susceptible to change or motion (Here et al.1991) As the “form”
adult is in the child directing it toward its natural end, the
Unmoved Mover is the form of the world moving it toward its divine
end. The highest human activity resembles the activity of the
Unmoved Mover. Just
as the Unmoved Mover think about perfection itself. According to
Aristotle, the most pleasant activity for any living creature is
realizing its nature; therefore, the happiest life for humans is
thinking about the Unmoved Mover (Price 2000).
Activity 1: My Life
Direction: Finish the phrases below that best suits your experiences in life. You
can also use another sheet of paper on this activity.
1. I find life as ______
2. When it rains, ______________
3. My goal is to _______________
4. If someone gives me joy, I ____________
5. Death is _____________
•
Activity 1: The Bucket of Life
Directions: Fill out the bucket list below by
answering the column A guide
questions in relation to the column B. You
can use another paper for this
activity. Bucket list – It refers to a list of
things that one has not done before
but wants to do before dying. (www.meriam-
webster.com)
2. From the bucket list
above, write down what
you have realized.
Finding One’s
Purpose
What is a Short-Term Goal?
• A short-term goal is something you want to do soon. Short-term goals
can help you make big changes.

• A short-term goal is something you want to do in the near future. The

near future can mean today, this week, this month, or even this year. A
short-term goal is something you want to accomplish soon. Something
that will take you a long time to accomplish is called a long-term goal.

• Both long- and short-term goals can help you in your career. Short-term
goals help you think about what you can do right away. Short-term goals
can help you manage your time. Short-term goals might seem small, but
completing them can lead to big accomplishments in your life and
career.
What is a Long-Term Goal?
• A long-term goal is something you want to do in the future. Long-term goals are
important for a successful career.
• A long-term goal is something you want to accomplish in the future. Long-term goals
require time and planning. They are not something you can do this week or even this
year. Long-term goals are usually at least several years away.
• Sometimes it takes many steps to complete a long-term goal. These smaller steps can
be your short-term goals.
• For example, your long-term goal might be to complete all of your GED exams. This
could take several years of going to school and studying. Going to class next month
might be a short-term goal. Or passing an important test can be another short-term
goal. Achieving these short-term goals helps you reach your long-term goal.
• Long-term goals are important for a career. Careers last your whole working life.
Long-term goals help you think about the education you will need. Long-term goals
help you think about jobs you want in the future. Careers take time and planning.
These plans will include your long-term goals.
 Tell whether the ff is a short or long term
•goals:
Practice typing on the computer today
• Get married and have a family
• Become very good at using a computer.
• Write a resume.
• arrive on time in school
• Gain experience and get promoted at work
• Talk to the teacher after class
• Become a supervisor at work
• Practice reading the newspaper at home
• Go to community college
• Buy a house in five years.
Meaning of Life (Where Will This Lead To?)
Tragedy, according to Nietzsche, grew from his unflinching recognition and the
beautification, even the idealization, of the inevitability of human suffering (Johnston
2010)
Our true existence is not our individual lives but our participation in the drama
of life and history.
Realizing ones "higher self” means fulfilling one’s loftiest vision, noblest ideal.
On his way to the goal of self-fulfillment.
• A. Friedrich Nietzsche
The individual has to liberate himself from environmental
influences that are false to one's essential beings, for the
"unfree man" is "a disgrace to nature'.'
The free human being still must draw a sharp conflict
between the higher self and the lower self, between the ideal
aspired to and the contemptibly imperfect present.
• Unless we do "become ourselves," life is meaningless.
• total reality = phenomenal realm (highly differentiated
world of material objects in space and time) + noumenal
realm (single, undifferentiated something that is space
less, timeless, non-material, beyond the reach of causality)
which is inaccessible to
experience
• B. Arthur Schopenhauer
The noumenon cannot cause the phenomenon –– so
Schopenhauer concludes: the noumenon and
phenomenon are the same reality apprehended in two
different ways: the noumenon is the inner significance,
the true but hidden and inaccessible being, of what we
perceive outwardly as the phenomenal world.
Schopenhauer's ethics: humans are separate physical
objects in space and time, temporary manifestations in
the phenomenal world, of something noumenal ––
this implies that in the ultimate ground of our being we
are the same something –– so the wrongdoer and the
wronged are in the last analysis the same –– this explains
compassion.
***noumenon object or event that exists independently of human
sense..Phenomenon any object of the senses
Schopenhauer contends that all of life is suffering caused by desire. Our desires lead us to harm each other ultimately, amounting harm to ourselves.
The person who wickedly exerts his will against others suffers too. (Solomon & Higgins 1996)
Schopenhauer's ethics: humans are separate physical objects in space and time, temporary manifestations in the phenomenal world, of something noumenally
– this implies that in the ultimate ground of our being we are the same something –– so the wrongdoer and the wronged are in the last analysis the same –– this
explains
compassion.
Human existence is exhibited in care. Care is understood in terms of finite temporality, which reaches with death. Death is a possibility that happens
• C. Martin Heidegger
Threefold structure of care:
Possibility. Humanity gets projected ahead of
itself. Entities that are
encountered are transformed merely as
ready-to-hand for serviceability and out of
them. Humanity constructs the instrumental
world on the basis of the persons' concerns.
Facticity. A person is not pure possibility but
tactical possibility: possibilities open to him
at any time conditioned and limited by
circumstances. A person's situation as a
finite entity.
• Fallenness. Humanity flees from the disclosure of anxiety to
lose oneself in absorption with the instrumental world, or
to bury oneself in the anonymous is thrown into a world
where he/she must project his/her possibilities not
disclosed by theoretical understanding but by moods.
impersonal existence of the mass, where no one is
responsible. Humanity has fallen away from one's
authentic possibility into an authentic existence of
irresponsibility and illusory security. Inauthentic existence,
thus, is scattered and fragmented. D. Jean-Paul-Sartre.For
Sartre, the human person desires be God; the desire to
exist as a being that has its sufficient ground in itself (en
sui causa). For an atheist, since God does not exist, the
human person must face the consequences of this. The
human person is entirely responsible for his/her own
• Sartre’s dualism
En-soi (in itself) — signifies the permeable
and dense, silent, and dead. From
them comes no meaning, they only are. The
en-soi is absurd, it only finds meaning
only' through the human person, the one
and only pour-soi. the world only has
meaning according to. Pour-soi (for-itself) the
world only has meaning according to what
the person gives to it. Compared with' the
en-soi, a person has no fixed nature. To put
it in a paradox: the human person is not
what he/she is.
For Sartre, there is no way of coming to terms with the other that does not end
in frustration. This explains why we experience failure to resolve social problems from hatred, conflict, and strife
E. Karl Jaspers
Freedom reveals itself as a gift from somewhere beyond itself.
Freedom without God only leads to a person’s searching for a substitute to God
closer to oneself, usually, he himself tries to be God.
Jaspers asked that human beings be loyal to their own faiths without impugning
the faith of others.
• F. Gabriel Marcel
Philosophy's starting point is a metaphysical "disease.
Secondary reflection – process in which the search for a home in the
wilderness, a harmony in disharmony, takes place
Marcel's Phenomenological Method Primary Reflection – this method looks
at the world or at any object as a problem, detached from the self and
fragment. This is the foundation of scientific
knowledge. Subject does not enter the object investigated. The data of
primary reflection lie in the public domain and are equally available to any
qualified observer Secondary Reflection – Secondary reflection is concrete,
individual, heuristic, and open. This reflection is concerned not with
object but with presences. It recaptures the unity of original experience. It
does not go against the date of primary reflection but
goes beyond it by refusing to accept the data of primary reflection as final
This reflection is the area of the mysterious because we enter the realm of
the personal. What is needed in secondary reflection is an ingathering, a
recollection, a pulling together of the scattered fragments of our
experience.
Enrichment Activity 1: What I want in life.
Direction: List at least 10 goals you want to accomplish in life. It can be long term or short-term goals.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
• Activity 2: Reflect on the meaning of your life.
Directions: After learning from the views of the philosophers, write
down your own short reflection regarding the meaning of life. There
should only be 3-5 sentences.
Reflect: Who am I?
1. “You only live once – but if you work it right, once is enough.” –Joe
E. Lewis
2. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the
things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the
bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in
your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover” – Mark Twain
3. “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already
mastered, you
will never grow.” –Ronald E. Osborn
have capacities, talents, direction, missions, and callings.” –
Abraham H. Maslow