Lesson1.docx

LESSON 1: THE NOTIONS OF BEING AND PERSON The Meaning of Being According to Aristotle, being is whatever is anything whatever. Whenever he explains the meaning of being, he explains it in the sense of the Greek verb to be. Which means, whatever exists or has existence can be considered as a being. According to Plato, being does not mean existence but something that is recognizable by its quality or shape. Something specific like human, horse, tree, or house. According to Existentialists, being as a mode of existence is always specific and concrete in an individual human person. Then, human person is a being because he/she exists and has his/her own individual human existence, making them different from other beings or from other entities that exist. The Person as Body and Soul According to St. Thomas Aquinas, a person is an individual substance of a rational nature. A human being is a soul-body union. A soul is an immaterial substance capable of intellect and will, and a body is a material substance capable of sensation and growth. The soul and body are not two nature united, rather, their union forms a single thing: a living, human person. And it is the rational soul or spirit that gives a human person spiritual capacities or faculties of intelligence and will and makes him/her a human person. When soul and body separate, then the matter returns to a disorganized state. It implies that you are not your soul; the soul is only a part of you. The Uniqueness and Dignity of the Human Person A human person is different from all other creatures because he/she has both the body and the soul; he/she is unique from all other creations of God the Supreme Being because he/she occupies a very special place in the whole of creation. (a)

The human person can be considered as an object (done-to) and a subject (do-er). As a subject, one is an entity that exists and acts in a certain way; he/she is an objective somebody. As an object, man is ‘somebody’ and this sets him apart from every other entity in the visible world, which as an object is always only ‘something.’

(b)

The human person has the ability to reason and to choose. They can involve and relate themselves with the world of objective beings which is the external world, that makes spirituality the source of his/her inner life.

(c)

Human persons react according to both their spiritual (which is fundamental in the formation of a genuine inner life) and rational nature. This nature includes the power of reason and self-determination which is based on the intellect and the will.

The Irreducibility of the Human Person As human persons, people are unrepeatable and unique; they cannot be substituted or replaced by another. This is what Wojtyla calls the “irreducibility of the human person” to the level of the world or the “cosmological level.” As persons, people are subjects; their subjectivity signifies the “irreducibility” to the level of the world. The proper understanding of human must be personalistic personalism in nature. This understanding must focus on the personal, which is the inner aspect of the human being that is irreducible. In order to understand man as a unique and an unrepeatable subject, Wojtyla introduced the notion of lived experience. It is this lived experience or this lived activity that reveals one’s being; a specific subject. Human persons are unique and unrepeatable precisely because they live their own experiences. Their lived experience cannot be reduced to the level of the world or the animals; the products of their experiences cannot be reduced to a mere commodity. Individuality and Personality Individuality. A material pole. It signifies man’s unity and simplicity; The quality or character of a person or thing that distinguishes them from others of the same kind. The body cannot exist on its own and neither can the soul in order to complete a being, they both need each other. Personality. A spiritual pole. It signifies the interiority of the self which is derived from its being spiritual and therefore also signifies an inherent dignity as an image of God; the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual distinctive character. Our image of God involves the rational soul within us.

Individuality and Personality are different, but not two different things. They are related in a sense that they cannot be independent and work together; they are in the same reality.

LESSON 2: THE HUMAN PERSON AS A HYLOMORPHIC BEING The Theory of Hylomorphism Aristotle's theory revolves on the term hylomorphism or hylemorphism – derived from two Greek terms: hyle, which means “matter” (body) and morphe, which means “form” (soul). He believed that all living things contain a form and matter. In the example of humans, our soul is the form and our body is the matter. His theory also encompassed the idea that the soul isn't immortal as it dies when the body dies. According to this theory, all corporeal beings are made up of matter and form, and are of two kinds – the animate being (being is a living being or organism such as plants, animals, and men); and the inanimate being (a nonliving being such as stone, book, and phone). The Nature of the Rational Soul The rational soul is ‘Spiritual.’ The soul is not a body or a corporeal being. It does not depend on the body for its existence, and it continues to exist or live even after it has separated from the body. The rational soul is ‘Simple.’ The soul has no parts; it has no composition. The soul has no matter, and is the form of the body. It cannot be disintegrated into smaller parts. It is simple for it is a form by virtue of itself and has no something in it. The rational soul is ‘Immortal.’ The soul does not die together with the body; it will live forever and only God the Supreme Being can annihilate the rational soul. The rational soul is ‘Immaterial.’ It is not physical and subject to the laws of materiality; it can transcend or go beyond time and cannot be confined in a space. The Faculties of Man in General Vegetative Faculty. Was the lowest soul which included the functions basic to all living things: nutrition (the absorption and assimilation of food), growth (the capacity to increase in size as a result of nutrition), and reproduction (the capacity to generate one’s own kind. Two Sentient Faculties (The Senses: External and Internal):

The sense is the material cognitive faculty of a human. The function of the senses is to know the object by forming images of the object and storing it in the senses. There are two types of senses: The external senses – which includes the five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. The image formed by external sense and the common sense is called percept; and The internal senses – which includes the common sense, imagination (which has three functions: formative, reproductive, and creative), memory (which has two functions: recall and recognition), and the estimative sense. The image formed by the imagination and stored in one’s memory is called the phantasm. Two Sentient Faculties (The Emotions or Sentient Appetites): The Sentient Appetites are the emotions; the desire of sensible goods (or is averse to sensible evils). Aristotle classified it into two: The concupiscible appetites – an inclination toward pursuing what is suitable and avoiding what is harmful, or to want what is pleasing. These includes love, hatred, desire, aversion, joy/happiness, and sadness; and The irascible appetites – an inclination toward resisting the corrupting and contrary things that pose an obstacle to what is suitable and that inflict what is harmful, or to avoid what is painful/fearful. These includes hope, despair, courage, fear, and anger. The Rational Faculties: Intellect and Will Rationality or Intelligence. The power that is proper to a human; it is the faculty that differentiates a human from the other corporeal beings. A human has two rational faculties: The intellect – the rational and spiritual cognitive faculty of a man. It is the ability to think, to reason, and to know. Through the process of abstraction (the process by which the intellect “strips” the object of its non-essential qualities or elements, retains the essential ones and from them, forms the mental image called the idea), the intellect could form a mental image from a material object. It has three operations: simple apprehension, judgement, and reasoning; and

The will – the faculty of volition. It is the ability to choose. It inclines man to tend toward a rational good or move away from a rational evil, and it acts on the recommendation and judgement of the intellect. Aristotle maintains that the will of man is always free (from any form of restrains and control). There are two kinds of freedom: the freedom of exercise (freedom to do or not to do) and freedom of specification (freedom to choose from different alternatives or courses of action).