OF MAN AND OF PERSON

(This paper is part of my thesis in AB Philosophy. I revised it a bit and edited some ideas and statements which have redundancies.)

What if animals were persons? What will they become of ? Or, what if human being were not a person? What is the main implication? Theoretically, man has an existence much greater than any other forms of existences of being in the whole universe. Human existence is such a noble form of being, so much so, man is the ruler of all creation (psalm 8).

In addition, having known the nature of ‘being human’, there is another element which is closely related with the idea of humanity: the reality of human person. Being ‘person’ is closely affiliated with ‘being human’, but with a simple confusion in Filipino language. Filipino, based on Tagalog, would usually relate these two terminologies as one. ‘Being person’ and ‘being human’ is singularly named as ‘tao’. This is a sort of a culture neglect to the rich terms which is incomparably different.

A Filipino saying goes on this way: ‘madaling maging tao, mas mahirap maging mag-pakatao". Literally speaking this could be understood as ‘ it’s easy to be a man, but it’s a lot difficult to become man’.

This translations sounds redundant as both ‘tao’ and ‘magpakatao’ is practically the same in the English context.

However, even Filipinos would have its own line of thought other than its English literal translation. Actually, the people conceive of something different when they regard ‘tao’ and ‘magpakatao’. ‘Maging tao’ refers to simply as ‘being human’; ‘magpakatao’ to ‘being person’.

THE EXISTENCE OF MAN

Man is a creature who is composed of body and soul. He is not a body or a soul alone – he is ‘soul and body’. Moreover, man is not purely essence ( a being whose nature only exist in the mind and no other else); he also exists actually and really as man (a being who really exists outside the mind of another thinking being). Thus, from being man, abstractly taken, he is individualized into a concrete nature. But his concrete existence as man is not essentially determined by his manly appearance. Rather, man’s human existence is determined by his very human action.

As a creature (created by another being superior than himself), man is dependent and contingent (opposite to ‘necessary’, e.g. a being who is the reason and cause of other beings’ existence). Consequently, he takes on himself, the reality of change and mutability (his actions are to the fulfillment of his potentialities).

Change, in general, requires a creature, who is man in our example, the metaphysical principles of act (a being which exists now) and potency (a being which exists in the future). As man’s existence is known through his action, it is in this very fact that in order to know him continually, he must act continually also. There is something in man which tries to become actual which, in the beginning of his existence, is still potential. Man truly, is a creature capable of changing.

And yet, this truth can still possibly stand at another angle so as to be projected in a brighter view. A question is placed: ‘why does man continue to act? Or, ‘why should he continually act’? Precisely, he acts for the purpose of perfecting his imperfect state of humanity; he exercises his being human as he actualized the potentialities in him. Man, in other words, acts for the perfection of his human existence, which in the beginning was wrapped by a cloud of seeming and obscure capacity. Thus in acting, he becomes more and more perfect.

HUMAN PROGRESS, AS PROPERLY ATTRIBUTED FOR HUMAN PERSON:

Another reality in human exigency of life is this sense of fulfillment. A sense of fulfillment can happen in life only when one is able to say to oneself that his human activity has done him good – for self or for others. Man’s moment of acting (to give existence to what is yet potential) will bring him a step higher from his very state of humanity now.

But who determines this sense of fulfillment of one’s action? In other words, who is the subject of all these experiences? There is no other person but the one experiencing it himself/herself. Distinctively, the one who experiences this sense of fulfillment is not the vague human nature but the human person. The human person is the proper subject who perceived these fulfillment; the one who is aware of this continuous activity, event or occasion. This experience of fulfillment takes place deep within the ‘being person’ and not properly attribute to the ‘being human’.

Nevertheless, this idea brings the topic into a very basic philosophical truth: human being is not just a simple supposit (simply a being or anything that is created by God both in the mind as ideas or present in reality as physical matter and non - material). Moreover, not all creatures are persons; but some of them are. One good example is the human being (man). Personhood requires from the individual existent nature the faculties (powers) of intellect and consequently, of the will. Consequently, when man is endowed with these powers, he cannot but become a human person, capable of reflecting and of deciding freely.

Critically speaking, it is the intellect and the will that make the human person subject of its own experience. His ‘acting’, as part of his nature as being, is not being perfectly experienced by other persons other than himself. He himself is the subject of his own experience. In other words, he experiences what he is acting out; a perfect experience compared to the intensity of what the others had. An irrational animal acts accordingly to its nature. However, that individual animal does not experience what it is acting; only other creatures outside itself can. And must be intellective creature at that! Thus, the very fact of ‘being person’ makes self – awareness possible. And that those experiences of himself is absolutely incommunicable with anyone.

Therefore, for a single individual human being to be truly living his/her ‘being person’, he must be always in contact with his/her very self: feelings, reflections, emotions, passions, temperaments, psychological conditions and all those realities which pertains mainly to the enrichment of self.

The nature of ‘being human’ is precisely to be more a ‘being person’. Man’s ‘being human’ gives him the opportunity to actualize those which are still potential in him/her. The essence of ‘being human’ gives man the capacity for personal enrichment and progress. Unlike human beings, irrational animals do not have even the notions of what this human being (the author) is talking about in this paper. Man knows and is aware that he conceives and experiences those which he/she himself/herself is acting accordingly. Indeed, he is really the subject of his own subjectivity.

THE NOTION OF PROGRESS IN HUMAN PERSON

We know from the previous statement that human nature ‘being human’ has contributed so much for man’s actual personhood. Not ‘being human’ in the first place, man can impossibly attain human personhood.

But aside from, there is another element which springs from man’s humanity as contingent (a being which is created by a Being greater than it). Man enjoys the reality of change ( in any aspects of change). Human beings, inasmuch as they were created, is dependent from the Being who is source of all existence and whose Existence itself is necessary (a being which did not originate from another being; it exists by itself) Man has a point in eternity when he/she was still non-existent. From nothing, a necessary Being created something – man. There and there, man received existence which it did not acquire before.

Therefore, as contingent and coming to be, man is progressing in himself. He’s not perfect, anyway. And so every inch of human life is a human person in progress. As regards ‘being person’, man progresses holistically from something simple to something complex. And if changes for growth happen in man, it is not a proper indicative to his ‘being human’, but rather to his ‘being person’.

WE ARE NO

T ONLY HUMAN BEINGS; WE ARE HUMAN PERSONS. AND THAT COMPRISES OUR BEING UNIQUE FROM ANY OTHER CREATURES. WE CAN EXPERIENCE OUR SUBJECTIVITY AND THE SUBJECT OF OUR SUBJECTIVITY IS OURSELF.

Anthony Wilbert S. Dianon, SDB

July 21, 1999

St. Louis School – Don Bosco,

Dumaguete City