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SHEILA MAE A. MALESIDO DR.

MARTINEZ
PHDBM PHILOSOPHICAL BASED INQUIRY

“OWN SOMETHING, OWE EVERYTHING, OWN NOTHING, OWE NOTHING”

OWN SOMETHING, OWE EVERYTHING

When you own something, you have to be aware of your “SELF.” That you have to be aware that
our body is embodied with consciousness or spirit. To be able to embody the spirit it requires a body.
However you are not reduced to this body as the consciousness is consciousness of consciousness other
than itself. That the consciousness as a subject requires an object. That the consciousness of something is
the consciousness of the object, of the body and of the world. That the world as a subject is our existential
situation, phenomenological experience of your being in the world. That man is a being in the world
(Edmund Husserl, 1859-1938).

Being in the world establish your presence. Establish means you have to have an active
participation to change or to develop. Presence refers to our existence that’s the reason we owe
everything as in order for us to exist we should be aware that there are co-existence, other existence and
that other existence are other beings, other people. That the world refers to the human world. That we
have to respect and support through love, fidelity and faith. According to Gabriel Marcel “to be a creature
is to be related, to be co-present to others,” esse est co-esse: to exist is to co-exist. “

OWN NOTHING, OWE NOTHING

Man becoming himself, there should be an active, dynamic state or activity. As only man or human
person is the being that exist. That only man is the only being who can become. Though God does not
exist but He does not have to become Himself. We own nothing as man is a being that leads towards
death. That death is a transition from being to no being. That man comes to an end of his being in the
world. Just like a fruit the stage of being unripe to ripe. That ripe refers to coming to end of its being
unripe. “There being” connotes death, that death is nothing. As according to Plato (428-348 BC), man has
an immortal soul and a mortal perishable body. The courageous and appetitive parts of the soul are
mortal and they perish when man dies.

Everyday being is being unite with death. Everyday being is to live with purpose. As every day is
everyday possibilities of death. As possibility refers to not yet and death is permanent. In death there are
all possibilities. According to Heidegger (1889-1976), death is the possibility of the impossibility of all
possibilities. That life or our existence is a continuous searching of meaning or purpose (Gabriel Marcel,
1889-1973). We owe nothing because everything is our own making. We are the author of everything.
Our personal, subjective effort to search the meaning of our existence. That personal is our journey of
finding meaning. And the meaning of eternity or immortal life. That death is the beginning of life towards
eternity. But our body cannot go to eternity as our consciousness can only pass the curtain of death. As
dualism says, the body and spirit are different properties of the same body, our “body and soul.” That in
our body there is mortal life, there is death and in our soul or spirit there is eternity, there is immortality.

Source: Dy, Manuel. (2019). Philosophy of Man. Ateneo de Manuka University Press
Corpuz, B., et. al. (2016). Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person. Lorimar Publishing.

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