Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person

Governor Pack Road, Baguio City, Philippines 2600

Tel. Nos.: (+6374) 442-3316, 442-8220; 444-2786;
442-2564; 442-8219; 442-8256; Fax No.: 442-6268 Grade Level/Section:
Email: email@uc-bcf.edu.ph; Website: www.uc-bcf.edu.ph

MODULE 10 – Philosophy Subject Teacher:

FIRST TRIMESTER SY 2020-2021

Human person towards Impending death
Suffering

We have been aware of the ambiguities of human life. Every affirmative aspect of our being seems
to have its polar opposite. For instance, freedom is exercised against a background of facticity;
transcendence carries no guarantee of any true progress; egoity supplies the focus of inhuman
selfishness; body permits insertion into the material and social worlds, but can become a hindrance
and even a tyrant; ‘having’ is essential to a genuine life, yet at a certain point it becomes stifling.

The threat to human meaninglessness or absurdity has all the time been hanging over the picture of
humanity that we have been building up the negative aspect of humanity. It is right to face again
the dark or negative aspect which seem to pose a challenge to all that has been said about
commitment, belief, love or religion? Yes, suffering is everywhere and to reflect on the nature of
suffering and its place in human life shows that in most of its forms, it does not nullify the worth of life.

Forms of Suffering:

1. Physical Pain – The most common form of suffering. It is what most people refer to when they
say something hurts on their body and is associated with damage to tissues of their body. Pain
makes it possible for us to feel compassion for those who are suffering. The experience of pain
could arouse in us a lively and understanding compassion. In this sense, pain contributes to
human solidarity.
2. Mental or Spiritual Suffering – This suffering is associated with frustration, deprivation, failure or
loss. These happen when a person realizes her finitude (Finitude is the state of having limits or
bounds). To know and accept finitude is perhaps the most important step towards
personhood.
3. Guilt – It is a kind of inward pain or discomfort, a warning that something is wrong at the level
of human personal being.
4. Vicariously Suffering – It is the most acute suffering of all. We could endure suffering that
affects us but not that which affects others which we cannot do anything about it.

**Suffering may promote courage and patience. Patience acceptance of suffering, infirmity and
dependence is an important part of what makes us human. Suffering can evoke courage, courage,
concern, self-giving, sharing, and self-transcendence. To some extent, one can point to the need for
suffering in human life.

Death

There is a limit to the duration of the human person, which is death. Everyone knows that death will
eventually come, for in youth death seems something far off. Death is not an event of life. Death is
not lived through. Death is experienced vicariously, explicitly, vividly in depth of the other. Even one’s
own death may already have entered into one’s experience by anticipation. Death is not just the
moment when life actually ends, but is also the process of dying. We are dying every day. According
to Martin Heidegger, a human person is a being towards death. Once born, the process of death has
already begun.

Death presents some strange contradictions. It is the most certain event that will occur in anyone’s
biography. No one escapes death because it is a part of the human condition.

Concept of Man and Death

• Jean Paul Sartre – According to Sartre death removes all meaning, it empties the meaning of
life.
 Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person
Governor Pack Road, Baguio City, Philippines 2600
Tel. Nos.: (+6374) 442-3316, 442-8220; 444-2786;
442-2564; 442-8219; 442-8256; Fax No.: 442-6268 Grade Level/Section:
Email: email@uc-bcf.edu.ph; Website: www.uc-bcf.edu.ph

MODULE 10 – Philosophy Subject Teacher:

• Karl Jaspers - For Jaspers, death is a limit situation. Death is an ultimate end in human
existence, bringing us to a point where we have to face the most serious questions about the
meaning and goal of human life.
• Martin Heidegger – Death allows human life to have meaning. If human were immortal and life
went on forever, there could be no unifying pattern for it. Death is a boundary that gives a
perspective within which priorities can be set and the various events and possibilities of life are
seen interrelationships as parts of sense-giving to the whole of life.

Martin’s Heidegger’s Concept of Man & Death

A. Man

1. Being-there VS being there

• Man as a Dasein (German: Da – there; Sein – being) – Dasein is the self-constituting activity
because we observe what man does. The being of man is “being-there” (Filipino: Nandito
ako sa kinakatayuan ko; Nandiyan ka sa mundo mo). Hence, it is a phenomenological
understanding of man, of human existence.
• Man as being-in-the-world (with hyphen means that there is interconnection of one’s
existence). Being is alongside with things called concern. Man is being-with-others because
man has a bundle of possibilities. He is the power to be what he wants to become and the
fundamental structure of Dasein is CARE which is the constancy of the human spirit to realize
himself; thus, man is a project unto himself.
• On the other hand, man as a being in the world (without hyphen means there is separation)
is merely being alongside with things talks only about the physical world.

2. Three Fundamental aspects of human existence or CARE

a. Facticity/factuality or PAST – Human person is already a being in the world, alongside with
entities we encounter. “I am given a world which I have not chosen but in the same time the
world is mine, and I cannot do anything except to claim it as my own.” Man is thrown into
the world without any consultation – but he has to appropriate the world.
b. Fallenness or PRESENT- Man’s submersion in the preoccupations/distractions of the past. In
fallenness, we simply accept our facticity – our lack of transcendence. The implication of this
in our attitude is that “there is nothing we can do”.
-Man is living in a society wherein he is just involved in the everyday concern of the “they-
self”.
- The “they-self” has no face. It means you have no identity of your own, you are floating on
others perspective. You are lost because you don’t know who you are.
c. Possibility or FUTURE – Human existence is a possibility or existentiality. Man reaches beyond
himself. He reaches out to the future. He transcend himself. We can make ourselves better. In
the end, man also appropriates his existence. Existence is not simply a given, it is also made
or chosen.

B. Death

For Martin Heidegger, man is not only a being-in-the-world but he is also a being-towards-death. He is
not a being-at-an-end but as a being-towards-the end. Death is therefore the greatest possibility of
man, a “not-yet” which will be.

1. Inauthenticity VS Authenticity

a. Inauthenticity is the attitude of a “they-self” or “crowd mentality”. Death is just an event

because “everybody dies anyway. It is a non-acceptance of your greatest possibility. It is a
tranquilized indifference towards one’s finality. It is an impassioned freedom towards death.
 Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person
Governor Pack Road, Baguio City, Philippines 2600
Tel. Nos.: (+6374) 442-3316, 442-8220; 444-2786;
442-2564; 442-8219; 442-8256; Fax No.: 442-6268 Grade Level/Section:
Email: email@uc-bcf.edu.ph; Website: www.uc-bcf.edu.ph

MODULE 10 – Philosophy Subject Teacher:

b. Authenticity is a positive response or attitude. Man faces his death as his greatest possibility.
It is an anticipation of one’s possibility. Death is my one and no one else; I have and need
acceptance of its possibility. I am anxious of my own death-anxiety.

2. Four Fears of Death

a. Fear of the process of dying: When people say that they fear death, it is not really death
itself as an end state that they fear, but rather the physical and psychological process of
death. They fear that they suffer terribly. They fear pain and agony. They fear the torment of
letting for and leaving behind everyone and everything they love.
b. Fear of punishment: Some people who say that they fear death actually harbor anxieties
about one particular possible set of events that they fear might happen after their bodily
death. It is the fear of what might happen after passing to the world of the dead. Is it
heaven or hell?
c. Fear of unknown: This fear is related to our deep need to feel in control. When we know
what is going on, we have a sense of control over our fortunes. However, the unknown
allows for no sure plans or reasonable expectation.
d. Fear of Annihilation: This is the fear of death that gives many contemporary men night
terrors. Man find himself suddenly aware that they will inevitably face death, and that what
they will confront may in fact be the total cessation of conscious experience, the
annihilation of the person they have been, forever.

Insights

According to Heidegger, death is certain, indefinite and unavoidable; it is a dead end. It is the only
possession we can call our own but ‘not-yet’. Nobody can die for us. I only die for myself. We
transcend the medico-scientific fact of death, or merely the fear-of-ceasing-to-be. A.W. Frank (2002)
encourage us to see that death is no enemy; it rather restores our sense of the value of living. Illness
restores the sense of proportion that is lost when we take life for granted. To learn about value and
proportion, we need to honor illness, and ultimately to honor death.

P.S.

Philosophy is never a futile activity. It is not just your subject, it is your way of life. After this semester
you may forget the concepts that were taught during class, but please do not forget the values on
how to live as human beings. Always seek on how you can attain full knowledge and wisdom, and
that is the philosophical way.

“Science gives us knowledge, but only Philosophy can give us wisdom.”

References:

Sioco, M. & VInzons, I. (2016). Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person. Quezon City: VIbal
Group, Inc.

Ramos, Christine Carmela. (2016). Introduction to the Philosophy of Human Person. Manila,
Philippines: Rex Book Store.