Introduction:

What does it mean to be human? Can there be human? What it is to be human? These are the
questions we are confronted with once we delve into the idea of man. We also heard of the
popular Filipino saying that Madaling Maging Tao pero mahirap magpakatao” but what does it
take to be human in the perspective of philosophical context.

When you Look and hold your beloved’s beautiful face, smell the sweet scent of the flowers,
feel the warmth of your friend’s embrace, taste the delicious meal prepared especially for you,
listen to the sound of soothing music as it is played to you – and everything the material world
offers. You also hope for some things to be better and desire for more of all the beautiful things
in the world. Indeed What a wonderful life it is! Does it complete you to be human?

These are all possible due to having a body, which offers you both your limitations and
possibilities for transcendence. Here this, lesson we shall deal with Human person as an
embodied spirit.

Objectives

After the lesson, you are expected to:

1. recognize how the human body imposes limits and possibilities for transcendence. (PPT
11/12-If-3)
2. present some Philosopher’s position on the body and spirit
3. identify the limitations of the human body and its possibilities for transcendence

Pre Test

Please prepare a paper as your sheet where you would write your answers to the quizzes
or questions posted.

On your paper, write T if the statement is true, F if the statement is false.

Touch your toes.

2. Say ‘I love you.’
3. Do a cartwheel.
4. Raise your brows alternately
5. Whistle with your eyes closed.
6. Make a jump higher than 1 meter.
7. Let the tip of your tongue touch the tip of your nose.
8. Touch the ceiling with your feet not leaving the ground.
9. Write ‘I love you’ in a straight line with your eyes closed.
10. Slide the coin from your forehead to your mouth without hands.

What is in our human nature that enables us to become persons?

Aside from the physical characteristics, another aspect of the human that defines us as persons is
the spirit. This intangible element enables us to exercise thought, possess awareness, interiority,
and the capacity to reach out to the outside world and other persons

How are the body and spirit related

Philosophers consider the human person as defined by the union of the body and the spirit.

Effect of Embodiment

With human embodiment, physical acts are no longer purely physical acts, because the body
conveys something from a person’s inner world.
 A pat on the shoulder from your idol, a smile from your crush, a kiss from your partner will
create intense emotional reaction in you. These examples
show that it is through embodiment that a person in able to have a very unique relationship with
the world. And it is this unique relationship that defines
us as humans.

How does my human nature enable me to explore my limit

Human nature still has limits despite being an embodied spirit. It can be said that the person is
very biologically deficient being. We do not have the natural ability to fly. We cannot breathe
underwater without using breathing apparatus. We cannot
survive in certain environments like other animals.
 Despite this limitations, we have used out intellect to devise means to achieve several
features.
 The ability to surpass limits is called transcendence, and it is also one important trait that
distinguishes the human person from other beings in existence.

Our mind is an important tool that allows us to go beyond many of our physical limits. Although
we have these physical limitations, we can transcend them because
of our spiritual dimension.
 As human persons, we have natural tendencies or inclinations. Some of these are felt bodily
functions like hunger, fatigue, etc. transcendence means overcoming oneself or being in control
even if the body reminds us of certain tendencies. Although these tendencies are felt, the person
can govern them and ensure that they are
exercised within the bounds of reason.

Philosophical Perspective on the Embodiment of Man

Lesson Part 2

1. For Plato, the nature of the human person is seen in the metaphysical dichotomy between
body and soul. This dichotomy implies that there is an inherent contradiction between the
body and the soul. Although he emphasized the supremacy of the soul

2. On the one hand, the body, according to Plato, is material; hence, it is mutable and
destructible. On the other hand, the soul is immaterial; hence, it is immutable and
indestructible. Inasmuch as the body is material, mutable, and destructible, while the soul is
immaterial, immutable, and indestructible, Plato contends that in the context of the nature of
the human person, the body’s existence is dependent on the soul while the soul’s existence is
independent of the body.

3. Plato argues that the soul existed prior to the body Plato contends that the soul is a substance
because it exists and can exist independently of the body; nevertheless, it is temporarily
incarcerated in the body. What leads Plato to say this is his conviction that the soul existed
prior to the body. Plato concludes that man is a soul using a body. Human body is an
unfortunate accident and a cruel imprisonment of the free and pure soul.

4. The soul has three parts… 1. Rational part – located in the head, specifically in the brain.
This enables man to think, to reflect and to draw conclusions and to analyze. 2. Appetitive
part – located in the abdomen. It drives man to experience thirst, hunger, and other physical
 wants. 3. Spiritual part – located in the chest. It makes man assert and experience
abomination and anger.

5. Plato believed that the rational part of the soul is the most important and the highest. For
Plato, is it the rational part that specifically distinguishes man from the brutes. Man can
control his appetite and self- assertion of spirit through Reason. For example, when a person
is hungry and yet, he does not eat the available food because he knows or doubts that it has
poison.

Plato contends that there is something in the mind of the person that leads him to crave for
food and another thing that prohibits him from eating the poisoned food. The principle
which drives the person to eat the food is what he calls “Appetite” while the principle which
forbids the person to eat the available food because it is poisoned is Reason. Reason for
Plato controls both Spirit and Appetite. When this happens man will have a well- balanced
personality.

6. Plato believes that virtue is knowledge and the source of knowledge is virtue. It is not
abstract but concrete knowledge, not theoretical but practical knowledge. Man must know
what is good so that he may do so. Plato elaborated this by illustrating the four cardinal
virtues: wisdom, courage or fortitude, temperance and justice.

Man is a knower and a possessor of an immortality of the soul. Plato believes that the body
dies and disintegrates. The soul continuous to live forever after the death of the body. The
soul migrates to the realm of the pure forms.

ARISTOTLE: (384-322BC)
Unlike his master Plato, Aristotle maintains that there is no dichotomy between man’s
body and man’s soul. Body and soul are in a state of unity. In this unity, the soul acts as the
perfect or full realization of the body while the body is a material entity which has a potentiality
for life.
Per se, the body has no life. It can only possess life when it is united with the soul. In
this regard, Aristotle speaks of man as a single essence composed of body and soul (as man’s
matter and form principles). Man’s body matter and man’s soul form. That is why he speaks of
soul as the body’s perfect realization because form for him is the perfect realization of matter.

Kinds of soul…
1. Vegetative soul – plants possess this kind of soul. It feeds itself, it grows and it reproduces.
Vegetative (nutritive) soul. Provides growth, assimilation of food, and reproduction
Possessed by plants. The vegetative soul in the thought of Aristotle, the type of soul
possessed by plants. The vegetative soul has the capacity for growth and reproduction but
does not have the capacity to receive and react to sense impressions or the capacity for
rational thought.

2. Sensitive soul – exists in animals. It feeds itself, it grows, it reproduces, and it has feelings
(particularly pain and pleasure because it has a nervous system).
Sensitive soul § § Functions of vegetative soul plus the ability to sense and respond to the
environment, experience pleasure and pain, and use memory.
Sensitive soul in the thought of Aristotle, the type of soul possessed by nonhuman animals.
The sensitive soul has the capacity to receive and react to sense impressions but does not
have a capacity for rational thought.

3. Rational soul - exists only in man. It assumes the functions of the vegetative and sensitive
souls. It is capable of thinking, reasoning, and willing. Man is higher than the brutes,
animals and plants. Man is capable of thinking and judging. Possessed by humans. With the
faculties of Vegetative and sensitive souls plus ability for thinking and rational thought.
4. Sensation & Perception From the five senses. Perception was explained by motion of objects
that stimulate a particular sensory system. We can trust our senses to yield an accurate
representation of the real world environment
in the thought of Aristotle, the type of soul possessed by human beings. Unlike the
vegetative soul and the sensitive soul, the rational soul has the capacity for rational thought
or the nous. in classical Greek philosophy, nous means reason or intellect and was the
highest form of reason, permitting the apprehension of the fundamental and unchanging
principles of reality.

Man as a rational animal…As a rational being, he is able to take responsibility for his
actions because he knows out of reason and not instinct.It is the capability to understand and the
ability to achieve goals through planned action are all characteristics unique to man which
makes man rational.
Aristotle believed that man’s actions and endeavors are motivated by the possession of
the good. There are many goods. For Aristotle, the very goal of human life is happiness.
“Happiness depends on ourselves.” More than anybody else, Aristotle enshrines happiness as a
central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. ... Essentially, Aristotle argues that virtue is
achieved by maintaining the Mean, which is the balance between two extremes - at one end is
excess, at the other deficiency.

St. Augustine
Augustine took from Plato the view that the human self is an immaterial soul that can
think. While Plato emphasized the importance of perfecting reason and following it, Augustine
emphasized the importance of the will, the ability to choose between good and evil. The
fundamental religious duty is to love and serve God; if we can succeed in this, we will also
choose the good and avoid the evil.

Human nature, as created by God, is good, and the free will that He originally gave us places us
higher in the metaphysical ladder of beings than nonhuman animals or plants. (The angels and,
of course, God Himself are above us.)

Originally, according to Augustine, we were equally free to choose good or evil. But humans are
now constantly attracted towards evil, that is, toward excessive satisfaction of our lower desires
for material things and pleasures. (As he explains it, this derives the rom our having inherited
original sin from our first parents. Adam and Eve disobeyed God when they ate the forbidden
fruit in the Garden of Eden.)

We can only escape from inherited sinfulness if we receive grace from God, and there is no way
we can earn such grace, or force God to give it to us by being good.

Augustine's view was that God selects only a few people to receive grace and be saved. The rest
of humanity will just continue to sin and not repent, and then they will be punished for it after
death in hellfire.

For more on Augustine's view of original sin in the context of a discussion of philosophical
views on the nature of God, see Philosophical Views of God.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Man is substantially body and soul. The soul is united with the human body because it is
the substantial form of the human body.
 It is the principle of action in the human body and the principle of life of the body.
 But the soul however, requires the body as the material medium for its operation
particularly perception.
 The Soul has operative functions which do not need material medium; they are the man’s
intellect and will.
 Thus at death, intellection and will remain in the soul which is immortal, simple and
incorruptible.
 Body and soul before death are essentially united because the two exist in a correlative
manner.

The Universe was created by God.

 God created human beings as his own image. (humans are unique and totally unlike all
other living organisms)
 Human beings have a broken relationship with God. Human beings are fallen and
corrupt creatures, finite and ignorant.
 Only the undeserved grace and sacrifice or a loving God can save a human being. God
rewards faith not reason. The rewards of faith are eternal life and perfect happiness. It
accepts revelation that gives us certain knowledge.

“Each human being has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural
inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational
creature is called natural law.” (Summa Theologica,1a2ae, 90.2)

All moral laws are ultimately grounded in God’s unchanging eternal law, and we discover
general rules of natural through intuition. Morality begins, from our limited human
perspectives, with a search for the general rules of natural law. But where do we begin
looking for the general rules of natural law?

When God created us, he gave us natural instincts that reflect the general moral principles of
natural law:

 God implanted in us an instinctive intuition that we should pursue our proper human end.
 God implanted in us a series of instincts that define our proper end as living, reproducing,
and rational creatures.

The Supreme Good and End is God.

 The highest wisdom goes beyond our natural life. The highest wisdom results from
contemplation on divine things. The ultimate good is happiness, but no human happiness
based on contemplation of this life, rather it is divine happiness, the
beatific vision of God.

Good is to be done and promoted, and evil is to be avoided. Do good and avoid evil.
• Human beings are attracted by the good and repelled by evil.

Synderesis, Greek word that means “innate moral consciousness.”

For Aquinas, synderesis is an instinctive habit - it is a weak habit. It is a component of
our practical reason. Our instinctive synderesis faculty informs us of the highest principle of
natural law: we should act according to our proper end

The Faculties of the Soul as adapted to Aristotle.

1. First Inclination: Every substance endures, continues its own existence (preserve our
own life)
 2. Second Inclination: Natural appetites, for food, for sexual relations, and for the care of
our offspring, hence, because these are natural inclinations, it is obvious that these are
also good.
3. Third Inclination: To know the Good, thus and inclination to know God, and a natural
inclination to live in society.

The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

This idea leads us to the question What is you don’t have a body? Are there no limitations?

So, when we say that the human person is an embodied spirit, we specifically mean that
the human person is the point of convergence between the material and spiritual entities, that is,
between the body and soul.

1. Facticity
Refers to the things in our life that are already given
Refers to the things in our life that are already given
Refers to all the details that surround us in the present: our environment, our language, our
past decisions, our past and present relationships, and even our future death.

2. Spatial-temporal Being
As temporal beings, our most obvious limitation is our finitude–our finite quality or state.
We are limited by space (spatial) and time (temporal).
As spatial beings, we are limited by our bodies to be present in two or more places at the same
time.
We are limited by space (spatial) and time (temporal).
Our spatial-temporal situation sets our preconditions of understanding.

3. The Body as Intermediary

Intermediary means acting as a mediator (Merriam-Webster).

Our body serves as an intermediary between us and the physical world.

Our body limits our experience of the world to our world.
This imposes limitations concerning communication and expression.