Paige Lampe

PHI 350
Final Paper
December 8, 2020

THESIS: To live fully is to recognize, embrace, and celebrate our identity as finite, vulnerable, needy

human beings.

As Spaemann explains, humans “are not simply what they experience, but the subjects of what

they experience.”1 It is natural for us as humans to ponder our own existence. We have been gifted with

minds not driven only by instinct and reason, but also by critical thought and reflection. With this comes

“not only demands concerning what I ought to do; there is also the question if I ought to do what I

supposedly ought to do.”2 Existence is the greatest, most mysterious gift we are given, it is only natural

we should want to understand it and spend it properly. I am going to outline for you my own ever-

evolving understanding of human identity, as well as the implications this perspective might have on

humans living in community with one another.

I think one of the most intrinsic elements of the human identity is to be finite. To have limited

control of the things around us and to be bound by the rules of things like nature, chance, and time. To

be met with constant needs in order to sustain our lives. To be dependent on something other than

ourselves. Many of these characteristics I just mentioned- our vulnerability, our lack of control, and our

dependence on things outside of ourselves- are often looked upon as the weakest parts of humanity.

Society is always grasping at any chance to resolve them: anti-aging face cream, medical research on

genetic engineering, technology built around the ideal of self-sufficiency, and the list goes on. We

1
Spaemann, Persons, 158.
2
Hagglund, This Life, 179.
shamelessly spend sums of time, money, and energy trying to push off the restraints of nature, chance,

time, and anything that reminds us of our finitude.

But our finiteness is one of the only parts of our identity that we cannot change. We can decide

to be productive or to be lazy, to have short hair or long hair, to be democratic or republican, to believe

in God or not to believe. But we cannot decide to be infinite. No amount of time, money, and energy will

allow us to outrun our finitude. It is an inescapable aspect of what it means to be human, and it can be a

hard pill to swallow.

People likeminded with philosophers such as Plato seem to have a particularly hard time

accepting and appreciating this fact of life. Plato philosophizes that “man is in a kind of prison” in living

here on Earth, because he is a slave to his own body. 3 He and many like him, believe that the main goal

of this life is to escape it.4 Practically, this looks like suppressing things like emotions, pleasures, pains,

etc. The idea is to detach yourself from the risky, unpredictable world, and attach yourself to something

more ideal, secure, and unchanging (like God or eternal life) so that you cannot truly be hurt or

experience real loss. Plato himself said:

“While we live, we shall come nearest to knowledge, if we have no communication or

intercourse with the body beyond what is absolutely necessary, and if we are not defiled with its

nature. We must live pure from it until God himself releases us. And when we are released from

its follies, we shall dwell, I suppose, with others who are pure like ourselves, and we shall of

ourselves know all that is pure; and that may be the truth.” 5

I find this escapist, nihilistic philosophy of life and loss to be extremely problematic, not only for

each individual who adopts it, but also for their relationships with others. In his book, This Life, Martin

3
Plato, Phaedo, 65.
4
Plato, Phaedo, 65.
5
Plato, Phaedo, 69.
Hagglund explains why. “To attain a peaceful state of eternity you must be liberated from the risk of

losing what you love. Were such liberation possible, however, nothing would matter to you. You literally

would not care. There would be no urgency to do anything or maintain love for anyone, since nothing of

value could be lost.”6 In other words, the flip-side of something’s capacity for value is that something’s

ability to be lost.7 We value our time on earth because it is not secure, nor guaranteed, and will

inevitably come to an end. In the same stroke, we value others because we are granted the scarce gift of

time with them.

In light of this, I not only accept my finitude, but I appreciate it. The fact that I am needy and

vulnerable and susceptible to the cruel randomness of the world is what gives my life value and

purpose. It is what makes me love and appreciate the things around me. It is what gives my relationships

with others passion and authentic care and urgency. It is what drives a person to dedicate themselves to

a cause for racial justice or to the preservation of a beautiful historic town. It is what motivates me to

live my life fully alive, both for myself and for my community. If we were not finite beings, we would feel

no responsibility to care for our neighbor. “Human beings are to relate to one another as needy and

incomplete, and recognizing the need of another should give rise to Christian love.” 8 Our identity as

fragile and needy persons holds us together and weaves beautiful bonds of solidarity and love that

would otherwise be unnecessary.

In reading Nussbaum’s Upheaval of Thought, I came across a passage that wholly illustrates the

point I am trying to make. It reads:

“The difference between the City of God and the earthly city lies not in the presence of strong

emotions, but in the emotions’ choice of objects. And in a sense the diseased, swollen earthly

city is closer to God, because more passionate, more willing to turn outward and to search for
6
Hagglund, This Life, 44.
7
Hagglund, This Life, 44.
8
Nussbaum, Upheaval of Thought, 551.
 an adequate object, than the torpid city of the Stoic wise man, wrapped in its own fatal pride.

Such people, ‘not roused or stirred, not swayed or inclined by any emotion at all, rather lose all

humanity than attain true tranquility. For the fact that something is tough does not make it

right, and the fact that something is inert does not make it healthy.’ Ascent must take place

within the context of our humanity, not by attempting, out of pride, to depart from it.” 9

Really, it comes down to your deepest motivations. Do you prioritize protecting yourself from

pain, hardship, and the unpredictability of life? Or do you prioritize living as fully as you can while you

are here, and empowering those you live in community with to do the same? Part of being human is

that we are free to decide what we will prioritize with our time. “Putting one’s life at risk, having the

power to sacrifice it for some goal, is the most important mark of personality, and the highest personal

recognition is won by doing so.”10

For Plato, his priority was clearly to avoid the roller coaster of uncertainty that comes with life as

a human. He is accredited saying, “The true philosopher studies to die, and to him of all men is death

least terrible,” as well as “Would it not be absurd then, as I began by saying, for a man to complain at

death coming to him, when in his life he has been preparing himself to live as nearly in a state of death

as he could?”11

These are statements that Hagglund would tag the epitome of nihilism. Of course, Plato, you are

the least affected by death, because you haven’t truly lived! Out of fear or pride or whatever the

motivation, you suppressed every good, human thing you were intended to experience through your

creation. An analogy for this train of thought that comes to mind is if someone were so nervous about

failing in a job interview that they decided to stay home instead of even trying. They sabotage the

opportunity because they are so fearful of failure. The same principle applies to this larger, philosophical
9
Nussbaum, Upheaval of Thought, 543.
10
Spaemann, Persons, 157-158.
11
Plato, Phaedo, 70.
scale. In remaining detached from the world, you free yourself from loss, but also cheat yourself of

being truly alive.

Life as a human is chaotic, unpredictable, exhausting, and incredibly frustrating. “It fills us with

passions, and desires, and fears, and all manners of phantoms, and much foolishness.” 12 But it is also

glorious, exciting, emotional, and unbelievably beautiful. The fact that it is both of these things is the

reason that it is so precious. The not-so-great parts are what make the great parts so great, and the

shadow of death is what makes life such a treasure. So we ought to join together in our finiteness to

embrace the wholesome, awesome, humanity of life.

Bibliography

Hagglund, Martin. This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom. New York: Anchor Books, 2019.

Nussbaum, Martha. Upheaval of Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Plato. Phaedo. New York: Start Classics, 2013.

Spaemann, Robert. Persons. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

12
Plato, Phaedo, 69.