Philosophy

of
Man

Submitted by: Submitted to:

Masibay, Princess Marylynn Mr. Arik P.
G. Mañucat
BS ECE III – A
 Philosophy of Man

- course that examines into the origin of

human life, the nature of human life, and
the reality of human existence.
- is one’s desire to know who and what
man is.

Greek Word  Philo  Sophia

(love) (wisdom)
 Branches
(1) Metaphysics – investigation of ultimate
reality (mind ; matter).
(2) Epistemology – study of the origin and
validity and limits of knowledge.
(3) Ethics – nature of morality and
judgement
(4) Aesthetics – nature of beauty in the
fine arts.
(5) Logic – science and arts of correcting
thinking and reasoning.
(6)Social / Political Philosophy – study of
 Nature of Man

a. Pre – Socratic View of Man

b. Sophists
c. Socratic Period
d. Biblical Tradition / Medieval Era
 Introduction

What is man?
From Latin “Humanitas”, the concept of
Man means human nature, general
culture of the mind. It is also “men” in
general, the human race taken as a unit.
Most philosophers defined as any human
being endowed with reason. What man
is the ultimate metaphysical question.
 Introduction

- Man has the capacity to think right.

(RATIONAL) – capacity to love and
care.
- Morality – good
- Ethics – doing what is good and what is
right.
- Social / Relational Being
- Uniqueness
Pre-Socratic View
of Man
 Pre-Socratic View of Man

(1) Thales – water

(2) Anaximenes – air
(3) Anaximander – animal
(4) Phythagoras – body and soul
Pre-Socratic View of Man

Thales of Miletus
- Everything must have
comes from water.
- All things have moist nature
and water is the origin of
moist.
Pre-Socratic View of Man
Anaximander
- Man is a human being that
has evolved from animals of
another species which are
lower than his.
- Everything else must have
come from original staff
which he calls “Intermediate
Boundless”
(infinite)
Pre-Socratic View of Man

Anaximenes
- Air is the primary
substance which all things
have originated.
- Man is a human body with
a condensed air and
mysterious soul.
Pre-Socratic View of Man

Pythagoras
- Everything is measurable
and originated from
numbers.
- Man has body and soul.
Soul is immortal and
subjective in
“Metempsychosis”.
 transmigration /
Other Known
Philosophers
Other Known Philosophers

Heraclitus
- Since everything comes
from fire, everything is in
a constant motion or
change. Everything is
definitely changing and
the only thing that is not
changing is change itself.
Other Known Philosophers

Parmenides
- Change in some illusion.
Everything is permanent.
The world consists of one
invisible thing. This one is
motionless and imperfect
sphere.
Other Known Philosophers
Empedocles
- Change and motions are
possible because objects
are composed of many
particles which or in
themselves are
changeless. This four
changeless elements out
of which everything was
made of fire, earth, air
and water.
Sophists
 Sophists

What is a Sophist?
The sophists were itinerant professional
teachers and intellectuals who
frequented Athens and other Greek
cities in the second half of the fifth
century B.C.E. In return for a fee, the
sophists offered young wealthy Greek
men an education inaretē (virtue or
excellence), thereby attaining wealth
and fame while also arousing significant
 Sophists

(1) Protagoras of Abdera

(2) Gorgias, The Nihilist
(3) Thrasymachus, The Authoritarian
Sophists

Protagoras of Abadera
- Most influential
- Sophist, teacher of rhetoric,
politics, and logic served
as a tutor (Greek word
means wise man)
- Relativist; relativism (no
final, objective truth)
 Protagoras of Abdera (490 –
420 B.C.E.)
The oldest and the most influential among
all the Sophists. Protagoras is known
primarily for three claims:
(1) That man is the measure of all things that they
are that they are, and of the things that are not
they are not.
(2) That he could make worse argument appear
better or weaker argument to be stronger.
(3) That one could not tell if the gods exist or not.
- claimed that nothing could be known and truth
was a relative and subject thing.
 Sophists

Gorgias, The Nihilist

- Uses words and clever
speech to promote his
philosophical ideas.
- Three propositions on him
explained as he should not
speak / communicate, but
yet he is and does so even
in a book (contradictory).
 Gorgias, The Nihilist (583 –
378 B.C.E.)
He preferred to be called “RHETORICIAN”.
He was aiming at was on how to give his
disciples such absolute readiness in speaking.
Gorgias denied that there is only truth at all.

*His position can be summed up in three

propositions:
(1) Nothing exist.
(2) If anything existed, it could not be know.
(3) If anything did exist and could be know, it could
not be communicated.
Gorgias, The Nihilist (583 –
378 B.C.E.)

Gorgias believed that if anything is,

is must have had a beginning from the
point of view of Gorgias, a thing cannot
arise from a non-being because
nothing can arise from nothing.
Because if something arises from
nothing, then we can say that nothing
exist.
“Nothing is Real”
Sophists

Thrasymachus,
The Authoritarian
- Claims that Gods do not
care about human affairs
since they do not seen to
enforce justice.
- “Strong over the weak rule.
Justice doesn’t exist.”
 Thrasymachus, The
Authoritarian
Three Claims about Justice:
(1) Justice is nothing but the advantage
of the stronger.
(2) Justice is nothing but the advantage
of the another.
(3) Justice is obedience to laws.
 Thrasymachus, The
Authoritarian
The unjust person is more superior in
character and intelligence than just person.
He reduced morality into power, leading
truth and ethics into a nihilistic attitude.
Justice is the interest of the stronger
because truth becomes a Prevogative of
the strongest. He believed might is right.
Justice is everywhere at the mercy of
injustice which is relieved not because men
fear to do it but because they fear to suffer
it.
 Three Nihilistic View
(1) Total Rejection of Social Mores.
- the general rejection of established
social convention and beliefs,
especially for morality and religion.
(2) Belief that nothing is worthwhile.
- a belief that life is pointless and
human values are useless.
(3) Disbelief in Objective truth.
- the belief that there is no objective
basis of truth.
 Failures of Sophist
- did charge money to people who want
to obtain “Divine Wisdom”.
- highly paid teachers, they are not
metaphysians, they were orators and
persuasive speakers who are
indespensible to the Democratic
Political Life of Athens.
* Do not use practical application. Just
imagination.
* Destroys concept of free will.
Socratic Period
 Socratic Period

(1) Socrates – matter

(2) Plato – virtue of knowledge
(3) Aristotle – rational being
(4) Plotinus
Socratic Period

Socrates
- Socrates was among the
ancient philosopher who
first ask the question about
man.
- He defined “”Man is a being
who thinks and wills”.
 Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.)
- According to him, Man is his soul. It is his soul
that distinguishes him from other things.
- The human soul should be nurtured properly
through its acquisition of knowledge, wisdom,
and virtue.
- Man, for him, should discover truth, truth
about good life, for it is knowing the good life
that man can act correctly.
- Man’s attitude towards life therefore should be
oriented towards knowledge – knowledge of
what the good life is so that he can properly
translate such knowledge into really living a
 Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.)
- He argues that knowledge and virtue are not
distinct from each other because the two are
one.
- A man who unite the two into one is a wise
man – a man of wisdom.
- He who is a wise is a man who has
disciplined his soul to know what is right and
does what he knows to be right n the actual
life situation.
- Knowledge is literally taken by Socrates as
the ultimate criterion of action.
- For him, these lost souls are ignorant of their
 Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.)
- It is ignorance of the knowledge of the right
and good life that enables man to do evil
deeds.
- If only man acquires knowledge, wisdom and
virtue, man can certainly free himself from
doing what is wrong.
- Socrates insists that all sorts of evil or all
kinds of evil acts are circumstantial.
- He adheres to the idea that man does evil
only accidentally due to ignorance.
- Sometimes, even if know that the act is
harmful and bad, we insist doing it.
 Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.)
- But we should neither rely or nor harkens to
this since practically the amount of
knowledge we have concerning the right and
of the good life is no guarantee that we live a
right and a good life.
- According to him, “Knowing – what - is - right -
means - doing - what - is - right”.

(1) Are the corrupt public officials ignorant of

their acts?
(2) Are the students who cheat during
examinations ignorant of the evil embedded
in cheating?
Socratic Period

Plato
- The body is material; it
cannot live and move apart
from the soul; it is mutable
and destructible.
- The soul is immaterial; it can
exist apart from the body; it
is immutable and
indestructible.
 Plato (427 – 347 B.C.)
- The nature of man is seen in the metaphysical
dichotomy between body and soul.
- Plato contends that the soul is a substance
because it exist and it can exist
independently of the body; nevertheless, it is
temporarily incarcerated in the body.
- What leads Plato to say is his conviction that
the soul existed prior to the body.
- Plato concludes that man is a soul using body
- Man is a knower and a possessor of an
immortality of the soul.
 Plato (427 – 347 B.C.)

- 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.
 Plato (427 – 347 B.C.)
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.
 Plato (427 – 347 B.C.)

- 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 (427 – 347 B.C.)
- 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 forbid the person to eat that
available food because it is poisoned is
“Reason”.
- Reason for Plato controls both Spirit and
Appetite.
- When this happens, man will have a well-
Socratic Period
Aristotle
- considered human person as
a rational being who
participates on the supreme
reason. He believed that
human person could only be
considered good person if
and only if man is functioning
as a human person. He
believed that the end of the
human person is not merely
 Aristotle
- He believed that the human person is
naturally seeking towards the attainment
of happiness. He believed that reason
elevates human person above any other
creatures because it is the reason that
makes a human person resembles the
supreme reason, who rules and guides
the destiny of an individuals and nations
and lead all things to their people ends.
According to him, every action of a
human person is aiming toward and end.
 Aristotle

Two Types of End:

(1) Instrumental End
- which is done as means for other’s
end.
(2) Intrinsic End
- which done for its own sake.
 Aristotle

- Aristotle’s philosophy is considered to be

theological. Theological comes from the
Greek word “telos” – end / purpose. He
believed that the human mind is
tabularasa. He believed that the human
being is composed of body and soul.
That the soul and the body are not
separate entities of a human person.
According to him, with the death of the
body, the soul also dies.
Socratic Period

Plotinus
-
Biblical Tradition /
Medieval Era
Biblical Tradition / Medieval
Era

(1) St. Augustine – great mystery

(2) St. Thomas Aquinas
Biblical Tradition / Medieval
Era
St. Augustine
*View
- “On the Human Person”
*Philosophy
An attempt to reconale and
bring together an admirable
synthesis the wisdom of Greek
philosophy and the divine
truths contained in the
scriptures.
 St. Augustine
- His philosophy is said to be “evdaimonistic”,
means that the highest ethical goal is
happiness and personal well-being.
- It takes happiness as the be – all and the end
– all of human person.
- Augustine believes that God, the creator of all
things and the supreme ruler of the universe.
Who cannot will evil and has no beginning
and end. He asserts that God created the
world out of love and the human person is
part of his creation.
 St. Augustine
- According to him, all humanity possesses the
freedom of the will, it is definitely the human
person’s pride that leads him/her away from
God’s grace.
- Every human person will always be in
constant search for happiness that will satisfy
his/her desires, Augustine held that each
human person is made in such a way that
they will only obtain the true happiness in
God and in God’s love will they be able obtain
the real satisfaction.
- Every human person should therefore seek for
 St. Augustine
- According to him, God is the loving personal
God, the creator of all things, and the
supreme ruler of the universe.

- According to him, God is:

* An Absolute Spirit
* An Absolute Will
* An Absolute Intelligence
* An Absolute Freedom
* An Absolute Good
* An Absolute Holiness
 St. Augustine
IMAGO – DEI – RELATIONSHIP
-human person bears the image of God
and the human person’s crowning glory
resides in his being and Imago – Dei.

SOCIETAL DIMENSION
- everyone should five due respect and
love to everyone because the others too are
the images of God.
 St. Augustine

- For him, God created the world out of

nothing with love and the human person
is part oh His creation.
- Life, for him, is a dialectic movement
towards love.
- Virtue, is the order of love.
- All created things are good. Nothing is
evil in itself.
 St. Augustine
THE CONCEPT OF EVIL
*Augustine’s Philosophy
- Evil is not existing reality. (deprivation)
- Harmony of things.
- Summum Bonum created the world of
matter and cannot be evil.
- Awareness of a person on what is good
and or who God is.
- Turning to God or not is a voluntary act.
- Evil or Sin is the product of the will
 St. Augustine
- All humanity possesses freedom of the will.
- Virtue is the product of God’s grace.
- Human person is not self-sufficient.
- Human person’s pride leads him away from
God’s grace.
- Human person is in a constant struggle for
happiness.
- Subordinating love to the Divine Order by
seeking eternal peace.
- Love of God is the means to find real
satisfaction.
 St. Augustine

- The purpose of human existence is to find

happiness in God but not go beyond or
defeat his purpose for us.

The Human person’s desire towards the

good may also lead him to the possibility that
he may choose to turn away from the good,
and cling instead to the good of this earth;
thereby, losing his real end or purpose of
existence.
 St. Augustine
DOCTRINE OF DISORDERED LOVE
From his doctrine, Augustine held that
the human society can be divided between
those who love themselves and the world.

- The society who loves God, Augustine

called the “Cruitas Dei”, The City of God.
- The society who loves self and the world ,
he called “Cruitas Mundi”, The City of the
World.
 St. Augustine
Augustine believed that all men, so
long as they are mortal, must of
necessity be miserable. Everyone
should, therefore, make a choice as to
where he would like to be with. Every
human person should, therefore, seek
for God’s grace in order to be led to his
proper end. Hence, human being
should cling to the law of conscience,
which will admonish them to do good
and to avoid evil, the ultimate norm of
Biblical Tradition / Medieval
Era
St. Thomas Aquinas
- He believed that a human
nature has both its source
and the ultimate and is God.
- He believed that God is not
only the final end of human
beings, but also, the very
ground of the existence of
both human beings and the
 St. Thomas Aquinas

For St. Thomas, “conscience” is the

concrete particular judgement by
which, in a particular situation, a
person knows what he or she oath to
do. Synderesis is the intellectual habit
or disposition by which the human
person, in any given situation, is in
possession of the fundamental
principles of morality – “Do good and
avoid evil”.
 St. Thomas Aquinas

Human person is also to be

considered good because the creator
is the summum bonum or the Highest
Good. It is necessary that the human
person should be following his/her
nature as good in order to achieve the
real purpose of man’s existence.
 St. Thomas Aquinas

Human person is also to be

considered good because the creator
is the summum bonum or the Highest
Good. It is necessary that the human
person should be following his/her
nature as good in order to achieve the
real purpose of man’s existence.
 St. Thomas Aquinas
The three fold natural inclination of the
Human Person:
According to St. Thomas, the human
person has three natural inclinations:
(1) Self-Preservation – As a rational being
a person under a basic natural obligation
to protect his/her life and health. Because
we have the natural inclination to
preserve ourselves, we therefore have
the duty not to put ourselves in
unnecessary jeopardy as this is unnatural
 St. Thomas Aquinas
(2) Just dealings with others – The capacity
of the human person to reason out tends
man to treat others with the same dignity
and respect that man accords to oneself.
(3) Propagation of Species – The basis of
the union of both the husband and the
wife. The very nature designed to
reproduce and perpetuate the human
species.
 St. Thomas Aquinas

The three determinants of Moral / Action

On St. Thomas ethical principle, there are
three factors that can help a human
person determine whether his/her action
is to be considered morally accepetable
or not.
(1) Object or the action (Finis Operas)
(2) Circumstance (Circumstantiae)
(3) Intention of the agent (Finis Operantis)
 St. Thomas Aquinas

The Moral Principles as Basis of Human

Action
According to St. Thomas, there are different
moral principles that may serve as the
basis for a moral action. These are:
(1) The Principle of Double Effect
(2) The Principle of Totality
(3) The Principle of Stewardship
(4) The Principle of Inviolability of Life
(5) The Principle of Sexuality and Procreation
 The Right and Duties of a
Human Person
Inasmuch as the life of an individual human
being comes from God, therefore, each
individual has been endowed with the six
natural and inalienable rights.
* The Six Natural Rights
(1) The Right to Life
(2) The Right to Private Property
(3) The Right to Marry
(4) The Right to Physical Freedom or Personal
Liberty
(5) The Right to Worship
 The Right and Duties of a
Human Person
* The Six Natural Duties of a Human
Person
(1) The Duty of Keep Health and to Take Care
of Oneself.
(2) The Duty to Take Care of One’s Property
and Respect the Property of Others
(3) The Duty to Support One’s Family
(4) The Duty to Private Boundaries
(5) The Duty for Religious Tolerance
(6) The Duty to Perform at One’s Best