The Human Person as

an Embodied Spirit
Module 3 - Quarter 1
The Human Person
The notion of a Person
• Philosophy
A person is a being, characterized by
consciousness, rationality, and a
moral sense, and traditionally thought
of as consisting of both a body and a
mind or soul.
Socrates (469 – 399 B.C)
•He defined man as a being who
thinks and wills.
•Man for him should discover
truth; truth about good life, that
man can act correctly.
Plato (429 – 347 B.C)
• Plato defined man as a “soul using a body”.
• the body is material, it cannot live and move
apart from the soul; it is mutable and
destructible.
• The soul is a substance because it exists and
can exist independently. He has a conviction
that the soul exists even before the body
exists.
Plato’s view of the soul
Human Body Level of the Human soul

Head Rational Level

Chest Spiritual Level

Stomach Appetitive Level

 Rational Level

•The rational part is located in the head,

especially in the brain. It is in this part where
the soul enables to think, to reflect, and to
draw conclusion.
•It is the most important and highest level of the
soul. This distinguishes man from plants and
animals.
 Spiritual Level

• The spiritual part is in the

chest. It is here that the
soul experiences emotion.
Appetitive Level
• The appetitive part is in the
abdomen where man drives
to experience hunger, thirst,
and other physical aspects.
 Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C)

• Aristotle speaks of man as a single

essence composed of body and soul.
• Soul is the principle of life; it causes
the body to live. They are inseparable
and they constitute man as a whole.
Aristotle’s 3 Kinds of Soul
Grades of being Kinds of Soul

Man Rational

Animals Sensitive

Plants Vegetative
St. Thomas Aquinas (1224 – 1274 A.D)

•In the case of the concept of man, St.

Thomas Aquinas holds the Aristotelian belief
regarding the oneness of the body and the
soul.
•Human beings are not souls using a body,
rather, human beings are both body and soul.
 Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)
• Marx’s understanding of man is more
materialistic than spiritual. He sees man
in relation to labor and society.
• There is no such thing as the nature of
man; that man at birth is like a blank
sheet of paper, on which the culture
writes its text.
 Man as an Embodied Spirit
• Specifically refers to the inseparable union
of body and soul.
• Thus, when we say “embodied spirit” we
mean that the body is not separate from
the soul, just as the soul is not separate
from the body.
Limitations and Transcendence of Human Beings

• Since a human being

possesses a body, limitations
are part of our nature. We grow
old, we become weak, and
eventually, we die.
Transcendence
• is the act of rising above
something to a superior state.
• experiences that involve going
beyond the physical body.
Assignment:

• What is beauty?
• How do we know what is beautiful
from what is not?
• Is beauty universal or personal?