The Human Person in

Society
 Key Questions

• How does a human person’s

social context influence his
individuality?

• How do social systems help

shape our human relations?
 Individuals and Society
• We now live in a society where transfer of information is
fast and efficient that we can easily link and connect with
other people through social media.
• Social media and social networking sites might lead to
depression and disconnect users instead of connecting
them.
• As Soren Kierkegaard has put it, we tend to conform to
an image or idea associated with being a certain type of
person rather than being ourselves.
• The modern age remains an era of increasing dullness,
conformity, and lack of genuine individuals.
 Individuals and Society
Our totality, wholeness, or “complete life” relies
on our social relations.
• Aristotle said that friends are two bodies with
one soul.
• For Buber, the human person attains fulfilment
in the realm of the interpersonal, in meeting
the other, through a genuine dialog.
• For Wojtyla, through participation, we share in
the humanness of others.
 Societies and Individualities
Medieval Period (500-1500 CE)
• The early Medieval Period is sometimes referred to as
the Dark Ages but it was nonetheless a time of
preparation.
• Many barbarians had become Christians but most were
condemned as heretic due to their Arian belief.
• Christianity’s influence widened when the great
Charlemagne became King of the Franks.
• The way of life in the Middle Ages is called feudalism,
which comes from medieval Latin feudum, meaning
property or “possession.”
• Peasants built their villages of huts near the castles of
their lords for protection in exchange of their services.
 Societies and Individualities
• With the growth of commerce and towns, feudalism
as a system of government began to pass and
shaped a new life in Europe.
• Amid the turmoil of the Middle Ages, one institution
stood for the common good—the Roman Catholic
Church—whose spirit and work comprised the “great
civilizing influence of the Middle Ages.”
• The Middle Ages employed pedagogical methods
that caused the intercommunication between the
various intellectual centers and the unity of scientific
language.
• The practically unlimited trust in reason’s powers of
illumination is based, first and foremost, on faith.
 Dark Ages
Period of the time between the fall of the
Roman Empire and the beginning of the
Italian Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.
 Societies and Individualities
Modern Period (1500-1800)
• The title “modern philosophy” is an attack on and a
rejection of the Middle Ages that occupied the preceding
thousand years.
• Modern period is generally said to begin around the
backdrop of:
 Christopher Columbus’ landing in the “new world”
which altered not only the geography but the politics
of the world forever.
 Martin Luther’s protest which caused several
centuries of upheaval in Europe, change the nature of
Christian religion, and eventually, change conceptions
of human nature.
Human Being is the most interesting
in nature during the modern period.

The Vitruvian man- one

of the most famous
icons of this period.
 Societies and Individualities
• Reformation brought not only the rejection of
medieval philosophy but also the establishment of
the “Protestant ethic” and the beginnings of modern
capitalism.
• During the Renaissance period leadership in art and
literature reached their peak which resulted in the
revival of ancient philosophy and European philosophers
turning from supernatural to natural or rational
explanations of the world.
• Experimentation, observation and application of
mathematics in the natural sciences set standards for
philosophic inquiry which led to the growth of modern
philosophy.
 Societies and Individualities
• The widespread use of money and the consequent
spread of commercialism and growth of great cities also
influenced the growth of philosophy.
Modern philosophy itself divides readily into periods.
• The first period was one of what we may call
naturalism:
 This period belongs almost wholly to the 17th century.
 Nature is full of facts which conform fatally to exact
and irreversible law.
 Human beings live best under a strong, benevolently
dictatorial civil government.
 Societies and Individualities
The characteristic tendencies of the second period is
frequently called the Age of Empiricism:
 The second age of modern philosophy turned
curiously back to the study of the wondrous inner
world of humanity’s soul.
 The human being became the most interesting in
nature.
 The attention is turned more and more from the
outer world to the mind of human being.
 The second period is a sort of a new humanism
where reflection is now more an inner study, an
analysis of the mind, than an examination of the
business of physical science.
 Societies and Individualities
The third period, generally known as critical idealism, was
brought by Immanuel Kant’s philosophic thoughts.
 Humanity’s nature is the real creator of humanity’s
world.
 Copernican revolution has also affected the
attitude of the mind and thinking in general.
 Copernican innovation’s questioning attitude
toward the activities of nature, spirit of rebellion
against things accepted solely on the basis of
authority and tradition, and search for new
standards of truth has affected philosophic mind.
 Societies and Individualities
 The rapid growth of the increasingly cosmopolitan
cities of Europe, with their global reach, their
extensive colonies and their national and
international rivalries, required a new kind of
philosophy, intensely self-questioning but arrogant as
well.
 Enthusiasm for the new science ushered in a deep-
seated philosophical trend, whose adherents stressed
the importance of universally compelling science for
philosophy.
 This marks the rationalistic intolerance that is so
widespread in the modern world.
 Societies and Individualities
Globalization and Technological Innovations
• Globalization began in the West in the 15th century
as an accompaniment to the new ideas of the
Renaissance and then the Enlightenment.
• Globalization comprises the multilateral interactions
among global systems, local practices, transnational
trends, and personal lifestyles.
• New inventions in science eventually led to the
industrial revolution in the 18th century, and since
then, Western society has taken off on a journey
through the endless world of science to bring
society into the developed conditions that can be
seen today.
 Societies and Individualities
• Industrial Revolution came gradually in a short span of
time that grew more powerful each year due to new
inventions and manufacturing processes that added to
the efficiency of machines.
Significant changes that brought about Industrial
Revolution:
 the invention of machines in lieu of doing the work of
hand tools;
 the use of steam, and other kinds of power vis-a-vis
the muscles of human beings and of animals; and
 the embracing of factory system.
Human Relations and Social Systems
Policy Making
• One of the most important consequences of the
application of knowledge from Plato’s Republic to
human affairs has been increased integration of policy
making.
• As life has become more complex, the legal system
has also grown to the point where almost all human
activities come in contact with the law in one form or
another.
• This integration of policy making has brought people
into an unprecedentedly closer relationship and has
resulted in a greater complexity of social organization.
Human Relations and Social Systems
Economic Sphere
• Technical improvements have made possible a
mechanization of labor that has resulted in mass
production, the rapid growth in per capita
productivity, and an increasing division of labor.
• The contrast today between the level of living in
relatively modern countries and that in traditional
societies is a clear manifestation of this.
Social Realm
• Modern knowledge and the technology it has created
have had an immense impact on the traditional
societies’ way of life.
Human Relations and Social Systems
• The complex and interrelated series of changes in
humanity’s way of life has changed the power
relationships among societies by rapidly
strengthening the position of some at the expense of
others.
• Societies have also become more interdependent,
and the conduct of their relations has been
transformed.
• Modernization is seen as part of the universal
experience, and in many respects, it is one that holds
great hope for the welfare of humanity and yet, it has
also been in many respects a destructive process.
Human Relations and Social Systems
• The rise of global consciousness, along with higher
levels of material interdependence, increases the
probability that the world will be reproduced as a
single system.
• Due to the thriving process of science and technology,
we see a universal civilization emerging that would reign
from New York to Seoul and from Moscow to Jakarta.
• The world is becoming more and more unified (a
single system) but it is not becoming more and more
integrated (driven by conflict and there is by no
means universal agreement on what shape the single
system should take in the future).
Human Relations and Social Systems
Technology
• The more society is influenced by technology, the
more we need to consider the social, ethical and
technological, and scientific aspects of each decision
and choice.
• Science has greatly influenced the picture we have
of human existence and what is essential to
humanity that the difficulty to the period of rapid
change challenges us to discover more about what
is fundamental to our existence.
• Human success is measured by success in mastering
science and technology.
Human Relations and Social Systems
• Science and technology have become the most
distinctive symbol of human autonomy.
• Science and technology is not a single phenomenon;
Technology is not an object but our whole attitude
toward the human world; Science and technology are
the culture itself.
On (Women’s) Friendships
• Women’s friendship has a unique quality that may only
exist between women—a quality of friendship between
women offering sympathy, learning, validations, and
advices.
Human Relations and Social Systems
• True friendships allow each other to be completely
themselves.
• Female friends are extremely important to our
emotional and physical health.
• Women may, unconsciously, have negative attitudes
toward themselves and other women.
• Mothers customarily carry the moral obligations of
providing safe environment for their daughters.
• Daughters relationship with their mothers could be
profound or disabling.
• Knowing and accepting ourselves are important
ingredients in establishing boundaries in friendship.
 Activities
1. How do the different forms of society affect the way
individuals live during those times?
2. In what way did the modern philosophers and
scientific discoveries transform us?
3. How does technology transform the way we live?
4. How do social systems on knowledge, laws,
economics, and technology transform our human
relations?