The Human Person in

Society
 Lesson Objectives
Understand the interplay between the
individuality of human beings and their
social contexts
Evaluate the formation of human
relationships and how individuals are
shaped by their social contexts
Compare different forms of societies and
individualities
 Key Questions

• How does a human person’s social context

influence his individuality?

• How do social systems help shape our human

relations?
Picture Analysis
Picture Analysis
 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 fulfillment 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.
 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.
 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.
 Societies and Individualities
• Sweeping changes made some observers of the
contemporary scene proclaim the advent of a new
kind of society, in which the production of material
goods through the expenditure of mechanical energy
no longer serves as the basis for the technological
system, where the importance of media
communication in which computer as a tireless
process of energy is a vital link is paramount.
• They see the central functions required for human
existence or amenities audited and controlled by
information transmitted by energy in its electronic
form.
 Societies and Individualities
• Globalization, as facilitated by technology, can be
beneficial if it will lead to improved society and
intellectual growth; but can be divisive if it will
erode local cultures and national sovereignty.
• Technology most certainly leads to globalization but,
in the emerging global society, economy, and
culture, does not encompass all equally.
Human Relations and Social Systems
• As industry changed, social and political conditions
transformed.
• The revolutionary change in our way of life in modern
times, which for several centuries was confined
principally to the Western people, has in our lifetime
come to affect all of humanity.
• Human relations are transformed by social systems
specifically, on knowledge, laws, economics, and
technology.
Human Relations and Social Systems
New Knowledge
• “Knowledge is virtue; ignorance is vice” is the
summary of what Socrates wants to teach about how
human beings should live a good life.
• The origins of the modern age may be seen in the
phenomenal growth of knowledge that can be traced
to the revival of Greek science.
• The process of intellectual growth still continues and
changes in our understanding in the years ahead may
well be greater than those that we have seen in our
own lifetime.
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?