What is the human person, philosophically?

[JDaniel]

When I know “JD” as “JD”, “JD” as a person, as a singularity, I do not know just another “rational animal” … another of the “Same” … I don’t say, well, here’s another rational animal … no, I say, here’s JD, and I address “JD” by his unique name … the “other person” is not a “mirror of me” … not a repetition of the Same … the “other person” is not reducible to a metaphysical concept common to many particulars …the “other person” is “radically other”, absolutely “exterior” to me (in a way that objects are not) …

Correct. Rather, you are the mirror of him! Only to him is he the mirror of you. We must think of ourselves as mirrors of “the other,” because we can only know him so far. We are prevented by his boundaries.

God bless,
jd

 

[Hadrianus]

What is the difference between two “rational animals”? It’s not simply the matter that differentiates them (although the matter is involved). It’s the “person”. I was going to say that the “person” is the tertium quid (in addition to the form and matter), but the “person” is not a quid … the “person” is a “quis”, a “who”.

“Person” is not “essence” as traditionally understood in Aristotelian metaphysics. “Person” is a singularity outside the framework of the categories.

“Knowledge” is of the universal, or the form, or the essence. So how can we know “persons”? You say, we can know particulars as well as universals. But remember, a “person” is not a “particular” if the latter is understood simply as an instantiation of a nature or form. “Particulars” belong to the Same because they share the same Form. But “person” as a singularity is “radically other” than other “persons”… so how can we break out of ourselves and encounter the “radically other” singularity …

Sometimes, “person” is equated with “soul”. But this can be confusing. In Greek philosophy, “soul” is psyche, the form, the nature that human beings have in common. As psyche, “soul” is not “person” because “person” is “incommunicable”.

In later Christian thought, “soul” becomes identified with the “person”. But the “person” is not different from the body. This is what JP II’s theology of the body stresses. “Person” is the disclosure of the body, the truth of the body. So “person” permeates all the body’s activities. So, for example, my “metabolism” is personal; a dog’s metabolism is not.

Because of this identity between “person” and “body”, the expression “body and soul” can be very misleading.

[For more on the “radically other”, see the writings of the Jewish philosopher, Levinas, who died in 1995 … he was a favorite of JP II].

You have made a number of assertions here, but you have not demonstrated their validity.
Why for example is a person a singularity outside the framework of the categories? Also, the constant use of quotation marks, so beloved of Middle European philosophy in the 20th Century, gives the appearance of reducing all “terms” to “ambiguous” subjectivity.

I am not hostile, but nor am I persuaded by the school of personalism. After centuries Aristotle and St Thomas are still here, but will personalism really stand the test of time?

 

[empther]

You have made a number of assertions here, but you have not demonstrated their validity.
Why for example is a person a singularity outside the framework of the categories?

Amen to that.
Throw a bunch of ill-defined words together and eventually you end up like that woman who called 911 because she couldn’t find her way out of a corn maze.

Living in common sense is better than living in an ivory tower with no staircase, or seeking honors when people don’t care. “Better to be a fisherman than a governor of men.”

 

[JDaniel]

Amen to that.
Throw a bunch of ill-defined words together and eventually you end up like that woman who called 911 because she couldn’t find her way out of a corn maze.

Living in common sense is better than living in an ivory tower with no staircase, or seeking honors when people don’t care. “Better to be a fisherman than a governor of men.”

Empther:

It is strange, but, it is said that everything that is said has some kernal of truth in it!

God bless,
jd

 

[levinas12]

.
Why for example is a person a singularity outside the framework of the categories? Also, the constant use of quotation marks, so beloved of Middle European philosophy in the 20th Century, gives the appearance of reducing all “terms” to “ambiguous” subjectivity.

First, the “scare marks” … not “ambiguous subjectivity” … used just to highlight that we are dealing with the unusual … for example, “person” is not a sortal noun, like “apple” … does not name a class of things … is not defined by a species/genus … also not an “accident”, etc.,… outside Aristotle’s Categories … a singularity …

Why do I say that “person” is not defined by a species/genus? Because there is no species/genus for, e.g., JD … there is a species/genus for JD as a man, as a rational animal (which he shares with other human beings) , but not for JD as JD, as the unique person he is … JD is a singularity … radically other than any other human being in his personal identity …

Think of it this way … what makes your soul exclusively “yours” …

For more on this, see the writings of Levinas, Spaemann, Sokolowski …

 

[Hadrianus]

Thanks for the reply.
JD belongs to the class of rational beings traditionally defined in metaphysics as persons. For humans individuation is the result of our incarnate nature. Angels being pure spirits are each a separate species. In Catholic metaphysics personhood for humans has never been simply reduced to soul, contrary to what the modern school would have us believe. JD is a singularity, but so was my cat who had a very distinct personality and a particular genetic inheritance which made her “her”,though she was not a person.

Thanks for clarifying the use of quotations. One reason I have always found the thought of John Paul II impenetrable is his constant use of them even in encyclicals. Funny enough since he has died, quite a few priest and seminarian friends have admitted to me they never understood him either. Personalism is something of an acquired taste in the Anglo-Saxon world. I see what its thinkers are trying to do in giving an absolute value to the human person, but it does seem to fit better within German and Slavic mentalities. The Italians, always dedicated followers of fashion have taken it up somewhat, though in Italy there is also something of a Thomistic revival beginning.

I didn’t realize that Spaemann took an interest in personalism. Thanks for that information.

 

[Hadrianus]

Amen to that.
Throw a bunch of ill-defined words together and eventually you end up like that woman who called 911 because she couldn’t find her way out of a corn maze.

Living in common sense is better than living in an ivory tower with no staircase, or seeking honors when people don’t care. “Better to be a fisherman than a governor of men.”

I am afraid I can’t quite agree with that. I do have difficulties with aspects of personalist thought; but it does have valuable insights.

 

[JDaniel]

First, the “scare marks” … not “ambiguous subjectivity” … used just to highlight that we are dealing with the unusual … for example, “person” is not a sortal noun, like “apple” … does not name a class of things … is not defined by a species/genus … also not an “accident”, etc.,… outside Aristotle’s Categories … a singularity …

Why do I say that “person” is not defined by a species/genus? Because there is no species/genus for, e.g., JD … there is a species/genus for JD as a man, as a rational animal (which he shares with other human beings) , but not for JD as JD, as the unique person he is … JD is a singularity … radically other than any other human being in his personal identity …

Think of it this way … what makes your soul exclusively “yours” …

Levinas:

This was much better stated - so that even I could understand it! Now I see what you were saying. With one little explanation: “souls” and “persons” are words, whether singular or plural, that are in everyday use as regular (non-sortal) nouns. Therefore, in those cases they do belong to Aristotle’s categories. The words only become non-sortal when spoken of in place of “JD,” for instance, or when regarded as me.

If one says, “the, this, or that,” person, or, “the, this, or that,” soul, one is now using the words as non-sortal. There’s no question that the, this, or that, person speaks to a completely other individual. In fact, after thinking about it, I can accept the radical adjective, “radical!” (Which I was trying to squirm away from earlier.) In the sense that you mean it, the “person” is regarded as if already Angelic. Well, in fact, he is an incarnate angel. I can go with that. And, perhaps I was confusing the usages in my posts. I’ll try to be clearer in the future. Thanks.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Thanks for the reply.

JD belongs to the class of rational beings traditionally defined in metaphysics as persons. For humans individuation is the result of our incarnate nature. Angels being pure spirits are each a separate species. In Catholic metaphysics personhood for humans has never been simply reduced to soul, contrary to what the modern school would have us believe. JD is a singularity, but so was my cat who had a very distinct personality and a particular genetic inheritance which made her “her”,though she was not a person.

Thanks for clarifying the use of quotations. One reason I have always found the thought of John Paul II impenetrable is his constant use of them even in encyclicals. Funny enough since he has died, quite a few priest and seminarian friends have admitted to me they never understood him either. Personalism is something of an acquired taste in the Anglo-Saxon world. I see what its thinkers are trying to do in giving an absolute value to the human person, but it does seem to fit better within German and Slavic mentalities. The Italians, always dedicated followers of fashion have taken it up somewhat, though in Italy there is also something of a Thomistic revival beginning.

I didn’t realize that Spaemann took an interest in personalism. Thanks for that information.

Funny you should mention Spaemann, because as soon as I read the name, in Levinas’ post, a light bulb went off. That’s when I knew what he was talking about.

From the point of view of the “person” as “radical other-ness,” it becomes pretty solid evidence that the spiritual exists. I can tell you that I have no inkling of any ‘past life’ (or lives) whatsoever, although there are those who have a predilection for making such assertions. So, I know that I am a recent occurence, in terms of time, and a later instance, in terms of sequence. Seems that we do have a (necessary) creator, which we call, “God.”

God bless,
jd

 

[levinas12]

Quote from Spaemann: Persons, The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, p.6-7.

**‘Person’ is not a classificatory term, on the one hand, identifying a particular this as such a thing. ‘X’ is a person does not answer the question ‘What is X?’, as do ‘X is a human being’ or ‘X is a lampstand’. In order to know whether X is a person,we must first know whether X is a human being or a lampstand. The term ‘person’ does not identify an X as a such-and-such; it says something further about an X already specified as a such-and-such. On the other hand, it does not ascribe some further property to X, for there is no ‘property’ of personal existence. On the contrary, it is on the basis of certain definite identifiable properties that we are licensed to say of some Xs that they are persons …

[Person] … is not a property but denotes the bearer of certain properties …**

 

[levinas12]

JD is a singularity, but so was my cat who had a very distinct personality and a particular genetic inheritance which made her “her”,though she was not a person.

See Spaemann (Persons …), p. 32:

**‘Person’, then, is not a generic term, but a ‘generalizable proper name’ …

Why can we call on such a generalizable proper noun only for individuals with a ‘rational nature’? Because individuals with such a nature have a different kind of relation to their nature from other individuals. They are more than mere ‘instances of …’ This difference is explained by Thomas when he writes that persons are individuals who ‘exist per se’ and have mastery of their own actions. Their actions do not simply proceed from their nature. ‘Not only are they acted upon, like other things, but they themselves act.’ Events involving them do not simply happen, as with other beings; they act for themselves. That means, they are free …

… the nature of any animal is imposed on it from without, reproduced as a rule through sexual generation … this nature that originates apart from us programmes in advance the specific reactions of the animal to external stimuli. An animal of one species reacts aggressively, where the animal of another species turns tail. A nature is a principle of specific reaction … With the concept of a person, however, we come to think of the particular individual as being more basic than its nature. This is not to suggest that these individuals have no nature, and start out by deciding for themselves what they are to be. What they do is assume a new relation to their nature; they freely endorse the laws of their being, or alternatively they rebel against them and ‘deviate’. **

The singularity of the ‘person’ stems from “being more basic than” nature. A person has a “new relation to” to nature; persons can freely dispose themselves; non-personal animals cannot.

 

[levinas12]

See Spaemann (Persons …), p. 32:

**‘Person’, then, is not a generic term, but a ‘generalizable proper name’ …

Why can we call on such a generalizable proper noun only for individuals with a ‘rational nature’? Because individuals with such a nature have a different kind of relation to their nature from other individuals. They are more than mere ‘instances of …’ This difference is explained by Thomas when he writes that persons are individuals who ‘exist per se’ and have mastery of their own actions. Their actions do not simply proceed from their nature. ‘Not only are they acted upon, like other things, but they themselves act.’ Events involving them do not simply happen, as with other beings; they act for themselves. That means, they are free …

… the nature of any animal is imposed on it from without, reproduced as a rule through sexual generation … this nature that originates apart from us programmes in advance the specific reactions of the animal to external stimuli. An animal of one species reacts aggressively, where the animal of another species turns tail. A nature is a principle of specific reaction … With the concept of a person, however, we come to think of the particular individual as being more basic than its nature. This is not to suggest that these individuals have no nature, and start out by deciding for themselves what they are to be. What they do is assume a new relation to their nature; they freely endorse the laws of their being, or alternatively they rebel against them and ‘deviate’. **

This is OK because it is the exact quote from Levinas himself!

levinas12:

The singularity of the ‘person’ stems from “being more basic than” nature. A person has a “new relation” to nature; persons can freely dispose themselves; non-personal animals cannot.

This needs to be revised to more exactly reflect Levinas:

“The singularity of the ‘person’ stems from the ‘particular individual as being more basic than its nature’. ‘What [persons] do is assume a new relation to their nature’ …”

What this means for Levinas is that persons freely dispose themselves as opposed to non-personal animals who cannot. True enough. But more has to be unpacked. Particularly the uniqueness of the person. The Heidegger of Being and Time might help us … with his notion of “Da-sein” … with stress on the “Da”, the “there” which is the zero point from which all “here’s” and “now’s”, all “this’s” and “that’s” originate …

 

[NeedImprovement]

Before I’ve even read halfway through most of the posts on this thread, smoke starts coming out of my ears … this subject is definitely not my forte . But I keep getting snagged on something I read back at page # 1 .

I’m hoping maybe some of you guys could help me out with a little clarification. Without intending to derail the thread, something I read in a post keeps raising several questions, I’d like to post those questions here in the hope of gaining a little more insight from you on them.

It goes like this, beginning with the post that raised the question(s) for me:

“Person” means active agent, “who” is doing it.

Jesus has a human body and soul but is a divine person, not a human person.

…

The questions:

1. 
   *]Jesus has two wills – his Divine will and his human will ; it was with his human will that He obeyed His Divine will, as evidenced in the Gospels. Saying he isn’t a human person, would be implying he had no human will … wouldn’t it ?
   
   *]If Jesus is/was not a human person, then who died on the Cross ?
   
   *]If Jesus is/was not a human person, would we still be able to say that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God ?
   
   Conclusion:
   
   I agree that Jesus is a Divine person , but when we say Jesus is, “a divine person, not a human person”, that appears to project some imprecision on the Hypostatic Union.
   
   If we wish to define what/who the human person is philosophically , we can’t get there by dissecting the Hypostatic Union ; because the Hypostatic Union is non negotiable , indissectible and it’s indivisibility places it beyond categorization – it is a oneness willed by God Himself, to Himself.
   
   Father John Hardon S.J. ‘s definition of the Hypostatic Union says the “divine person … includes in his person a human nature ” , in other words, the one is not outside the other.
   
   A more comprehensive excerpt from that definition (highlights mine) :
   Father John Hardon:
   

   … It is an adequate expression of Catholic doctrine about Jesus Christ that in him are two perfect natures, divine and human;** that the divine person takes to himself, includes in his person a human nature**; that the incarnate Son of God is an individual, complete substance; and that the union of the two natures is real (against Arius), no mere indwelling of God in a man (against Nestorius), with a rational soul (against Apollinaris), and the divinity remains unchanged (against Eutyches).

   Any (name removed by moderator)ut/replies (if the OP is good with that) would be welcome.
   
   Thanks , and God bless.

 

[levinas12]

This is OK because it is the exact quote from Levinas himself!

Typo … “This is OK because it is the exact quote from Spaemann himself”

 

[levinas12]

This is OK because it is the exact quote from **Levinas **himself!

Typo … please substitute **Spaemann **for Levinas

Levinas12:

This needs to be revised to more exactly reflect Levinas:

Typo …please substitute Spaemann for Levinas

 

[levinas12]

This is OK because it is the exact quote from Levinas himself …

This needs to be revised to more exactly reflect **Levinas **…

What this means for Levinas is that persons can freely dispose themselves as opposed to non-personal animals who cannot.

Typos … please substitute **Spaemann **for Levinas

Lessons learned … don’t revise or mess with your original posting …

I need a long vacation …

 

[katesmom]

Essentially we are defined as “rational animals.” All of the other animals are defined as “animals.” What differentiates us from the other animals? Nothing much more than our soul and its ability to know, in the fullest sense of that word.

At the moment of conception everything about us is potential, with the singular exception of the possession of the soul. Nothing else about a zygote will differentiate it as a human being for a couple of weeks at least (without removing it and/or poking it with needles, and so forth). At that point we are literally the “act of the potential precisely as potential.” More-so because we are at the very inception of act of the potential as potential. No kinds of activities inure to us until each of us has undergone fairly extensive training. And, what do we receive from such training? Things to know.

The animal senses the other in a primitive way, viewing it as food, foe, or friend. The knower, on the other hand, finds the “other” as a-mirror-of-me. The animal requires increased sense awareness. We do not. The animal’s reduced knowingness of others, reduces its activities to: fleeing, chasing, and eating (biting and chewing). The human’s heightened knowingness increases his activities to fleeing, chasing, eating, communicating, sharing ideas and POV’s, loving, working with or against, and a host of other things that animals can’t do.

Above all else, it seems to me that the act of knowing is philosophically what we are. All of the rest are capabilities that are directly attributable to that act. Oh, and, finally, the human can even know that he knows.

God bless,
jd

Beautifully explained! Thank you!!

 

[greylorn]

What is the human person?

How is consciousness, intellect, will, sense appetite and the like involved?

Thanks!

The human person is a composite of two distinct entities.

The most obvious component is a brain-body system. It exists for the sole purpose of teaching consciousness to the primary component, the entity which religions call “soul.”

Failure to understand the nature of the soul or the purpose in its connection to body causes much confusion. Contrary to Buddhist beliefs, the soul is not an epiphenomenon. And contrary to the beliefs of most monotheistic religions, the soul is not created by God.

God arranged for the creation of human bodies, which are designed to bring each soul, which has (effectively) always existed, to consciousness, that it might actually do something useful in the Creators’ service.

The soul, moreover, is not a spirit. It is as physical as an electromagnetic field and well connected, through empirically discoverable circuitry, to the human brain.

Now you know.

 

[Alterum]

Levinas:

This was much better stated - so that even I could understand it! Now I see what you were saying. With one little explanation: “souls” and “persons” are words, whether singular or plural, that are in everyday use as regular (non-sortal) nouns. Therefore, in those cases they do belong to Aristotle’s categories. The words only become non-sortal when spoken of in place of “JD,” for instance, or when regarded as me.

If one says, “the, this, or that,” person, or, “the, this, or that,” soul, one is now using the words as non-sortal. There’s no question that the, this, or that, person speaks to a completely other individual. In fact, after thinking about it, I can accept the radical adjective, “radical!” (Which I was trying to squirm away from earlier.) In the sense that you mean it, the “person” is regarded as if already Angelic. Well, in fact, he is an incarnate angel. I can go with that. And, perhaps I was confusing the usages in my posts. I’ll try to be clearer in the future. Thanks.

God bless,
jd

Guys, I just want to correct two [edit, make that three ] things:

Firstly, a ‘person’ is indeed a member of a genus, namely the genus of persons. If a person were not a member of a genus then no one could be said to be a person because there would be no common kind to which all persons belong. So, some of you (not necessarily the person I’ve quoted) have mixed up your terms considerably.

Secondly, a human being is not an incarnate angel. An angel is an entirely distinct substance. It might be better to say that a human being is an ‘incarnate intellect,’ meaning a bodily intellect, NOT an intellect which pre-exists a body but then somehow fills it.

Thirdly, a human being – as someone else pointed out, a ‘rational animal’ – is a single substance or nature comprising the union of two principles or modes of existence in a SINGLE act of existence. These two modes are the spatio-temporal mode of existence (which is often referred to by the term ‘body’) and the vital mode of existence (referred to by the term ‘soul,’ which is the substantial form of the human being). A human being, therefore, is IDENTICAL TO a human body, as long as we understand ‘human body’ correctly to mean, exclusively, the conjunction of a body which would be spatio-temporal but not living, and the soul which would be vital but not spatio-temporal. Together these constitute one substance. Since they are integral parts of a single whole substance they cannot exist in the same way as the whole substance – although another argument can be made that the soul is indestructible or subsistent but that’s not the purpose of this discussion, I take it.

 

[JDaniel]

The human person is a composite of two distinct entities.

The most obvious component is a brain-body system. It exists for the sole purpose of teaching consciousness to the primary component, the entity which religions call “soul.”

Hmmm. Why do you think it is this way rather than the other way 'round? The soul could be the teacher teaching the brain-body consciousness, awareness , and awareness of awareness, could it not?

Failure to understand the nature of the soul or the purpose in its connection to body causes much confusion. Contrary to Buddhist beliefs, the soul is not an epiphenomenon. And contrary to the beliefs of most monotheistic religions, the soul is not created by God.

You knew that we would have a severe problem with this, i.e., with the last sentence. If the soul is not created by God, then it could just as easily be the self-same for every brain-body-soul. There would be no necessity, that I can make out, for human differentiation.

God arranged for the creation of human bodies,

With whom?

which are designed to bring each soul, which has (effectively) always existed, to consciousness

How did it “always exist?” I mean, in what sort of state or mode?

that it might actually do something useful in the Creators’ service.

Doesn’t this presuppose that what it can usefully provide take place while in its time on Earth? I have met a myriad of dolts in my time on earth. I can’t imagine what they would provide that would be useful in the Creator’s service.

The soul, moreover, is not a spirit. It is as physical as an electromagnetic field and well connected, through empirically discoverable circuitry, to the human brain.

Could a spirit interact with matter? If not, why not?

jd