Themes in Philo of Man

Some Themes of philosophy of the Human Person

1. Man as Embodied Subjectivity

Phenomenologists reject as inadequate the definition of man as “rational animal” or as a
“composite of body and soul”. The trouble with these definitions ids that they are dualistic; they view
man as made up of two parts; corporeal and spiritual, animality and rationality. Even if we lay stress on
“composite” or “unity”, we would still face the dilemma of how two different realities, matter and spirit,
can interact with each other. When pressed further in which reality is more important, no doubt we
would say that rationality stands out as the unique characteristic of man. And yet our basis for
understanding human nature is his animality, and ‘rational’ is only a qualifier, an added dimension to
man’s animality, thus making man “Isang pinakamagandang hayop sa balat ng lupa- pero hayop parin.”
This dualistic notion of man with its emphasis in rationality has led to the so-called two-l ives theory
and in moral education. The norms of good conduct in terms of ends and means. Man lives in two
separate worlds, the temporal and the spiritual , nut he must not make the mistake of making the
temporal his ultimate end. The early city is only a preparation for the eternal. Reason equips him the
judgement of distinguishing ends and means.
The phenomenologist, on the other hand, sees man as embodied subjectivity. This is not just a
matter of language, for language does matter. Language does not just picture reality; it helps create
reality’s meaning. Man is foremost a subjectivity, a unique core or center, source, depth, well-spring of
initiative and meaning. Our term “kalooban” fits the description. Note that subjectivity is not limited to
rationality but includes the affective, the emotional , as well.
Man, however, is not a pure subjectivity but a subjectivity incarnating itself, “in flesh” so to say.
Man’s body is not an object-body, a chunk of matter that is the lodging place of the spirit. The human
body is a subject-body, already a meaning- giving existence. In other words, human interiority always
seeks to embody itself in a body structure or gesture. Embodiment is simply to make incarnate a
meaning which comes from the inner core of man.
How does this holistic view of man then affect our philosophy of education? The subject of
education is man. Education is the process of developing man, man the embodied subject. Development
now must be total development. Education cannot be and should not be simply a conglomeration of
disciplines each minding its own task of cultivating a specific part a man. Neither must education look
down upon material development as merely a stepping stone to the rational or spiritual. We can recall
here the mystical insight of the Jesuit philosopher-scientist, Teilhard de Cahrdin:
Consciousness manifests itself indubitably in man and therefore, glimpsed in this one flash of light, it
reveals itself as having a cosmic extension and consequently as being aureoled by limitless prolongations
in space and time.
A corollary insight to embodiment is the notion of language as embodied thought or thingking, not
as a replica or clothing of ideas. Language is the way of thinking of the people itself speaking that
language. If our education is to be relevant, it must be communicated in the language of the people to
whom it is to be relevant.”
2. Man as Being-in-the-world
As embodied subject, man is a being-in-the-world. The human body is the link of man with the
world. The phenomenologist speaks of world or worlds for man, rather than environment. Environment
refers to animals, but the things around man are not simply objects lying; they form a network of
meanings, in and on and around which man organizes his life. Thus we speak of the world of a student,
of a teacher,of a farmer, a politician. Man is “in” the world not in the same sense as the carabao is “in’
the field. Both may be in the field but it is man who gives meaning to the field, the carabao, the sky, the
plough. The world connotes the a dialect of meaning and structures. The things around man are
structures that articulate a meaning proceeding from the subjectivity of man. Some given structures
reinforce a meaning , others run counter to it. In any case, to speak o man is to speak if his world., and
vice versa. The phenomenologist call this the intentionality of consciousness. In visayan, it means “walay
kalibutan(world) kung walay kalibutan (consiuosness).”
Rather than define man as “rational animal” to which one of my students quipped, “so what”? let us
emphasize man’s situatedness. This point is important when we speak of social change. No genuine
social change is effected without an internal change in meaning, and no internal meaning can last
without an external structure to reinforce it. The scholastics like dwell on cumutative justice or injustice,
but contemporary man is more aware, in a complex world he lives, of social justice or injustice, of unjust
structures. This is what we educators should address ourselves to with our students an awareness of
unjust structures, of internal change that need to be situated,of the need to humanize the world we live
in by our work.
How concrete is our philosophy of education? Are we addressing ourselves to the specific world or
worlds of our students? What meaning or meanings do we want our students to see? What structures
do we provide to reinforce this meaning? The textbooks, the extra or co-curricular activities, do they
support, form the structure of our philosophy of education?

3. Man as Being-with; the Inter human and the Social

The world of man, of course, is not just the world of things but also the world of fellowman. Here the
phenomenologist speaks of two dimensions, the interpersonal and the social, the neighbor and the
socius ( Paul Ricoeur).
The Interhuman is the I-thou relationship between persons that the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber
emphasizes in contrast to the I-it relationship. It is the relationship of dialogue in contrast to monologue.
Genuine dialogue begins when one passes beyond the world of seeming and enters into communication
with the other by becoming aware of his totality. Monologue or I-it happens when one stays in the
world of seeming, of impressions, and treats the other as an object, as something that fills his need of
the moment. The influence that one has on the other in dialogue is one of unfolding, where as in
monologue, an imposition.
Education, true education, if its to be different from propaganda, is such an unfolding.”educare”
means “to lead out”, to bring out in the other, the student, a certain disposition of him to see for himself
the true, good and beautiful. Buber , an educator himself, is known to have influenced the noted
theologian of liberation Paolo Freire. In his Pedagogy of the oppressed, Freire differentiates two
methods of teaching: the banking method and the dialogical method. In the banking method, the
teacher deposit ideas and information to his student and during the exam, withdraws them, “ walang
interes ” . in dialogical , the teacher teaches by learning from his students, the students learn by
teaching. The teacher acts, like Socrates, as a gadfly, bringing out the true, good, and beautiful as it exist
uniquely in each. Education of this type liberates, whereas imposition fossilizes.
That man is social is an old adage. Aristolte characterizes man as by nature,” a political animal”. Yet,
in Aristolte’s times, the slaves were not allowed to participate in the polis. Education was limited to the
free man (woman excluded) to prepare him for an active life in the already established democratic state.
Phenomenology adheres too to the social of man. Where lies the difference? Phenomenology does
not limit society to only one class of man. The social is not something that one enters into by contract to
achieve some common aim, as Rousseau would have it. The social within each man: man does not only
live in society, society lives in him. The things he uses in daily life presuppose contact with fellowman.
Language attests to the social nature of man. Even the individual himself is a product of a social contact.
The act of contemplation is itself a social act.
The social, however, is not given once and for all to man. Society is not static but dynamic. It is borne
out of the historicity that is man. Man as embodied subjectivity temporalizes; in a given situation, he
carves a meaning from his past in view of some project in the future. The past, present and future is not
his alone but shared with fellowman. We speak thus of man as a cultural being, as belonging to a
particular way of thinking, relating, doing about the world in terms of natural and human resources,
economics and politics, due to a shared past, present and future.
What bearing does the social consciousness have on philosophy of education? Clearly, our education
cannot be based simply on ultimate ends, on absolute, eternal truths, as the perrenialist school conceive
of it. Neither can we be simply content with a general formulation of educational objective as preparing
the student to become good citizens in a democracy. As Isaac Berkson says, a philosophy of education
must be predicated on a clearly formulated conception of a way of life in a definite society. And
“democracy” has to be made clear. What do we mean by it in the present era. After all, the universal
truth exists in the particular.
4. Man as Persons and his crowning activity is Love which presupposes Justice
For the phenomenologist, the inal aim of education, formal or informal is becoming a persons, “
Madaling maging tao, mahirap magpakatao” . “Person” is the task of becoming oneself. Th individuality
of man is one that he has to become freely and consciously in time, in the world. In what does thistask
consist? It consist in intergration, in becoming whole , in unifying his diverse activities of speaking,
thinking, willing and feeling. How can he achieve this self-possesion? By directing all these activities
towards an objective value or realm of objective values, objective because they are valuable in
themselves. Mere relative values cannot intergrate man because they are derive their worth fro man
himself. What beings posses inherent worth? Man in his uniqueness and irreducibility is an objective
value. Thus, the phenomenologist sees the meaning to the Christian paradox: man gains himself by
giving himself to others. I become a person only by committing myself to other persons, and this
commitment is what the contemporary thinkers call the fundamental option of love. In the words of the
Chinese philosophers. It is becoming ‘a sage within and a king without” like the tree- the deeper the
roots, the wider the branches reach out, and vice versa.
The commitment of love however, presuppose justice, the true foundation of any social order. Love as
the enhancement of the other’s person requires giving to the other his due, his basic dignity as a person.
Love is the maximum of justice, justice the minimum of love. The demand o justice cannot be divorced
from the existential relationship of man and fellowman, and that is why truth as a value is important. To
do justice is to live the light of truth, to stand witness to it. No genuine social order can last if it
establishes itself in deception and manipulation of people’s minds.
Phenomenological ethics is predominantly axiological or value-ethics. The phenomenologist Max
Scheller stresses the point that values are objects of intentional feeling which is different from feeling-
states. Values are reasons of the heart, not of the mind. They are not imparted by a communication of
minds but by a meeting of persons, in concrete, by models or exemplars.
How to do these insights affect our philosophy of education?
First, we can no longer conceive of educational objectives in terms of personal developments or
self-realization with no end beyond itself. A philosophy of education must include social aims: self-
realization is no longer possible apart from socialization.
Second, socialization, though contextual, is not value-free. Our contemporary social scientists
have pressed on us the insight that no science or discipline is completely devoid of value-orientation.
Our educational policies must aim at specific personal and social values: of justice, love, honesty.
Thirdly, as educators we need to realize that total development is not just the education of the
mind but also of the heart, and we can educate the heart only by being exemplars of what we teach. The
bearer of moral values is the person himself.
Let us conclude this introduction by this summation: Personalization and socialization are but
two sides of a single process in education, in life. This is the central message of Christianity and of other
religions. For the Christian, personal salvation is itself primarily a social act. In the words of Christ,
‘Come, enter and possess the Kingdom that has been ready for you since the world was made.
For when I was hungry, you gave me food; when thirsty, you gave me drink; when I was a stranger, you
took me into your home, when naked you clothed me; when I was ill you came to my help; when in
prison, you visited me.’

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Some Themes of philosophy of the Human Person

1. Man as Embodied Subjectivity

3. Man as Being-with; the Inter human and the Social

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