PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

University of San Agustin

AY: 2014-2015: First Semester

CHAPTER 1: INTRAPERSONAL DIMENSION

Lecture 2: Human Being/ Person According to Different Philosophers

The ancient Greek philosophers were cosmologists. Cosmology is defined as the branch of
philosophy which studies the nature of the world and of the universe. They were busy looking for
the basic stuff that makes up the world; thus, they focused their attention upon nature. This basic
stuff is considered the basic principle, ultimate reality that consist the world. It is in their
cosmological ideas that we can extract some of their thoughts and insights on human nature. The
ancient Greek philosophers engaged in philosophical inquiry asking the origin of all things and that
includes man. The Greek philosophers ground mans nature and existence in the world. They validly
argue that what the world constitutes, man also possesses. In other words, the stuff that
constitutes the world is also the same stuff that constitutes man. However, what this is basic stuff,
remains to be the perpetual debate among the ancient philosophers themselves. The idea of the
Greek philosophers about human nature is anchored on their views of the world.

The Beginnings of Philosophy: The Pre-Socratics

The birthplace of philosophy was the seaport town of Miletus, on the western shores of
Ionia in Asia Minor. The first philosophers were called Ionians or Milesians. The first philosophers
were primitive scientists whose theory focused on taking nature and the world around them as the
basic stuff. It is a fact of history of thought that science and philosophy was the same thing in the
beginning and only later did various specific disciplines separate themselves from philosophy,
medicine being the first to do so.

Thales (624-546 BCE)

Thales is known to be the first philosopher. By birth Thales is a Phoenician but he

went to Miletus, Ionia to practice philosophy. It is with this that he was considered a Greek
philosopher. Thales considered water, the basic stuff. His philosophy was centred on the
doctrine that water is the origin of all things. Thales was aware that water is just one of
the many candidates for the basic stuff of the universe, he knew there were other
substances such as solid, air fire, gases and others. The principle of all things is water; all
comes from water, and to water all returns. This finding of Thales was later validated by
modern science, even today grade schoolers are taught that the human brain contains 75%
water and the human blood is 83% water.

Thales was perhaps the first philosopher to ask questions about the structure
and nature of the cosmos as a whole. He maintained that the earth rests on water, like a
log floating in a stream. (Aristotle asked, later: what does the water rest on?) But earth and
its inhabitants did not just rest on water: in some sense, so Thales believed, they were all

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made out of water. Even in antiquity, people conjecture the grounds for this belief: was it
because all animals and plants need water, or because the seeds of everything are moist?
Because of his theory about the cosmos Thales was called by later writers a physicist or
philosopher of nature (phusis is the Greek word for nature).

Anaximenes (550-526 BCE)

If Thales considered water as the basic stuff of the universe, Anaximenes preferred
air to water. His philosophy is centred on the doctrine that air is the source of all things.
He believes that water, earth and fire are all products of air. Air according to Anaximenes air
undergoes two processes namely, condensation and rarefaction. When air is condensed it
becomes wind, then cloud, when still more condensed it becomes water, then earth then
stone. Condensation is the source of cold. By rarefaction air becomes thin, it becomes fire.

Given Anaximenes argument on air we can say that man is air. Taken from the
paradigm of man as a body and soul it can be argued that the body is condensed air and the
soul is rarefied air. So, based on the traditional belief when death comes and soul separates
from the body, cadaver (corpse) is necessarily cold, since the heat principle (the soul) that
animates it is gone. Anaximenes contend that air is the principle of life. In fact, he says
that the soul is composed of air. Anaximenes provide a crude example of appealing to a
simple experiment: if one blows on ones hand with the mouth relaxed, the air is hot; if one
blows with pursed lips, the air is cold.

Xenophanes (570-478 BC)

Xenophaness philosophy was centred on the doctrine that earth is the fundamental
element of the universe. All things come from earth and in earth all things end. The
soil in the ground is a manifestation of earth. Everything we eat comes from earth; the food
that we will digest and convert into muscle, bone, blood and other body parts is grown in
and draws nutrients from the soil. The earth and mans body are one.

Anaximander

Anaximander was said to have been the first person to construct a map of the world.
He believed that there was one material stuff out of which everything in the cosmos
came and into which everything returned in the end. Probably thinking that every
ordinary material element could be destroyed by its opposite, he took the single cosmic
stuff to be something boundless or indeterminate (apeiron in Greek). The apeiron is
eternal and encompasses all the opposites.

Anaximander was an early proponent of evolution. Coming to the origin of human

life, Anaximander said that all life comes from the sea and that in the course of time; living

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things came out of the sea to dry land. He suggested that humanity evolved from the
creatures of different kind, using as his argument the fact that other creatures are quickly
self-supporting, whereas humans alone need prolonged nursing and that, therefore,
humanity would not have survived if this had been its original form. Commenting on
Anaximanders account of the origin of humanity, Plutarch writes that the Syrians actually
revere fish as being of similar race and nurturing. In this they philosophize more suitably
than Anaximander; for declares not that fishes and men came into being in the same
parents, but that originally men came into being inside fishes, and that having been
nurtured there-like sharks and having become adequate to look after themselves, they then
came forth and took the land. The human beings we know cannot always have existed, he
argued. Other animals are able to look after themselves, soon after birth, while humans
require a long period of nursing; if humans had originally been as they are now they could
not have survived. Because of this thesis, though he was not otherwise a vegetarian, he
preached against the eating of fish.

Heraclitus (540-480 BCE)

Some Greek Philosophers also believe that the world is changing. This idea is well
defended by Heraclitus. The logos is the blanket principle of change. With this idea, he
maintains that all things or that everything is in constant change. His popular dictum was:
You cant step twice in the same river. Change for him is a permanent reality.
Everything will be changed and it is only change that cannot be changed. This explains that
nothing is the same now as it was before, and nothing today will be the same tomorrow.

In Heraclitus cosmology fire has the role which water had in Thales and air had in
Anaximenes. The world is an ever-burning fire: all things come from fire and go into fire;
all things are exchangeable for fire, as goods are for gold and gold for goods. There is
a downward path, whereby fire turns to water and an upward path, whereby earth turns to
water, water to air, and air to fire. Heraclitus believed that fire makes the basic stuff. The
process of becoming or change finds its origin in fire. It is the origin of all matter. So, what
has fire to do with man? Evidently, the 37 degrees Celsius temperature of the human body
provides us with the clue that man is grounded in the world. Thus, if the world is fire, man,
too, has fire in him in the form of heat.

Pythagoras

The Pythagoreans the name of the followers of Pythagoras were convinced that
man is a dipartite of body and soul. They are the first to approach man in this perspective.
The Pythagoreans are the true pioneers of the paradigm of man as body and soul. According
to the Pythagoreans the human soul is immortal and divine, they believe that the soul
has fallen, and that is to say, imprisoned in the body. The imprisonment is not to last

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forever since there is a sure possibility for the souls release from its entrapment in the
body.
He taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls: human beings had souls which
were separable from their bodies, and at death a persons soul might migrate into another
kind of animal. For this reason, he taught his disciples to abstain from meat; once, it is said,
he stopped a man whipping a puppy, claiming philosophy in its infancy to have recognized
in its whimper the voice of a dear dead friend. He believed that the soul, having migrated
into different kinds of animal in succession, was eventually reincarnated as a human being.
He himself claimed to remember having been, some centuries earlier, a hero at the siege of
Troy. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls was called in Greek metempsychosis.

The Greek Triumvirate

Socrates

Socrates was acclaimed as the greatest philosopher in Western civilization. The

definition of Socrates of man seems to put more emphasis on the attitudinal level of
human nature since he gives more value to the human soul rather than the body. Socrates
created the conception of the soul, the psyche. For him the soul is not any particular
faculty, nor was it any special kind of substance; but was rather the capacity for
intelligence and character; it was a persons personality. Socrates identified the soul with
the normal powers of intelligence and character instead of as some ghostly substance. The
soul was the structure of personality. The activity of the soul is to know. He argues that
the human soul should be nurtured properly through its acquisition of knowledge, wisdom
and virtue.

For Socrates man should discover the truth, the truth about good life, for it is in
knowing the good life that man can act correctly. According to Socrates, knowledge and
virtue are not distinct from each other. For one to do good one must have first and foremost
known the good. Knowing what is right means doing what is right. For according to
Socrates moral knowledge and virtue was one and the same thing. Hence, if one fails to do
that which one knows about, it follows that the claimant of this knowledge does not actually
know that which he claims he knows at all. So if one knows cheating, telling lies, stealing,
killing, adultery, and the like are bad acts but one performs them anyway, it clearly shows
that one is deeply ignorant. Someone who really knew what it was right to do could not do
wrong; if anyone did what was wrong; it must be because he did not know what was right.
No one goes wrong on purpose, since everyone wants to lead a good life and thus be happy.
Those who do wrong unintentionally are in need of instruction, not punishment. For
Socrates, the main source of evil is ignorance.

Some philosophers comment that the ignorance which Socrates refers to is not the
act itself but its ability to produce happiness. Wrongdoing is the inaccurate estimate

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modes of behaviour. It is the inaccurate expectation that certain kinds of things or

pleasures will produce happiness. Wrongdoing, then, is the product of ignorance simply
because it is done with the hope that it will do what it cannot do. Ignorance consists in not
knowing that certain behaviour cannot produce happiness. And it requires knowledge
to be able to distinguish what appears to give happiness and what really does. Socrates
denied that people deliberately did evil acts because they knew them to be evil. When
people commit evil acts, said Socrates, they always do them thinking that they are good in
some way. Even when one chooses pain, one does so with the expectation that this pain will
lead to virtue.

Plato

Plato was a student of Socrates. There were yet no established schools that existed
before in ancient Greece. Socrates favourite schoolhouse was the marketplace despite the
fact that he was no vendor of any commodities, except ideas. Plato founded a school in
Athens which he called Academy. Notably, Plato called this school in honour of the Greek
hero Academus. This school however, was ordered closed by the Catholic Church in 529 A.D.

Plato fashioned his philosophy in a metaphysical foundation by weaving his

thoughts on the kinds of world. This two world theory of Plato points out the division of
the world. According to him there are two kinds of world, namely, the Ideal World
(Intelligible world) and the Sensible World (World of Matter). The Ideal world is the world
of idea. For Plato, the ideal world is the ultimate reality since ideas and forms are eternal
and immutable He uses form (eidos) synonymously with idea (which is also derived from
the verb idein). Hence, Platos Theory of Ideas is also called the Theory of Forms. Plato
concludes that the ideal world is the real world, the true world of reality. On the other
hand, the sensible world is a world of becoming; it is a world of constant change.

Example: the "Form" or "Idea" of a horse is intelligible, abstract, and applies to all
horses; this Form never changes, even though horses vary wildly among themselves. An
individual horse is a physical, changing object that can easily cease to be a horse; the Form
of a horse, or "horseness," never changes. The sensible world, therefore, is just a poor
reflection, copy, duplicate or shadow of the ideal world.

It is in this two world view or two world theory of Plato where we can glean his
insights on human nature. The nature of man lies in the dichotomy of body and soul. In
other words, body and soul are two different aspects in man. The human soul belongs to
the ideal world. The human body on the other hand belongs to the sensible world. For
Plato, the body is material; it cannot live and move apart from the soul; it is mutable and
destructible. The soul on the other hand can exist apart from the body it is immutable
and indestructible. Plato views the superiority of the human soul over the human body.
Hence, the real man for Plato is his soul and not his body.

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The human body is considered by Plato as a prison cell. The soul is temporarily
incarcerated in the body. Plato believed that the soul existed prior to the body. The body is
the temporary residence of the human soul. Plato concludes that man is a soul using a
body. At the time of death the human body as material will decompose while the human
soul will survive. This affirms Platos doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
In Platos view, the soul has three parts, namely the rational, appetitive and spiritual
parts. Because man is a soul using a body, the three parts of the soul each has its place in the
body.
Appetitive Part part of the soul that drives man to experience thirst, hunger,
and other physical wants. It is the seat of physical pleasures. It seeks power,
wealth, and even sexual satisfaction. It is located in the stomach.

Spiritual Part part of the soul that makes man assert abomination and anger. It
is the seat of emotions (i.e. anger, fear, hatred, jealousy). It is located in the chest.

Rational Part it is the seat of reasoning. It is the rational part of the soul that
enables man to think, to reflect, to draw conclusions, and to analyse. This part of
the soul is located in the head. For Plato this part of the soul is the most important
and the highest. It naturally desire to acquire knowledge and wisdom. It is this
part that rules over the other parts and not to be overruled. It is this part that
specifically distinguishes man from the brutes. Man can control his appetite and
self- assertion of spirit through reason.

For example, when the person is very hungry and yet, he does not eat the available
food because he knows or doubts that it has poison. Plato contends that there is something
in the mind of the person that leads him to crave for food and another thing that prohibits
him from eating the poisoned food. The principle that drives the person to eat the food is
what he calls the appetite while that principle which forbids the person to eat the available
food because it is poisoned, is reason.

Another example is man who is so angry with another person who insulted him. Out
of anger, he surely would be driven to kill his enemy but does not actually do so because he
knows that if he does so, he will be imprisoned. With the same reasoning, he argues that it is
the spirit in man that makes the person angry with his enemy, yet his anger is curbed by
reason.

A self-controlled person is a person who knows how to balance things and is

therefore dominated by the rational part. Reason for Plato controls both spirit and appetite.
When this happens man will have a well-balanced personality. An aggressive person is a
person who asserts himself in all situations in life and is therefore dominated by the

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spirited part. A greedy person is person who seeks to acquire possessions is therefore
dominated by the appetitive part.

Plato declares that the spiritual and appetitive parts are subjected to death; they are
mortals. Only the rational part of the soul is immortal. This literally gives birth to the
concept that an idea is immortal since it is rooted in reason. This means further that when
man dies, his soul will not go hungry or angry, because passion and appetite die with the
body, yet, whatever the soul knows, it continues to know what it knows since an idea or
knowledge is intrinsically incapable of death. The universal concept of the human soul or
reason is eternal and will continue to exist. It will not die with the death of the person.

Aristotle

If Plato has his academy, Aristotle has his Lyceum. It is in this school where
Aristotle gathered his disciples who sat at his feet. The most acclaimed statement of
Aristotle on man says: Man is a rational animal.

Unlike Plato, Aristotle maintains that there is no dichotomy between mans body
and soul. Body and soul are in a state of unity. For Aristotle mans body and soul are
substantially united. This means that in Aristotelian thought, there is no soulless body and
bodiless soul. Simply put, where there is body there is soul, and vice versa. The soul acts as
the perfect or full realization of the body while the body is a material entity which has a
potentiality for life. The body per se, has no life. The body can only possess life when it is
united with the soul. Soul is the principle of life; it causes the body to live. The body is
matter to the soul and the soul form to the body. Body and soul therefore, are inseparable.
They constitute man as a whole.

For Aristotle it is not only human beings which have a soul, or psyche; all living
beings have one, from daisies and molluscs upwards. A soul is simply a principle of life:
it is the source of the characteristic activities of living beings. Different living beings have
different abilities: plants can grow and reproduce, but cannot move or feel; animals
perceive, and feel pleasure and pain; some but not all animals can move around; some very
special animals, namely human beings, can also think and understand. Different kinds of
soul are diversified by these different activities in which they find expression. The most
general definition which Aristotle gives of a soul is that it is the form of an organic body.
Aristotles concept of the kinds of soul:

Vegetative Soul is the lowest type of soul which is found in all living things.
Plants specifically possess this type of soul. It is capable of the following
functions: It feeds (nutrition) itself, it grows (growth), and it reproduces
(reproduction). Man is a vegetant soul, a vegetant organism. As a vegetant

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organism human beings are like plants simply because they have life and they
feed, grow and reproduce themselves.

Sensitive Soul exists in animals. The functions of the sensitive soul are: It feeds
itself, it grows, it reproduces, and it has feelings (particularly of pain and
pleasure). It refers to the function or the power of sensation in addition to the
power of vegetation. Sensitive soul develops a nervous system that allows the
senses in the body to function. What makes a sensitive soul higher than a
vegetant soul is that the latter is incapable of sensation, because it does not have
a nervous system, while the former has a nervous system. Through nervous
system it allows its beholder to experience pain or pleasure because it has
feelings. Man is also a sentient organism like animals. The only difference is that
whereas brutes are only capable of feelings (of pain and pleasure) man is capable
not only of feelings, but also of emotion.

Rational Soul exists only in man. The rational soul ranks the highest of all
kinds of souls because it assumes the functions of the vegetative and sensitive
souls. Besides, it is capable of thinking, reasoning and willing. Man therefore, who
is in possession of the rational soul is higher than the brutes, animals and plants.
Aside from thinking and judging, man is capable of sensing and growing. Only
man can reason, think and encompasses two other souls and that which makes
him the highest. Because man is rational he has intellect and will.

In sum, Aristotles view of the human nature is seen in his argument on the matter
and form in man. Man is essentially body and soul.

Ancient Chinese Sages: On Human Nature

The central attention of the Chinese in philosophizing man is on ethics and politics. They have
not concerned themselves, unlike the Greek on the physical composition of man, but on his
humanity and role in the society. Their brand of philosophy is more practical and realistic. This was
the fruit of their situation which was the Period of the Warring States. The main aim of their
philosophy is to address the role of man in himself, in his home and in the society. In the discussion,
two of Chinas prominent philosopher will be tackled and their understanding of human nature.

Mencius (372-289 BCE)

Better known in China as Master Meng (Chinese: Meng Zi), Mencius was a fourth-
century BCE Chinese thinker whose importance in the Confucian tradition is second only to
that of Confucius himself. Mencius lost his father at an early age. Thus, he became close to

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his mother. There was this story about his mother: when they lived in the cemetery,
Mencius enacted the various scene of burial rite. When they transferred near the market
place, he pretended he was a market vendor selling wares and bargaining to customers. His
mother was displeased once again. They transferred near a public school. There the young
boy, Mencius, imitated various exercises of politeness, propriety, and moral rectitude,
virtues proper to the scholar. The mother was satisfied and said, This is the proper place
for my son!

This story made Mencius mother a paragon of an ideal mother for the Chinese.
Mencius studied about Confucius through Confucius great grandson, Zi Si. Mencius was also
a private teacher accompanied by several hundred disciples. Mencius influence did not rank
equal with Confucius, Mo Tzu and Lao Tzu. It was only until the Period of the Five Dynasties
(900 AD to 1400 AD) that he gained great acceptance. Tired of the materialism of the kings
and failing to win royal support, he went home and devoted the last years of his life to
teaching and writing.

Human Nature

For Kao Zi, Mans nature is neither good nor bad. Some say mans nature may be
made to practice good, and it may be made to practice evil; and accordingly, under Wen and
Wu the people loved what was good, while under Yu and Li, they loved what was cruel
Furthermore, Kao Zi said, Mans nature is like flowing water. If a breach in the pool is made
to the east it will flow to the east. If a breach is made to the west it will flow to the west.
Mans nature is indifferent to good and evil, just as water is indifferent to the east and west!
Mencius, retorted, Water, indeed, is indifferent to the east and west, but is it indifferent to
high and low? Mans nature is naturally good as water naturally flows downward. There is
no man without this good nature; neither is there water that does not flow downward. Now
can you strike water and cause it to splash upward over your forehead, and by damning and
leading it, you can force it uphill. Is this the nature of water?

The Four Innate Seeds of Goodness:

The sense of pity is inherent in each person, the sense of right and wrong, sense of
good and evil, sense of truth and falsity are all found in man at birth. Seeing a child
teetering at the edge of a well and in danger of falling in and drowning would instinctively
be moved by pity and would instinctively try to rescue the child without hesitating even a
moment to calculate issues of advantage. The sense of right and wrong is revealed by the
fact that one responds positively to right and negatively to wrong. One prefers the good
over the evil and prefers being told the truth than the falsity. When one develops the sense
of pity, he acquires the virtue of Ren: the sense of right and wrong, he acquires the virtue of
Yi; the sense of good and evil, he acquires the virtue of Li; the sense of truth and falsity, he
acquires wisdom or Zhi. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge are not

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infused into us from without. We are certainly furnished with them. Man is formed for
virtue. Should it be that his conduct is very far from conforming to virtue that simply fastens
in him the feeling of shame?

Human nature is intrinsically good and that this is morally perfectible because man
has already within him the seeds of innate goodness.

The Reality of Evil

We are equally men; yet some become great (meaning moral) and others become
small (evil or immoral). Those who follow the great part of themselves become great men,
and those who follow the small part of themselves become small men. Great part faculty
of heart/ reason: small part senses. By thinking, one obtains what is good, without
thinking, one fails to do so.

Xunzi (Hsn Tzu: 310-220 BCE)

As Mencius is known for the slogan human nature is good, Xunzi is known for its
opposite, human nature is bad. Xunzi believes that our natural tendencies lead to conflict
and disorder, and what we need to do is radically reform them, not develop them. Mencius
and Xunzi shared optimism about human perfectability, but they viewed the process quite
differently. Without the study of the Way, peoples desires will run rampant, and they will
inevitably find themselves in conflict in trying to satisfy their desires. Left to themselves,
people will fall into disorder, poverty and conflict.

Xunzi offers several arguments against Menciuss position. He defines human nature
as what is inborn and does not need to be learned. He argues that if people were good by
nature, there would be no need for ritual and social norms. The sages would not have had to
create them, and they would not need to have been handed down through the generations.
They were created precisely because people do not act in accordance with them naturally.
He also notes that people desire the good, and on the principle that one desires what one
doesnt already have, this shows that people are not good. He gives several illustrations of
what life is like in the state of nature, without any education on ritual and morality. Xunzi
does not believe that people are evil, that they deliberately violate the rules of morality,
taking a perverse pleasure in doing so. They have no natural conception of morality at all:
they are morally blind by nature. Their desires bring them into conflict because they dont
know any better, not because they enjoy conflict. In fact, Xunzi believes people do not enjoy
it at all, which is why they desire the kind of life that results from good order brought about
through the rituals of the sages.

Human nature is bad, but it is not incorrigible, and in fact Xunzi was rather
optimistic about the possibility of overcoming the demands of desires that result in the state

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of nature. Though Xunzi believes that it is always possible to reform oneself, he recognizes
that in reality this will not always happen. In most cases, the individual himself has to make
the first step in attempting to reform, and Xunzi is rather pessimistic about people actually
doing this. They cannot be forced to do so, and they may in practice be unable to make the
choice to improve, but for Xunzi, this does not mean that in principle it is impossible for
them to change.

Education

Because human nature is bad, Xunzi emphasizes the importance of study in order
to learn the Way. He compares the process of reforming ones nature to making a pot out of
clay or straightening wood with a press-frame. Without the potter, the clay would never
become a pot on its own. Similarly, people will not be able to reform their nature without a
teacher showing them what to do. Xunzis concern is primarily moral education; he
wants people to develop into good people, not people who know a lot of facts. He
emphasizes the transformative aspect of education, where it changes ones basic nature.
Xunzi laid out a program of study based on the works of the sages of the past that would
teach proper ritual behaviour and develop moral principles. He was the first to offer an
organized Confucian curriculum, and his curriculum became the blueprint for traditional
education in China until the modern period.

Practice was an important aspect of Xunzis course of education. A student did not
simply study ritual, he performed it. Xunzi recognized that this performative aspect was
crucial to the goal of transforming ones nature. It was only through practice that one
could realize the beauty of ritual, ideally coming to appreciate it for itself. Though this was
the end of education, Xunzi appealed to more utilitarian motives to start the student on the
program of study. As noted above, he discussed how desires would inevitably be frustrated
in the state of nature. Organizing society through ritual was the only way people could ever
satisfy even some of their desires, and study of ritual was the best way to achieve
satisfaction on a personal level. Through study and practice, one could learn to appreciate
ritual for its own sake, not just as a means to satisfy desires. Ritual has this power to
transform someones motives and character. The beginning student of ritual is like a child
learning to play the piano. Maybe she doesnt enjoy playing the piano at first, but her
parents take her out for ice cream after each lesson, so she goes along with it because she
gets what she wants. After years of study and practice, she might learn to appreciate playing
the piano for its own sake, and will practice even without any reward. This is what Xunzi
imagines will happen to the dedicated student of ritual: he starts out studying ritual as a
means, but it becomes an end in itself as part of the Way.

The teacher plays an extremely important role in the course of study. A good
teacher does not simply know the rituals; he embodies them and practices them in his
own life. Just as one would not learn piano from someone who had just read a book on

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piano pedagogy but never touched an actual instrument, one should not study from
someone who has only learned texts. A teacher is not just a source of information; he is
a model for the student to look up to and a source of inspiration of what to become. A
teacher who does not live up to the Way of the sages in his own life is no teacher at all. Xunzi
believes there is no better method of study than learning from such a teacher. In this way,
the student has a model before of him of how to live ritual principles, so his learning does
not become simple accumulation of facts. In the event that such a teacher is unavailable, the
next best method is to honour ritual principles sincerely, trying to embody them in oneself.
Without either of these methods, Xunzi believes learning degenerates into memorizing a
jumble of facts with no impact on ones conduct.

Christian Thinkers

The Christian understanding of the human person is one of the most profound reflections about
human persons. The teaching of Christianity regarding man comes from the Hebrew-Christian
Scripture and Greek philosophy. It sees man in relation to God and considers it as supreme among
all other creation and yet morally responsible for it. Two of the most influential philosopher-
theologian will be discussed here.

Augustine of Hippo

Medieval philosophy starts with St. Augustine. He is considered the first great Christian
philosopher and the main authority in the medieval period. St. Augustine exposes his
philosophical ideas and his dogma of God. According to St. Augustine, God is Absolute Spirit,
Absolute Freedom, Absolute Will, Absolute Intelligence, Absolute Good, Absolute Power,
Absolute Holiness, cannot will evil, no beginning and no end (eternal) and transcendent.
Augustine also asserts that God is creator. God created the world out of nothing (creation ex
nihilo). God created the world out of love and man is part of this creation. For Augustine,
God created man in a mortal body and in immortal soul and gave man freewill. To have
freewill is, for Augustine, mans assumption of his nature where the reality of evil is possible.
Evil comes into the world not because it is part of Gods creation, but because of mans freewill.
In Augustinian thought it is very clear that the source of evil is mans freewill. Evil for Augustine
is the mere absence of good. Therefore, man does evil because of freewill.

Man is responsible for the existence of evil, not God, for God cannot will it; he is
Absolute Goodness, says Augustine. It is therefore mans nature, his freewill that makes man
imperfect. But Augustine contends that man is capable of reaching perfection only if man keeps
himself good. Through evil man is lost from God. But man can only be saved by God, not by man

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University of San Agustin
AY: 2014-2015: First Semester

himself. It is God alone who can redeem man. Man cannot will to be saved; his salvation
depends on the grace and mercy of God.

Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas asserts that man is substantially united body and soul. Man is the point of
convergence between the corporeal and spiritual substances. In other words, man is one
substance body and soul. Man is a substantial unity of body and soul. Man is an embodied
soul, not a soul using a body. The body must be united with something else which we call
soul. Animation according to Aquinas happens when the two become one. As animation
occurs, life instantly comes to the fore. Human life is understood by Aquinas in his doctrine
called participation. Through participation, God allows human life to partake in the
celebration of existence. Hence, in as much as God is the author of life, He too has the sole
power and authority to shut the power of life. This is a doctrine Aquinas calls annihilation. It is
God alone for Aquinas, who has the sole authority to annihilate life. The human body is
animated by the soul specifically during conception. It is through animation that the two
become one.

The soul, the animator of human body, is a substance. It is incorporeal (therefore

immaterial) and spiritual. The soul possesses will and intellect (souls faculty). The soul is
unified with the body for its lower activity, i.e. sensation. A soul cannot have perception in the
absence of the body because perception means sensation. Sensation can only be realized and
possible in the context of a body. The soul is limited because it needs the correlative function of
a material element called body. The soul is the principle of life of the body, the principle of
nourishment, and the principle of movement. Thus, the body and soul are substantially
united.

Although the body and the soul are substantially united, each retains its own
substantial identity because the soul is not the body and the body is not the soul. The soul is
united in the body not only because of perception, but also, because it is the form of the body.
A body can act only through the soul because the soul is the principle of life of the body.

As long as there is human body, there is a soul (except in death, which is only a
temporary separation of body and soul which will be united again in the last judgment.) Matter
is subject to corruption, so a human body is subject to corruption by necessity of its matter. On
the other hand, because the soul is immaterial it is free from corruption. This logically makes
the soul immortal. Because the soul is immortal its power or faculty such as intellect and will
remain in the soul after the destruction of the body. At death, the substantial unity of body and
soul ceases.

In sum, in Thomistic philosophy, man is substantially body and soul. The soul is united
with the human body because it is the substantial form of the human body. It is the principle of

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University of San Agustin
AY: 2014-2015: First Semester

action in the human body and it is the principle of life of the body. The soul needs the body as
the material medium for its operation particularly perception. The function or faculties of the
soul are: intellect and will.

References:

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