Chapter V

HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT

Subject Code: CORE 12

Subject Description: An initiation to the activity and process of philosophical reflection as a search
for synoptic vision of life. Topics to be discussed include human the human experiences of the
embodiment, being in the world with others and the environment, freedom, intersubjectivity sociality
and being unto death.

Time Frame: 1week

I. Introduction
Good day everyone, before I present to you our topic let me first present to you 3 questions.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LIVE AS A HUMAN PERSON? WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BECOME FULLY
HUMAN? and WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR EXISTENCE? Now, having difficulty in answering these
questions, Philosophy in our preceding topic is an invitation to understand our nature as a human
person. Understanding Philosophy of human person is a challenge in order to be a person and to respect
others as a person.

A. Learning Competencies
1. Recognize own limitation and possibilities as human person.
2. Realize how the human body imposes limits and possibilities for transcendence.
3. Understand the notion of the body and soul.

B. Learning Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, the students can;
1. Evaluate themselves in the aspect of human person with limitation and possibilities.
2. Present their own limits and possibilities
3. Create their own realization about their character as human person as an embodied spirit.

II. Learning Content

The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

What makes a human person?

 Man - is a general term commonly used to refer to entire human race.

 Human - refers to a man as species.
 Human being – is used in order to distinguish man from other creatures.
 Person – refers to a human being granted rights, protection, responsibilities and dignity above
all. It is the totality of an individual, possessing awareness, self-determination and the capacity
to interact with others and with himself/herself.
 Personhood – refers to the state of being a person.
 Human Nature – refers to the characteristics of the human person like thinking, acting and
feeling that distinguish humans from other creatures.
What is a human person?

Being aware of oneself, having self-determination and dignity and can able to interact and reach
out with others make the human person. Having awareness to oneself means having clear
perception about himself/herself including thoughts, emotions, identity and actions. This awareness
involves rationality (capacity to think) which goes beyond perception and reaction to the
environment. Self-awareness both with the world and others give man realization that he is part of
the environment by means of his experience this idea gives rise to the notion of “self” which defined
as a person who is actively aware that he is perceiving and experiencing reality.

Self-awareness enables man to experience the inner world through our thoughts and ideas.
man experience interiority in order to focus on life and identity and enable the person to practice
creativity. Creativity is the capacity of the human person to create within himself a certain thing not
existing in the world like goals, dreams and plans which he will realize by means of human activity.

Self-determination is the capacity of the person to make choices and decisions in life. What
makes a person is his being aware of his action, to control his action and recognize himself as the
source and responsible for all his actions. Having self-determination makes a person aware about
the consequence of his action. To act is a revelation of one’s nature, it is through his action that
makes the true nature of the human person revealed to others and to himself and it is through
action that a person is able to explore, fulfill and discover his potential.

Externality is the capability of the person to reach out and interacts with others, it is the
realization that man is not alone in the world and it enables the human person to establish
meaningful relationship with others. Man is a social being. This philosophical and sociological
definition of human person gives light to a realization that a person never exists in isolation. As man
continues to grow and develop himself he realizes that building meaningful relationship with others
enable him to develop his thoughts and actions through then influence of other people.

Dignity refers to an innate right of the human person to be valued and respected, it is part of
the human nature to be valued and respected. Man is not only aware about the value of himself but
rather he must also acknowledge that every person is priceless, unique and irreplaceable that is why
being separated from the person we loved and valued is difficult and painful experience. Human
dignity is rooted in a very nature of human being simply because of the fact that he is human and a
person. Dignity does not measure by intelligence, beauty and capabilities, the person will retain his
dignity in spite of his action or behavior. The recognition of one’s dignity promotes the respect of
human kind and the basis of the recognition of human rights
The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

One of the dominant topics of the course Introduction to the Philosophy of the human person is
the idea that the human person is an embodied spirit. To clarify this topic, we need to define first what
is the meaning of the term “Embodied spirit” in order make it clear for the students who do not have
enough foundation of studying philosophy. So, what do we exactly mean as embodied spirit? To say that
something is embodied means that something is being materialized or incarnated therefore it simply
means that a spirit is being materialized or being perceived. However, the problem arises in
understanding the embodied spirit does not refer to the direct materialization of the spirit as an
immaterial being. Taken from the Christian perspective, the concept of embodied spirit refers to the
inseparable union of body and soul therefore the body is not separated from the soul and the soul is not
separated from the body. Therefore, man as an embodied spirit is a being where there is a union
between a material (body) and the immaterial (spirit) entities and it is impossible to study human person
without understanding body and soul.

The importance of this topic about man as an embodied spirit is to know our limits and
potentialities and to understand deeper about ourselves as a person as a unique creature united by
body and soul. To present further idea about this topic it is important to discuss the notion of man as an
embodied spirit taken from Aristotle’s point of view. Most of Aristotle’s philosophy is considered to be a
reaction to the idea of his teacher Plato, so it is important that to understand Aristotle’s idea of the
human person let us first take a look at Plato’s idea of the human person as an embodied spirit.

Plato

According to Plato, the idea of the human person is seen in the contrasting (dichotomy)
characteristics between body and soul. Body is Plato’s perspective is material, mutable(changeable) and
destructible and on the other hand the soul is immaterial, immutable (unchangeable) and indestructible.
In this point of view, Plato believed that the existence of the body is dependent from the existence of
the soul while the soul is independent of the body that the soul existed prior (before) to the body.
Therefore, the idea of human person is just a soul using the body. Since the soul is considered by Plato
as the image of the human person, he presented three parts of the soul in order to support his claim.

3 parts of Soul

1. Rational – (highest part of the soul) located at the head, it enables the human person to think,
reflect, analyze, to comprehend and to draw conclusions. It also guides the spiritual and
appetitive
2. Spiritual – located at the chest it drives the person to experience emotional feelings like
abomination (hatred) and anger.
3. Appetitive (desire) – located at the abdomen it drives the human person to experience thirst,
hunger and other physical wants

The spiritual and the appetitive soul contribute to the motion of the whole person while the
function of the rational soul is to guide the spiritual and appetitive souls. If the person decides out of
anger but learn to control it the spiritual part of the soul was controlled by the rational soul. Another
example is when you are invited to a certain party and you want to take everything that is being served
at the table but you decided not to pursue, the appetitive part (desire) of the soul was controlled by the
rational part (reason) of the soul. Hence, desire, spirit and reason make up the soul, desire motivates
the human person, spirit animates and reason guides the human person. According to Plato, if reason
can successfully guide the desire and spirit, it is then that a human person can attain a well-balanced
personality.

If the basic understanding of body and soul are inseparable it is not the case for Plato, according
to him, the body and soul are separable that to make it clear taken from Plato’s perspective the human
person is just a soul using the body. Moreover, the soul is imprisoned in the body and if there is
destruction of the body the soul can still survive because the nature of the soul is immaterial, immutable
and indestructible. This means that, when the person dies the body decomposes and the soul leaves the
body and goes back to the World of Forms and lives there eternally. Plato considered the World of
Forms as the origin of all existence that everything that exists in this world will go back to its origin and
that is the World of Forms after it perishes and it is here that the notion of the human person as an
embodied spirit comes in.

Aristotle

For Aristotle, he does not consider Plato’s separation concept of body and soul he believes that
there is no separation or contrasting (dichotomy) idea of the person’s body and soul. The body and soul
for Aristotle are in the state of unity not separated and it is impossible to talk about the human person
with separated body and soul or the soul which is separated from the body. To understand Aristotle’s
idea of embodied spirit it is important to consider the translation of soul in Greek word which mean
“Psyche” and the general understanding of soul involves the concept of life or the principle of life
therefore, anything that has life has the soul. The function of the soul is to unite to the body which
causes the body to live indeed it is the soul that animates the body and the body acts as the matter to
the soul. Aristotle’s idea of matter and form presents a clear understanding of the unity between soul
and the body. For Aristotle, everything that exists is the unity between matter and form and since man is
composed of body and soul it is considered that the soul is the form of the body while the body is the
matter of the soul and matter and form are indeed inseparable. Therefore, it is impossible to talk any
object if any of these entities is not present.

In the context of the man, body and soul constitute the human person as a whole. Since
anything that has life has a soul, it follows that plants and animals in addition to humans have souls and
with these, Aristotle presented the three levels of soul namely, plants, animals and humans.

Three levels of Souls

1. Vegetative soul – found in plants,

2. Sensitive soul – found in animals
3. Rational soul – found in humans
 To say that plants have souls because they possess the requirements in order to be called a
living being that is the capacity to grow, reproduce and feed itself (Nutrition). However, plants do not
share the higher levels of soul since they are not capable of feeling and thinking. Sensitive souls grow,
reproduce and feed themselves but unlike vegetative souls, sensitive souls are capable of sensation.
According to Aristotle, plants only possess the nutritive faculty and other beings possess both nutritive
and sensitive faculty and if a certain living beings possess nutritive and sensitive faculty they must also
possess appetitive faculty which consists of desire, anger and will and all animals possess senses and
anything that has senses is acquainted with pleasure, with what is pleasant and what is painful and
anything that is acquainted with this has desire since desire is an appetitive for pleasure. Finally,
Rational souls grow, reproduce, can feed themselves and feel but unlike sensitive souls, rational souls
are capable of thinking and this faculty is the highest function of soul which present only in human
person. Since human person possesses all the characteristics of the soul he concluded that Man is a
rational animal or a human person is just an animal that thinks.

III. Self-Learning Activity

Instruction: Identify the following claims whether it is the realization of Self-awareness, Self-
determination, Externality and Dignity.

1. I am responsible of my action
2. I am a here, I am present
3. I interact with others
4. I am a person and I recognize that others have dignity as well.
5. I know that my actions have consequence
6. I value my relationship with others
7. I must uphold human dignity in my thoughts and actions.
8. My actions are made freely
9. I am alive
10. I am a person

Reinforcement Reading (Give and present the function of soul taken from Plato and Aristotle)

The 3 parts of Soul according to Plato

1. Rational
2. Spiritual
3. Appetitive

The 3 levels of Souls according to Aristotle

1. Vegetative soul
2. Sensitive soul
3. Rational soul
 IV. Assessment (Essay)

Going back to your experiences during Enhanced Community Quarantine present certain
character that governed by your Spiritual (Sensitive) and Appetitive (Vegetative) and how
your Rational (thinking) capacity manage to overcome that certain character.

Reference:

 Stumpf, Samuel Enoch and Fieser, James. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond (Philippines: Mcgraw-Hill
Publishing House Inc.).
 Cruz, Corazon L. Philosophy of Man3rd Edition (Manila: National Bookstore, Inc. 2006).
 Rifareal-Cedeño, Lourdes. . . .So God Created Man A Textbook for Philosophy of Man First Edition
(Quezon City: Katha Publishing Co., Inc. 2003).

Prepared by:

Mr. Gilbert D. Sombilon, LPT

FACULTY, ACT-IEF Senior Highschool

Reviewed by:

Mr. Jaison Cho, LPT Mrs. Maricel Oroc

Academic, Program Coordinator Filipino and Humanities Coordinator

Noted by:

Mr. Jervin T. Alegado

ACT-IEF Senior Highschool Principal

Approved by:

Dr. Junrel P. Zarco

Vice – President for Academic affairs