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extend access to The Review of Metaphysics
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY*
KAROL WOJTYLA
*This article was accepted in July 1976, with the editor agreeing not to
publish it until the appearance of the English translation of the author's The
Acting Person. That book has now been published as Vol. 10, Analecta
Husserliana, ed. by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht, Holland: D.
Reidel Publishing Company) and is reviewed in this issue. Ed.
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274 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 275
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276 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 277
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278 KAROL WOJTYLA
was analyzed in detail above all from the viewpoint of its character as
free (voluntarium). It is evident that this character of freedom
could arise only on the basis of understanding, especially regarding
the good and the goal, since will (voluntas) is the intellectual appetite
(appetitus intellectivus) expressed in free choice (liberum arbitrium).
Consciousness, however, is not ordinary understanding which directs
the will and the activity. On the contrary, since the time of Des
cartes consciousness has been absolutized, as is reflected in our
times in phenomenology through Husserl. In philosophy the
gnoseological attitude has superseded the metaphysical; being is con
stituted in, and to a certain degree through, consciousness. Espe
cially, the reality of the person demands a return to the concept of
conscious being. This being is not constituted in and by conscious
ness; quite the contrary, it constitutes both consciousness and the
reality of human action as conscious.
The person and act, that is, my own self existing and acting is
constituted in consciousness which consequently reflects the exis
tence and the action of the self. Thus, one's experience, especially
that of one's own self, indicates that consciousness is always rooted in
the human subject. Consciousness is not an independent subject,
although by a process of exclusion, which in Husserl's terminology is
called epoch?, it may be treated as if it were a subject.
This manner of treating consciousness is at the base of the whole
so-called "transcendental philosophy." This examines acts of cogni
tion as intentional acts of consciousness directed to trans-subjective
matter and, therefore, to what is objective or to phenomena. As
long as this type of analysis of consciousness possesses the character
of a cognitive method, it can and does bear excellent fruit. How
ever, the method should not be considered to be a philosophy of
reality itself. Above all it should not be considered a philosophy of
the reality of man or of the human person, since the basis of this
method consists in the exclusion (epoch?) of consciousness from real
ity or from actually existing being. Despite this, it is undoubtedly
necessary to make wider use of this method in the philosophy of man.
Consciousness is not an independent subject, but is central for
understanding personal subjectivity. One cannot grasp and objec
tivize the relation between the human subject and the human self
without considering consciousness and its function. This function is
not exclusively cognitive in the same sense as are acts of human
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 279
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280 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 281
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282 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 283
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284 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 285
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286 KAROL WOJTYLA
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288 KAROL WOJTYLA
II
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 289
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290 KAROL WOJTYLA
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292 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 293
tual; it does not have to be the "text" itself of the relation, but may be
"written between the lines." Nevertheless, while thinking and say
ing "you," I always have the consciousness that the concrete man
whom I thus define is one of the many whom I may define in this way.
I may also define and experience various other people in other
moments and situations in the same way; I may even define everyone
thus. The relation "I - you," therefore, is potentially directed from
one to all people; actually, however, it always connects me with one.
If it connects me in fact with many it is a relation, not to "you" in the
singular, but to "you" in the plural, although it may be easily resolved
into a set of relations to "you" in the singular.
This reveals the peculiar reflexivity of this relation. The rela
tion to "you" is in its essential structure always a relation to the
other. But, because "I" is in this pattern, the relation is able to
return to the "I" from which it had proceeded. This is not a question
of a counterrelation for, as an "I," the other person may be referred
to me (to my "I") in the same way as to a "you"; "I" am then a "you" to
him. We are considering the same relation which passes from my "I"
to the "you" as it possesses a complementary function which consists
in returning to the "I" from which it had proceeded. Of course,
everything under consideration here has its total sense only in terms
of consciousness and experience in which "I" and "you" are consti
tuted as "another I." It does not possess here the full sense proper
to it as the metaphysical category of relation. Speaking of experi
encing relations and references presupposes the "I" and "you" as
distinct personal subjectivities, rather than as accidents whose sub
jects are distinct subjects. This does not imply any doubt regarding
this fundamental reality; both "I" and "you" as distinct personal sub
jects, together with everything that constitutes the personal subjec
tivity of each of them, are indispensable in carrying out this analysis.
If the relation directed from the "I" to the "you" returns to the
"I" from whom it had proceeded there is a reflexivity of the relation
which is not yet necessarily the reciprocity or, in other words, the
counterrelation "you - I." This reflexivity contains the moment of
specific constitution of the human "I" through the relation to the
"you." This moment does not yet constitute community; its signifi
cance is rather in its more complete experience of one's self or "I" by
testing it to some extent "in the light of another I." The process of
imitating personal examples, so important in education and self
education, may develop on the basis of this relation. It is important
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294 KAROL WOJTYLA
finally for the fulfillment of self, whose original dynamics are rooted
in every personal subjectivity, as stated above. Without reaching so
far, however, we must accept the fact that in the normal state of
affairs "you" help me to more amply ascertain and affirm my own "I."
In its basic shape the relation "I - you" does not lead me out of my
subjectivity; on the contrary, it establishes me in it more firmly.
The structure of the relation is to a certain degree the confirmation of
the structure of the subject and of his priority in regard to the rela
tion.
The relation of the "I" to the "you" thus considered is already a
real experience of the interpersonal pattern. Its full experience,
however, takes place only when the relation "I - you" has a reciprocal
character. This occurs when the "you," whom a definite other per
son has become for my "I," makes me his or her "you," that is, when
two people become for each other reciprocally "I" and "you," and thus
experience their mutual reference. It seems that only then may we
find the full specificity of the community which is proper to the inter
personal pattern "I - you." Nevertheless, and this must be stressed
once again, even without such a reciprocity the relation "I - you" is a
real experience of the interpersonal pattern. On this basis we may
also analyze participation, which in The Acting Person was defined as
the participation in the very humanity of another man. It seems that
the reciprocity of the relation "I - you" is not necessary for this
participation. This enables one to state that it is precisely participa
tion and nothing else that, in the case of a fully reciprocal relation
"I - you," is the essential constitutive of community which as such
possesses an interhuman, interpersonal character.
This study will not undertake an analysis of the particular shapes
and variants of the interpersonal reference "I - you," or of the com
munity formed within them and through which these references are
formed, for the community, as noted above, is an essential element of
these reciprocal references. It is well known that some shapes of
these interpersonal references "I - you," above all friendship and
love, have been elucidated and elaborated many times and in many
ways; they continue to be the privileged topic of human reflection.
Omitting the analysis and specification of the references "I - you"
themselves, this study will emphasize what is essential for the com
munion which is contained in them. It will do so from the point of
view of the subjects themselves or, more strictly, from the point of
view of the concrete reciprocal reference of the "I" and of the "you" in
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 295
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296 KAROL WOJTYLA
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298 KAROL WOJTYLA
the point of view, not so much of the "he" or "they," as of the "I" and
"you." It will speak not of society, but only of the social dimension of
the human community indicated by the pronoun "we."
It must be noted at the beginning that this pronoun points, not
only to many subjects or "I's," but also to the peculiar subjectivity of
this plurality; and in this "we" differs from "they." When we say
that "we" signifies many human "I's" we try to grasp this plurality
and understand it through action, as we have tried to understand "I"
itself. "We" signifies many people, many subjects, who in some
fashion exist and act together. It is not a question, however, of the
plurality of actions which take place, as it were, next to one another.
"In common" means that action, and together with it the existence of
those many "I's" as well, is in relation to some value. This therefore
deserves the name of "common good," though in speaking thus I do
not intend to use the concepts "value" and "good" interchangeably or
to confuse these concepts.
The relation of the many "I's" to the common good seems to be
the very core of the social community. Thanks to this relation, people
who experience their personal subjectivity, and therefore the actual
plurality of human "I's," realize that they are a definite "we"
and experience themselves in this new dimension. Although the
person remains himself, this is a social dimension. It differs from
that of the "I - you," for the direction of the dimension is changed and
is indicated by the common good. In this relation the "I" and "you"
find their reciprocal reference in a new dimension: they discover their
"I - you" through the common good which constitutes a new unity
among them.
The best example is provided by matrimony in which the clearly
outlined relation "I - you" as an interpersonal relation receives a
social dimension. This occurs when the husband and wife accept that
complex of values which may be defined as the common good of
marriage and, potentially at least, the common good of the family.
In relation to this good their community is revealed in action and
existence in a new profile ("we") and in a new social dimension. In
this social dimension they constitute a married couple, and not
merely "one plus one," though they do not stop being "I" and "you."
They also do not cease their interpersonal relation "I - you"; on the
contrary, this relation draws on the relation "we" in its own way and
is enriched by it. This, of course, means that the new social relation
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 299
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300 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 301
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302 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 303
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304 KAROL WOJTYLA
more fully. Man as person is the basis of the analogy between the
interhuman and social community implied in the relations "I - you"
and "we." Moreover, it seems that the analysis of community from
the point of view of the personal subjectivity of man, as sketched
above, makes it possible to determine the principal theses on com
munity or, in other words, to discover the very framework of its
reality. To reverse this order would appear to be, not merely
dangerous for the truth of the picture under consideration, but sim
ply impossible. Community may be considered reasonably only in
the world of persons, and therefore only in terms of person as the
proper subject of existence and action, both personal and communal.
This, moreover, must be seen in relation to the personal subjectivity
of man; this alone permits the grasp of the essential properties of the
human "I" and the interpersonal and social relations between them.
It is for this reason that the level of the subject, which from the
epistemological and methodological point of view is an object, makes
possible a more complete understanding of both participation and
alienation.
In conceiving alienation as the opposite or antithesis of participa
tion, we envisage the person and both the "we" and the "I - you"
dimension of community. In each, participation is connected with
transcendence. It is, therefore, rooted in the person as a subject and
in the properly personal tendency towards self-realization and self
fulfillment. Man as a person fulfills himself through "I - you" inter
personal relations and through the relation to the common good,
which permit him to exist and act together with the others as "we."
These two varieties of the relation and of the corresponding dimen
sions of community imply two different profiles of participation, out
lined in part in The Acting Person.
The position that participation should be conceived as an attri
bute of man corresponding to his personal subjectivity is on the whole
convincing. This subjectivity does not close man within himself and
make of him an impermeable monad; quite the contrary, it opens him
toward others in a manner that is distinctive of a person. Participa
tion is the authentic expression of personal transcendence and its
objective confirmation in the person, both in the interpersonal di
mension of the "I - you" community and in the social dimension "we."
It might appear that transcendence toward an erroneous goal that at
times is presented as the common good diverts man, so to speak,
from himself, or more broadly diverts all the others from man. A
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 305
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306 KAROL WOJTYLA
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THE PERSON: SUBJECT AND COMMUNITY 307
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308 KAROL WOJTYLA
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