INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF

THE HUMAN PERSON

TOPIC:
THE CONCEPT OF A HUMAN BEING

PREPARED BY: LEANNE KHAYE B. LUMANGLAS

PREPARED TO: MR. NORMAN BRYAN D.
BANAAG
Plato
Cosmos – an orderly harmonious
systematic universe.
Pre-socrativs where concerned about the
origin of the cosmos. They were looking
for the foundational element that makes
our world what it is. In other words, they
were looking for the essential what-ness
of the entire universe.
Plato’s Division of Worlds
 The world of idea and the world of the
senses
 Plato considers the world of ideas as the
world of perfections. It is in the world of
ideas where eternal truths reside.
 The things in our physical world (the world
of the senses), on the other hand , are not
real. The books, chairs, mountains, or dog
that we encounter in our world are not
actually real but mere imitations of the
 For Plato, a human being is composed of body and
soul, but he argues that the human is essentially
his soul.
 Prior
to human being’s existence in this physical
world (of the senses) the soul is residing in the
world of ideas so that the original condition of
human beings is that of a soul.
 And as we acquire bodies during birth in the
physical world, we are subjected to different kinds
of limitations, including forgetfulness of the truths
that we have encountered in the world of ideas.
The body prevents us from knowing
reality and we often submit it’s
limitations, as when we trust more our
senses than our reason and eventually
realize that we were deceived by our
senses.
Aristotle

 Aristotle
also believes that human beings
are composed of body and soul.
 Itis how the soul is related to the body
that Aristotle differs from Plato.
 Aristotleconsiders things as composed of
two co-principles which he calls matter
and form.
Form is the principle which actualizes
a thing and makes a thing what it is
Matter is viewed as the potentiality to
receive the form.
Aristotle claims that the form refers
to the soul while matter refers to the
body.
 And since matter and form ---- body and
soul ---- are co-principles, the soul cant
exist apart from the body.
 Thesoul can never be found existing
independently of the body.
 Evenif the soul is considered as a non
material part of the body, still it cannot
have an independent existence as Plato
claims.
Functions of the Soul According ro
Aristotle

Nutrition
Sensation
Intellection
The nutritive function is that which we
share with plants
Sensitive function is that which we
share with other animals.
The human soul as an animating
principle is far greater than the
animating principle of plants and other
animals because of the higher function
of intellection.
Descartes
 Rene Descartes widened the gap between
the body and the soul even more as he sets
out to probe that the only thing in this
world which cannot be doubted is the
existence of the thinking self.
 Heclaims that the senses are the sources of
previously established knowledge, and that
the senses are not reliable, Descartes
argued that we should doubt everything
that is delivered to us by our senses.
 For Descartes, the existence of the soul is more distinct
and clear than the existence of the body, leaving us with
the idea that man is more certain of the existence of his
soul than the existence of his body.
 The dualistic view of man considers man as having two
essential elements: a body and a soul.
 Inthis dualisyic perspective it is the soul which gets the
upper hand while the body is treated with dislike for
reasons “source of errors”, restricting, corruptible, etc.
The essentialist perspective, on the
other hand, claims that there must be
an essential characteristic that a being
must possess for it to be called as
such.
In this case of human beings, it is
rationality