scholarly journals The Ego as Moral Person. Husserl’s Concept of Personhood in the Context of his Later Ethics

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Breuer

Husserl’s philosophy has ethical roots. In the well-known Crisis text, he speaks of the task of philosophers as “functionaries of mankind” (Crisis: 17). “To be human is essentially to be a human being in a socially and generatively united civilisation” (Crisis: 15). The philosopher bears a responsibility for “the true being of mankind” (Crisis:17) for it is through philosophy that mankind’s being towards a telos can come to realisation. This task, to which “we are called” (Crisis: 17) can only be accomplished on the grounds of the human person as a moral person. In the following I would thus like to show that Husserl’s statements are only comprehensible from out of the ethical-moral reflections underlying his concept of personhood in the context of his later ethical thought. An analysis of Husserl’s concept of personhood can shed light on the task of philosophy and make comprehensible not only his phenomenological ethics but also his phenomenological anthropology.

Philosophy ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 25 (92) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick C. Copleston

I. In the early part of the sixth century a.d. Boethius defined the person as “an individual substance of rational nature” (rationalis naturae individua substantia). This definition, which became classical and was adopted by, for example, St. Thomas Aquinas, obviously implies that every human being is a person, since every human being is (to employ the philosophical terms of Boethius) an individual substance of rational nature. If one cannot be more or less of a human being, so far as “substance” is concerned, one cannot be more or less of a person. One may act as a human person ought not to act or in a way unbefitting a human person; one may even lose the normal use of one's reason; but one does not in this way become depersonalized, in the sense of ceasing to be a person. According to St. Thomas, a disembodied soul is not, strictly speaking, a person, since a disembodied soul is no longer a complete human substance; but every complete human substance is always and necessarily a person.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wellington José Santana

The present article analyses critically the paradox of phenomenon claimed by Danish Philosopher Kierkegaard and Marion’s new concept named saturated phenomenon. While the concept of God, by definition, must surpass the realm of empiricism, perhaps the something may shed light over what God must be: Excess. However, Marion developed a new concept of phenomenon that not only occupies the immanence world, but also goes beyond. It is called saturated phenomenon. In order to address the question one might understand the limit of the givenness and then what does it mean saturated givenness. We probably all have had the sense of being overwhelmed by something and this can lead toward a sense of torpor or numbness. In the other hand, Kierkegaard affirms that God is so different than a human being, so totally other that we may think we’re right in demanding God make himself understood and be reasonable towards us. Kierkegaard upholds that we’re always dealing with God in the wrong way. I will argue that Marion, however, following phenomenological footsteps indicates a new path toward how to address God properly.   Key words: Paradox; Saturated phenomenon; freedom; Excess. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-139
Author(s):  
Michał Wyrostkiewicz

The paper defines philosophical categories of good and evil in the process of upbringing and development of the personality. People are good by nature. That is why they tend towards the good, they desire what is good, they feel bad and do not function well when they are touched by evil. Goodness is part of the natural environment of the human being; goodness is the natural climate of the human person. At the same time, however, people perform bad deeds. They create evil. They often harm others. This is the cause of disorder in a person's environment. It turns out that the only effective and reasonable means of restoring such order is forgiveness. It is the only thing that has a chance to realistically stop the potential avalanche of evil that appears to be the obvious result of wrongdoing and “nurturing” harm or planning revenge. The evil that “insidiously” enters the world creates the need for forgiveness as the only way to respond to harm; as a way that leads to real order in a person's environment


2019 ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Frances Young

This chapter demonstrates how arguments about creation and resurrection in the second century ensured that by the fourth century even those Christian thinkers with the most leanings toward Neoplatonism would espouse the view that the union of soul with body was constitutive of human being as a creature among creatures, and so a necessary aspect of the reconstitution of the human person at the resurrection. Soul-body dualism is often treated as the default anthropological position in antiquity, but the fourth-century anthropological treatise of Nemesius of Emesa shows that, despite huge debts to the legacies of philosophy, creation and resurrection, though barely mentioned, in fact shape his conclusion that the body-soul union is fundamental to what a human being is; the same is true, for example, of the Cappadocian Gregories and Augustine.


2021 ◽  
pp. 39-49
Author(s):  
Eduard Inglés Yuba ◽  
Víctor Labrador Roca ◽  
Unai Sáez de Ocáriz Granja

Abstract Scholars from diverse disciplines are increasingly concerned with the benefits generated by the practice of physical activity in the natural environment on individuals (Gomila Serra, 2014; Jirásek et al., 2016). This chapter attempts to shed light on the various scientific approaches that confirm this beneficial relationship. It also contributes to the holistic and integral conception of the human being, made up of different dimensions: physical, mental, emotional and social (Sandell et al., 2009; Borkowski, 2011). After an introductory approach to the relationship between outdoor sports and the integral development of their participants, an empirical study is shown. A five-day Nordic skiing camp is used to evaluate the effects of this practice on the individuals and on the group.


2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (27) ◽  
pp. 396-407
Author(s):  
Richard Harries

There are a number of ethical issues connecting with the beginning of life, most obviously abortion and most recently research on embryos. These issues have a number of aspects, particularly in relation to fertility treatment and genetic manipulation but they all assume answers to prior questions about what it is to be a human being and when it is that an entity, to use a neutral term, is accorded the full protection due to a human person. So it is that in this first lecture I will be concentrating on souls, persons and embryos.


Author(s):  
John G. Brungardt ◽  

The Catholic Church has increasingly invoked the principle of human dignity as a way to spread the message of the Gospel in the modern world. Catholic philosophers must therefore defend this principle in service to Catholic theology. One aspect of this defense is how the human person relates to the universe. Is human dignity of a piece with the material universe in which we find ourselves? Or is our dignity alien in kind to such a whole? Or does the truth lie somewhere in between? The metaphysics of creation properly locates the human being in the universe as a part, ordered to the universe’s common good of order and ultimately to God. Human dignity is possible only in a cosmos; that this is concordant with modern scientific cosmology is briefly defended in the conclusion.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 299-315
Author(s):  
Aleksy Kowalski

The article presents the outline of the pagan and Christian ancient anthropo­logy that is interested in its relations to the cosmology. The antique philosophers describe a man as the microcosmos which belongs to the macrocosmos. Accor­ding to Aristotle’s metaphysics and the henological metaphysics, the human being occupies the lower place in the hierarchy of the universe. The Christian thinkers, based on the Bible and the Tradition, show the human being as God’s creature made according to the image and similitude of his Creator. The Church Fathers know the Jewish and gnostic anthropologies and they make a polemic on their doctrinal issues. Investigating the patristic anthropology is possible to apply the prosopography exegesis that underlines the interpersonal dialogue. That method indicates three levels of mutual relationships: the analogical and iconic one, the dyadic and dialogical level and the triadic one. The Church Fathers creating the metaphysics of person change their research from the cosmology to the theology and the anthropology. Justin investigates the personalist logos-anthropology. Ire­naeus of Lyon and Tertullian of Carthage show the personalist soma-anthropology. Clement of Alexandria elaborates the very interesting concept of the personalist eikon-anthropology that describes the human person as the divine Logos’ image, the living statue, in which dwells the divine Logos and the beautiful instrument fulfilled by God with the spirit. Origen of Alexandria, the Cappadocian Fathers and other Christian thinkers who examine that issue, will use Clément’s personal­ist eikon-anthropology in their future investigations. That concept helps to define the solemn Christological doctrine of Council of Chalcedon.


In this article, human thoughts and the idea of human sympathy with human in Zoroaster’s Gathas have been presented which forms a fundamental part of the theory of humanism. Quotes of Zoroaster have been taken from the Gathas and after analysis; their humanistic thinking has been clarified. The research has introduction to Gathas, what humanism is, and also contains information about Zoroaster. The material has been taken from books and has been clearly explained and elaborated. The purpose of the article is to shed light on human originality in Zoroastrian quotes. This is a library research and its method is explanatory and descriptive. The findings of this article is that in the Gathas (collection of quotes) of Zoroaster, human thoughts and guidelines, like other religions, are evident and he has been manifested as a good human being. The value of this writing lies in the fact that human guidance has been offered to human beings and Zoroaster provides ideas as a humanist and his human advice form the basis and foundation for the human beings of the society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Alexandre A. Martins ◽  

This paper argues that Simone Weil developed an anthropology of the human condition that is a radical ontology of the human spirit rooted in reality. Weil begins her account from the real, but this real is not only the historical or social reality. It is also what is true about the human person as a created being in connection with the transcendent reality. She believes that affliction reveals the human condition and provides an openness to transcendence in which the individual finds the meaning of the human operation of spirit. Therefore, Weil’s radical ontology is based on a philosophy of the human being as an agent rooted in the world. In order to be rooted, a human being needs decreation (the creation of a new human) and incarnation (cross and love in the world). In her radical ontology derived from attention to the real, Weil argues for an active incarnation in social reality that recognizes others, especially the unfortunates, for the purpose of empowering them and promoting their dignity. Her radical ontology incarnates the human in the world between necessity and good, that is, between the natural and the supernatural.


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