module 4A exam reviewer

• Human nature


  The nature of a human being
• Person


  A human being with a very rich content that completes the concept of human nature
• What am I?


  • A human being
  • A person
• Humanity, rationality


  • Incommunicable, belongs to me
• Existential self


  My unique negative relation to others, I am not any other
• Person


  An individual human being who can stand on my own, that I am me, and that by definition, without even doing anything special, I am unique, i.e., apart from other humans
• Who am I?


  My name is...
• Person


  An individual substance of rational nature (Boethius)
• Person


  • In-dividio = undivided, one
  • Sub-stance = stands on its own
  • Accidents = inhere in a substance
• A person is an individual but not all individuals are persons
• Not all substance is a person but a person is a substance of "rational nature"
• The person


  • Has stability, completeness, unity, a sufficiently autonomous existence
  • Is a reality that makes up a center
  • Is a being that has causality: he is the source of certain actions
• Accidents (qualities) inhering in the person (substance)


  • Spiritual dimension (Intelligence, Freedom)
  • Psychological Dimension (Sanguine, pleasant, nervous, sensitive, etc.)
  • Bodily Dimensions (Height, weight, complexion, body shape, etc.)
• The person's individuality


  • His being is undivided, he is separate from the others, he is singular, unrepeatable, unique, his being is non-transferrable, he is incommensurable
• If he were to cease, something is lost forever (metaphysical hole)
• His ontological uniqueness does not imply that a person exhausts all the possibilities of human nature
• The person is an absolute-relative being


  He alone can propose goals for himself
• The Process of Self-Realization


  • Self-Determination (I possess myself and hand it over to what I aim at)
  • Self-Transcendence (Capacity of the person to rise above his inner limitations)
  • Self-Perfection (An imperfect perfection)
• The person is an absolute-relative being


  He did not acquire human nature from himself, he receives it, his being is "relative" to a giver
• From the start of our existence, we are already a unique person
• Principles of individuation


  • My body
  • Cultural environment
  • Freedom
  • Punctual I
• Becoming more and more individual


  "I" becomes who I am specifically, in a determinate way, with "this" individuality because of various principles that all converge in me, some unconsciously while others not
• -       Point of I (Punctual I)

  o   The “I” that “I am” is the same “I” since conception to the present; yet “I” am not the same “I” due to all my life experiences, etc.

  o   At every point in my time line, I do not remain the same, even if I am the same person and subject