LIFE SOUL

• Life


  An activity and, more precisely, the activity that a being undertakes on the basis of itself and affects itself, through growth, nutrition, and reproduction
• For living beings, life is not some accidental factor that is added to being but something essential so that, for them, not living would simply mean ceasing to exist
• Living beings


  • Have a more perfect degree of existence than non-living beings
• Immanence


  The actions of a living being remain within the agent that accomplishes them
• Immanent actions


  • Feeding, growing, reproducing (in plants)
• Transcendence


  Openness and breadth as opposed to the closure and limitedness of non-living beings
• Transcendence in living beings

  • Plants: Interact with surroundings through nutrition, growth, and procreation, but limited openness to reality
  • Animals: Experience reality through knowledge and inclination
  • Humans: Engage in intellectual and volitional activities that have their origins in the being itself
• Structural/Constituent characteristics of living beings

  • Unity: Specific form of cohesion among component parts
  • Organic: Internal order of parts, with different functions directed towards conservation or enhancement of the whole
• Dynamic/Operational characteristics of living beings

  • Self-movement: Origin of operations is intrinsic to each being
  • Adaptation: Capacity to adapt to surroundings and react to stimuli
• Degrees of life


  • Vegetative (plants)
  • Sensitive (animals)
  • Intellective (rational beings)
• Vegetative life


  Characterized by nutrition, growth, and procreation
• Sensitive life


  Manifested in ability to recognize material reality and react accordingly, including locomotion
• Intellective life


  Characterized by openness to both corporeal and incorporeal reality, and ability to tend towards self-chosen ends
• Substance


  Composed of substantial form and prime matter
• Substantial form


  The primary specification for any form of reality, causing it to belong to a certain species and carry out specific activities
• Prime matter


  That which is determined by the substantial form, the fundamental principle of any possible determination
• Soul


  The vital principle that keeps a living being alive and enables it to act from and upon itself
• Soul as the form of the living body

  Confers structure and organizes matter into a unitary, ordered whole
• Substantial form


  Confers a certain structure upon substance and makes this substance capable of carrying out certain operations
• Soul


  The first and radical principle of living beings, defined in two complementary ways: 1) relating to the structure of living beings, 2) relating to their dynamism
• Structure: The Soul as the Form of the living body


  • Gives life, makes it an organized whole, causes it to belong to a certain species
  • Actualizes or enhances matter in such a way as to constitute, with that matter, a unitary and ordered whole, an "organic or animate body"
• Dynamism/ Functional Viewpoint: The Soul as First Principle of Operations


  • Enables the living being to perform various operations - local motion, nutrition, perception, etc.
  • The "primary cause by virtue of which we live, perceive, and think"
• Body


  A reality possessing certain physical-chemical properties, which may be of many kinds; touchable, visible, audible, subject to certain dynamic factors and possessing measurable properties
• Body (in reference to living beings)

  An assembly of material elements regulated by the vital principle, or soul and, therefore, structured and prepared for vital activities
• The Body as System: The Idea of Organism

  • A system in which the internal parts are ordered and directed toward the perfection of the whole
  • Unlike inert matter, the living body has these characteristics by virtue of the perfection conferred upon it by the soul, in other words, precisely because it is an animate body
• The Animate Body at the Structural Level: "Organicity"


  • The living being has multiple parts that are closely related to one another, each part distinct from the others both because it occupies a different space and because it has its own specific function within the whole
  • Some parts have a principal role, others a secondary role, forming a totality of parts hierarchically ordered on the basis of their multiple functions
• The Animate Body at the Dynamic Level: "Intentionality"


  • There is no part of the body that does not have a precise function or finality
  • The hand is highly versatile and can be put to many different uses, allowing man to accomplish certain actions necessary for life as well as create complex and precise tools for activities that accord with his intelligence
  • Bipedalism is an indispensable condition for the use of the hands which would not be free or endowed with such a high degree of mobility if they had to bear the weight of the body
• Formal cause


  That which determines something as being a particular type of reality
• Material cause


  That of which something is made or in which it exists
• Efficient cause


  That from which the action comes
• Final cause

  That to which the action tends, that which attracts it
• Corporeity


  The experience each human individual has of his own existential situation (i.e., of his own condition as a living corporeal-spiritual being); the fact that the human body is already per se different from that of other living beings because it is the fitting correlative of a spiritual soul
• Strategic analysis/ environmental scanning

  An analysis and evaluation process that businesses use to understand their current environment. The aim is to identify trends, gaps, events, developments, and issues that will impact the businesses
• Strategic analysis/ environmental scanning

  A process of gathering, analyzing, and dispensing information for tactical or strategic purposes. Careful monitoring of an organization's internal and external environments for detecting early signs of opportunities and threats that may influence its current and future plans.
• In comparison, surveillance is confined to a specific objective or a narrow sector.
• Strategic analysis/ environmental scanning

  Monitoring and interpreting sweep of social, political, economic, ecological, and technological events to spot budding trends that could eventually impact industry
• Environmental scanning


  • Aids in anticipating changes
  • Answers the question, "Where are we now?"
  • Provides a starting point for businesses' planning of goals, objectives, and actions that answer the question, "Where do we want to be?"
• Environmental scanning


  • Effective utilisation of resources
  • Constant monitoring of resources
  • Analysis of competitor's strategies and formulation of effective counter measures
  • Identification of threats and opportunities
  • Useful for the managers
  • Prediction of future
  • Development of broad strategies and long-term policies of the firm
  • Development of action plans to deal with technological advancements
• Systematic approach to environmental scanning

  1. Information for environmental scanning collected systematically

  2. Information pertaining to business and industry could be collected

  3. Continuously to monitor changes

  4. Continuous updating necessary not only for strategic management but also for operational activities

  5. Information is collected relating to market, customers, changes in legislation, government policy that have a direct impact on organisation
• Adhoc approach to environmental scanning

  1. Organisations conduct special surveys and studies to undertake special projects, evaluate existing strategies or devise new strategies

  2. Changes and unforeseen developments may also be investigated