INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN PERSON

Prepared by: Ronnel B. Briones

INTERSUBJECTIVITY

Opposing Views on the Topic Intersubjectivity

No Faith in Harmonious Intersubjective Human Relations

1. PLATO / Platonic Idealism

Truth is perfect and eternal, it cannot be found in the world of matter, which is imperfect and
constantly changing. The world of ideas is the source of all true knowledge. The world of matter, the
ever-changing world of sensory data, is not to be trusted (credit to Ozmon and Craver)

Example:
Every person you see and spend time with will someday die, but the idea of “person” is unchanging or
eternal. Thus, the physical, living people we see in the natural world is transitory but the concept- the
idea “people” is eternal (Wikipedia)

2. RENE’ DESCARTES’ Egocentric Approach

Solipsism
In Ontology – nothing exists except one’s own self and the contents of its consciousness
In Epistemology- nothing can be known except one’s own self and the contents of its consciousness
In ethics- nothing is to be valued except one’s own interests and pleasures (egoism in a sense)

3. JEREMY BENTHAM (Utilitarianism)

“In every human breast… self-regarding interest is predominant over social interest; each
person’s own individual interest over the interests of all other persons taken together.”

4. THOMAS HOBBES
“No man giveth but with intention of good to himself; because gift is voluntary; and all voluntary
acts the object to every man is his own pleasure.”
*Both Bentham and Hobbes show the egoistic nature of man
EGOISM is the theory that one’s self is, or should be, the motivation and goal of one’s action.
Descriptive or psychological egoism describes human nature as being wholly self-centered and self-
motivated. People always act in their own interests, even though they may disguise their motivation
with references to helping others or doing their duty.

5. Søren KIERKEGAARD /Theistic Existentialism

A. Other human being can act as absolute if:
a.1 one tries to develop a relationship with God.
a.2 tries to realize his own individual being.
B. Everyone should be cautious of having interactions with others and that basically conversation
should take place only with God and oneself.
C. To have an authentic relation with God, one must become a “Single One.”
D. He has very little respect for the herd sentiment or the “crowd” or the “public.” He was opposed to
collectivism and institutionalism.
E. One can realize one’s true dignity only when one is a solitary individual
F. He summons the individual to come out from the crowd and take responsibility for his own being.

6. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (Atheistic Existentialism/Humanism)

A. He uses the term “herd” to denote the different interactions between different human beings.
B. He believes that the life of the individual is controlled by a value-system devised by the herd,
and that the herd has replaced the prerogatives of God.
 C. Hence, there could be no question of human dignity so long as an individual is merely a part of
the crowd and thus fails to realize his true individual being.

7. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (Atheistic Existentialism/ Humanism)

A. OTHERS appear as an obstacle to the fulfilment of existence.

* As a finite being, every man wants to be God. But this desire meets with frustration because
the world is full of many finite beings.

B. Our body plays an important role in interpersonal relationships. Our interaction with others is
possible only through our having a body.
* My body can become an object for other just as much as his body become an object for me.
If another person looks at me, I become aware not only of his existence as the other, but also of
my own existence, as the object of his look or gaze. This is the common experience of shame or shyness.

C.It is the existence of the other which is my “original fall” It is when the other looks at me that I feel
guilty, feel alienated from myself. I also feel guilty when I, in turn, look at the other, when the other is
constituted as an object for me and the other has to accept it.

D. That Sartre had very little faith in the possibility of harmonious interpersonal relationships or of the
role of dignity in human interactions becomes explicit when he speaks of the “original sin” or of the
“original theme of guilt” from which there can be no escape.
He believes that the fact that I exist in a world where there are others is what constitutes the
original sin.

E.Interpersonal relationships give rise to frustrations and unending ambiguities. Persons interacting with
one another often oscillate between love and hate. They want to possess and be possessed by the
other.
If I do not want to become an object in the eyes of the other, that is to say , if I want to be
treated as a person, I will try to possess the other through love. But this can happen only when the other
person too loves me, and the other can love me only if I allow myself to become an object of the other’s
love. Thus, the relationship becomes endlessly ambigous.
(credit to Chakravarti and Roy, 2002)

Have Faith in Human relations

1. Aristotle
“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is
either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual.
Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore
does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god” (Aristotle, Politics).

a. Friendship based on utility

- Where both people drive some benefit from each other. It is easily broken and based on
something that is brought to the relationship by the other person.
Aristotle uses the example of trade and argues that friendship of utility are often between
opposite people, in order to maximize this trade (or utility).

b. Friendship based on Pleasure

- where both people are drawn to the other’s wit, good looks , or other pleasant qualities.
He says that this type of friendship is normally built between the young as passions and
pleasures are great influences in their lives. It is characterized by such feelings as passion between
lovers, or the feeling of belonging among likeminded group of friends.

c. Friendship based on Goodness

 - where both people admire the other’s goodness and help one another strive for
goodness. It is where both friends enjoy each other’s characters.
Aristotle calls it a “… complete sort of friendship between people who are good and
alike in virtue…”
This is the highest level of love (philia) often translated as “brotherly love”. (Book VIII
“The Nichomachean Ethics. Aquileana, 2004)
2. JOSEPH BUTLER
He provides a famous argument against Egoism in his work “The Fifteen Sermons.” He argues
that we must have a direct desire for certain objects, other than our own satisfaction, in order to be able
to obtain satisfaction from attaining those objects.

3. MAX SCHELER (Phenomenologist)

If Sartre is the prophet of the isolated individual, Scheler is the philosopher of “man-in-
community” or “Person-Community Reciprocity”

SCHELER Community is so essential to man that the social dimension is a

truly constitutive factor of man’s very being. Man has a social a
priori.

SARTRE His denial of the possibility of true community between persons

stemmed directly from his views on man as arbitrary freedom, who
creates both himself and his values by his free choice.

4. HANS-GEORG GADAMER’S FUSION OF HORIZONS

Horizon- the subjective and experiential life-world that is constituted by the biases, prejudices,
experiences, knowledge and emotions of any given person. It is our premise to any interaction,
conversation and understanding. During a dialogue, or conversation or interaction, the two person’s
different horizons interact with each other, and modify each other. This is what Gadamer calls the
“fusion of horizons.”

5. JURGEN HABERMAS
Theory of Communicative Action
Communicative action is cooperative action undertaken by individuals based upon mutual
deliberation and argumentation.It is action based upon this deliberative process, where 2 or more
individuals interact and coordinate their action based upon agreed interpretation of the
situation.Every consensus rest on an intersubjective recognition of criticisable validity claims; it is
thereby presupposed that those acting communicatively are capable of mutual criticism.

6. . MARTIN BUBER (His work “I-Thou” Relationship)

The fundamental fact of human existence is neither the “single one” nor the social
aggregate, BUT man with man.Human existence is basically a dialogue, and it is by relating to
another self that man becomes a whole self. Life is a complex of interpersonal relationships. Man
can build up personal relationship with different things: nature, other human beings, or God.Love is
directing one’s life towards the being and needs of the other.

 A relationship can be perfect only when it is mutual.

 Thou must affect I, as I must affect thou.
 It is not worthy of man to live in the world of It alone. It is beneath one’s dignity to let
oneself remain confined within the walls of the I-It world.
 Without It man cannot live, but he who lives with It alone, is not a man.
 It is only when the I meets the Thou, that life becomes truly meaningful.

7. GABRIEL MARCEL
3 CONCEPTS OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

• Availability
 1. Capacity to place oneself at the disposal of others; to make oneself available to one
another
2. man’s dignity lies in making himself “open” to others
3. Human dignity is violated when men lead “closed” lives and do not make themselves
available to others

 Presence
1. Availability enables a person to be present to another
2. Presence distinguishes itself from mere physical object. Once we recognize that
there is a self in front of us, their being transcends the physical.
3. Those who are unavailable to us, those who are distracted by their own lives, those
who are unable to be present to us, are objects to us. Although we may not treat
them as objects, because we cannot see the “other” in them, they are not really
present to us.
4. Presence is something that reveals itself immediately in a look, smile, a tone, a
handshake.
5. Presence is not physical proximity.

 Fidelity Semper fedilis

*Marcel’s thought on Fidelity
• Fidelity
1. The typical ways of transcending ourselves and making ourselves “open” to others are
making pledges, promises or engagements
2. Fidelity is the capacity to make commitments and keep them
3. Anyone who fails to keep commitment also fails to act with dignity
4. A life of dignity is a life of fidelity

8. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

He believes that “Man is basically a SOCIAL SELF”
a. An individual is born into a world of other persons, into a group which has culture.”
b. The human self is basically social and has taken the values of the social process.
c. A human being truly develops as a person only through interpersonal communication.
d. The more an individual participates in his group, the more he is able to take on the attitudes of
his society, and the more highly conscious of himself he does become.
e. Mead believes that harmonizing individual interest and social welfare is possible
f. Conflict among different social beings is due not to lack of goodness or goodwill on the part of
man, but to ignorance or immaturity.

REQUIRED ACTIVITY:
Collage Making Activity
In a ½ size of cardboard, a collage will be made. The collage should be able to depict
intersubjectivity. A suugested idea is on how should you relate to persons with disabilities and/ or the
underprivileged sectors of the society (the economically underprivileged in the urban and rural
communities.