Desire, Passion, Death, and the Human Person: A Philosophical Exploration
The Universe of Desire and Passion
Desire and passion are integral to human agency and will, influencing all human activity.
Desire: A Source of Lack and Concern
Desire is a psychic impulse driving us towards objects perceived as sources of satisfaction.
- Lack: Desire stems from wanting something we don’t possess, implying an absence.
- Excess: Desire transcends mere need, always reaching for a realm of possibilities and excess. Think of how shops and malls tempt us to fulfill desires beyond basic needs.
- Conflict and Unrest: A desire dies upon reaching its target, only to give rise to new desires. For example, buying a desired pair of trousers might lead to the desire for another.
Perspectives on Desire
- Embracing Desire: This view recognizes desire’s fundamental role in human existence, despite its inherent problems.
- Spinoza: Desire is a need; everything strives to persist in its being. We judge something as good because we desire it.
- Hegel: Every desire is fulfilled by annihilating its object.
- Deleuze: Desire arises from the forbidden and produces reality. Humans are desiring machines.
- Mastering Desire: This perspective advocates controlling desire as a negative element to achieve knowledge and happiness.
- Stoicism: Desire must be subjected to reason. Wisdom lies in mastering desire to accept nature and destiny, leading to tranquility and peace.
- Epicureanism: Prioritizing pleasure leads to serenity. This involves accepting only natural desires and eliminating artificial ones.
Passion
Passion is an overwhelming inclination or tendency. Experiencing passion can lead to a state of domination and suffering, sometimes unconsciously.
- Reason should govern passion, lest it becomes an uncontrollable force.
- True knowledge requires passion; it motivates us and reinforces our understanding.
The Ever-Present Reality of Death
Death constantly looms over human life, a formidable event raising profound questions.
Death’s Questions
- Finality: Death is the ultimate end, a reminder of our limitations and life’s finite nature. It is a truly democratic phenomenon, reaching everyone eventually.
- Unpredictability: Death’s timing is generally unknown, a source of anxiety. We are reminded that others will replace us in life.
- Solitude: Dying is a deeply personal and solitary act. Death reveals the importance of solitude, a state for which nobody is fully prepared.
- Doubt: Death raises fundamental doubts: is it the absolute end of our existence, or is there an afterlife?
Philosophy’s Meditation on Death
- Plato: Philosophy is learning to die. The soul is immortal, and philosophy aims to liberate us from the sensible world to achieve eternity.
- Stoics: Life is a loan from the gods; live each day as if it were your last.
- Montaigne: Philosophy is a meditation on death.
- Heidegger: Humans are uniquely aware of their mortality.
- Unamuno: Every human desires immortality, making the thought of death a tragic one.
Death: A Useless Problem?
- Epicurus: Focusing on material reality and sensory experience, philosophy should eliminate the distressing thought of death.
- Spinoza: While acknowledging death’s inevitability, meditating on it is futile.
- Sartre: Death is not a personal problem but a problem for others.
Humans as Persons: A Complex Concept
The term ‘person’ originates from the masks used in theater, signifying the character’s individuality. This highlights the unique personality of each human subject.
- Roman Law: Citizens possessed civil existence and rights, while slaves, lacking rights, were not recognized as legal persons. This establishes the concept of a person as a subject of rights and duties.
- Christianity: Every human is a creation of God, possessing a soul capable of reward or punishment in the afterlife.
Subjects of Rights and Moral Responsibility
- Roman law’s concept of personhood as possessing rights evolved into the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, recognizing inherent human rights.
- Personhood entails not only rights but also duties and moral responsibility for one’s actions.
Personalism and Existentialism
- Existentialism: Philosophy’s primary task is to illuminate the meaning of human existence. Humans must confront a world of possibilities, make choices, and construct their lives as a project.
- Personalism: A person is not a fixed entity but a source of ongoing efforts and projects. They embody freedom and creativity. Defending the value of the person is the ultimate remedy against totalitarianism. The concept of personhood must consider the community and its social values.
The Process of Knowledge: Reason and Experience
Knowledge up to the Modern Era: The Universal
- Plato: Knowledge transcends sensory information, reaching towards universal ideas separate from both the knower and the known.
- Aristotle: Knowledge remains universal, but understanding abstracts universal traits from particular experiences of worldly objects.
- Middle Ages: The focus was on developing universal and necessary judgments.
Knowledge of reality was not mediated by the subject, who passively received sensory information. Modernity introduced the idea of knowledge as a result of the subject’s activity.
Two Positions in Modernity: Reason and the Senses
The modern approach to knowledge views understanding as a process involving two elements: the knowing individual (subject) and the known object.
- Empiricism: Knowledge originates and culminates in experience, the information derived from the senses. Hume distinguishes between impressions (immediate sensory data) and simple ideas (copies of impressions).