Philosophical Anthropology: Understanding Human Nature
Introduction: The Question About Man
What is man?
This is a fundamental philosophical and theological question.
Etymologically, “philosophy” means “love of wisdom”.
- Homer (Sophia): ability, skill, or technique
- Herodotus (Sophos): anyone who stands out because of the perfection and quality of their works
- Heraclitus (Philosophus): a philosopher is a good researcher of many things
- Pythagoras: disinterested effort that leads to the quest for knowledge
- Plato: Philosophy is a participation in Wisdom. It is a tendency.
Synonymic:
- Stoicism: a philosopher is a calm, patient person who never loses control
- Scholasticism: philosophy is the supreme human natural science
- Positivism: philosophy is reflection with no foundations
Real: “Science of all things through ultimate causes, attained by the light of natural reason alone”.
Philosophical Anthropology: Object, Definition, and Method
A. Material object:
- Ancients: soul
- Modern: two restrictions:
- They only consider men
- Not the whole man, but only the inner or conscious man
The material object of Philosophical Anthropology is the living being, but more specifically man as a whole, although more concretely, his subjective life, sensible and intellectual.
B. Formal object (point of view)
a. Infra-scientific psychology:
- Empirical knowledge that everyone can have of himself and of others by ordinary means
- Purpose: practical
b. Literary Psychology:
- Analyzes characters, feelings, passions
- It may attain general truths, but it remains at a concrete level
- Purpose: esthetic
c. Scientific Psychology
- Method: experimental
- Limited to phenomena
- Purpose: theoretical
- Psychology without a soul
d. Philosophical Psychology
- Phenomenological:
- Purpose: to grasp the meaning and essence of human phenomena
- It is a descriptive science; it is eidetic
- Metaphysical:
- Based on experience and reason
- Ontological point of view
- Purpose: theoretical
Anthropological Schools of Thought
Greece:
It has been said that in Heraclitus one can already find anthropological ideas.
Sophists: Ex. Protagoras: man is the measure of all things / man is a being of instincts
Socrates: anthropological turn. He considers man from an ethical point of view.
Greek Philosophy’s contributions. Man is:
- An animal that has “logos”.
- A micro-universe.
- Man is multiplicity and unity.
(i) Plato’s standpoint: substantial dualism (efficient cause)
- (a) The soul pre-exists the body, was punished, and sent to the body.
- (b) Philosophy’s mission: free the soul from the body.
- (c) The soul reincarnates.
- (d) The soul is a spiritual and immortal substance.
(ii) Aristotle’s standpoint: hylemorphic system (formal cause –that which determines- and material cause –that which is determined-).
- Body and soul are not two substances but are two co-substantial principles of one and the same substance.
- (a) No pre-existence of the soul
- (b) No reincarnation /no transmigration
- (c) The soul is immortal (discussed).
2. Anthropological ideas of the Holy Fathers (Platonism) –until the 13th century because of:
- The idea that the soul is in the body due to a fall (original sin)
- The idea that the soul, in the body, is submitted to superior and inferior tendencies (battle between the flesh and the spirit)
- Immortality of the soul (clearly)
3. Saint Thomas Aquinas (Aristotelian standpoint):
- (a) The soul is the form of the body.
- (b) The soul does not pre-exist the body; it is created by God at the same time it informs the body.
- (c) No transmigration.
- (d) Immortal soul.
4. Descartes (Plato’s standpoint –efficient causality-): because