What is Man?

“MY BODY”
by Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz

Any philosophy of man is a systematic and holistic attempt to answer the question of “who am I?” In our day-to-day life, we may be so engrossed in our activities that we do not bother anymore to question what seems clear and obvious to us. The question of “Who am I?” is such a case. It is surprising to ask this ourselves. At first glance, isn’t this question so simple? What could be clearer and obvious to us than the reality of our “I”? But this is only at first glance, from a superficial and uncritical natural attitude. Certain events in our life (like sickness, failures, death) can awaken us and brings us to the limits of our ordinary experience. And then, the once-so-simple question deepens, begins to complicate, and beckons on us: Who am I?

An important aspect in answering this question is the experience of my body. If I were asked about myself, my answers inescapably have reference to my body. What are you? Man, because I have form, activities, and a body of a man. Who are you? I am Juan Santos, tall, mestizo-looking long-haired, with small ears and a big belly due to beer-drinking (isa-pa-nga!). Where am I? Here, where my body is; look at me, look at my body. In these ways, I seem to say I am my body.

But there are times too that I know I am not just my body. I am a man also because I have an understanding and a mind of a man. When I say to my parents “I love you,” this one loving them is not just this tall-mestizo-looking-long-haired-with-small-ears-fat-belly-etx.” Body of mine but my whole spirit and will. And it can happen that while my body is in room B-109, listening to a boring lecture on the theories of Lobachevski or the poems of Chairil Anwar, I am taking a walk at the beach, along with my sweetheart, watching the sunset.

On one hand, I recognize an intimate relation of myself with my body, and thus truly say: I am my body. Yet, on the other hand, I also know that I cannot reduce my whole humanity to my body. I am also spirit and will: my body is only something I have: I have my body. What is the meaning of this paradox?

Some Answers from the History of Philosophy

Classical Views. Already in early times, the ancient philosophers of Greece tackled the question of the human body. What is the body of man? Is it truly a part of his becoming a man? Or is it just a contingent “addition” to his self? Is it a bestial imprisonment of the human spirit or its perfection?

According to Plato (ca. 430-350 B.C.), man is his soul. This is the essence of his humanity and the source of all his activities. In the Phaedrus, Plato uses the following metaphor. The soul is a charioteer of two winged-horses. One is sensible and flies high to the heavens to reach the light of truth and goodness. The other comes from a bad breed and because of neglect and sinfulness, had lost his wings and fallen to earth to assume human form. No wonder heavenly and earthly tendencies are in conflict in the spirit of man. The taking of a human body is an unfortunate accident and a cruel imprisonment of the free and pure soul. Consequently, Plato states in the Phaedo, that the true philosopher strives to evade his body because

Surely the soul can best reflect when it is free of all distractions such as hearing or sight or pain or pleasure of any kind – that is, when it ignores the body and becomes as far as possible independent, avoiding all physical contacts and associations as much as it can, in its search for reality.

In death the true man is freed from his imprisonment to see perfectly the pure light of absolute truth.

In the view of Aristotle (304-322 B.C.), man is the whole of his body and soul. There is no sense in asking if body and soul are one. They are one like the oneness of the ugly and his figure. The relation if the body to the soul is the relation of matter to form. There is no matter that is not informed by form, and no form that is not the form of the matter. Likewise, the body and soul of man are only two aspects of the whole man. In De Anima, we read the following observation:

A further problem presented by the affections of the soul is this: are they all affections of the complex body and soul, or is there any one among them peculiar to the soul by itself? To determine this is indispensable but difficult. If we consider the majority of them, there seems to be no case in which the soul can act or be acted upon without involving the body; e.g. Anger, courage, appetite, and sensation generally. Thinking seems the most probable exception; but if this proves to be a form of imagination or to be impossible without imagining, then it too requires a body as a condition of its existence.

The Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages also dealt on the question of the body. In the City of God, St. Augustine (354-430) mentions that man can be divided into body and soul, and no doubt the soul is more real and important. But is it only the soul that is man, and its relation to the body similar to the relation of the charioteer to his horse? This is not possible, because the charioteer is not a charioteer without the horse; similarly the soul is not a soul if it is not the soul of a body. Is it possible that only the body is man, and its relation to the soul similar to the relation of the jar with the water? Neither is this possible, because the end of the jar is to be filled with water and the end likewise if the body is to filled with the soul. Man is the unity of body and soul, and he can only exist as this unity.

The great St. Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274) in the Summa Theologiae also said that the soul is not man: “For just as it belongs to the nature of this particular man to be composed of this soul, of this flesh, and of these bones, so it belongs to the future of man to be composed of this soul, flesh and bones.” And in another place , he further states that although the body is not part of the essence of the body, nevertheless the very essence of the soul inherently needs to be one with the body.

It is Rene Descartes (1596-1650) who sets a kind of questioning regarding the human body in the present history of philosophy. A prominent French philosopher and mathematician, he is considered as the father of modern philosophy and analytic geometry. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes explains the profound and real difference between the body and soul of man. In the first meditation, he states the methodic doubt: we should doubt all that we know because, first, they come from our senses which can be mistaken or can deceive us, and second, these can be just the result of a dream. Even the certain and universal truths of religion and mathematics I can think of as only imaginary, the work of a bad spirit.

In the second meditation, Descartes shows that even if I use the methodic doubt , there is one truth that I can not deny or doubt: I think, therefore, I am (Cogito ergo sum). Even if I fully deny or doubt this, I only prove by my denial and doubting that I am thinking and existing. Descartes continues to ask, But what is this I which I have proven to exist? And his answer: “A thinking being (res cogitans). What is a thinking being? It is a being which doubts, which understands, which affirms, which denies, which wills, which rejects, which imagines also and which perceives.

In the last meditation, Descartes adds that even if we can prove the reality of the world and material things, the real essence of man is still different his body. He stresses,

And although perhaps, or rather certainly, as I will soon show, I have a body with which I am very closely united, nevertheless, since on the one hand I have a clear and distinct idea of myself in so far as I am only a thinking and not an extended being, and since on the other hand I have a distinct idea of body in so far as it is only an extended being which does not think, it is certain that this “I” (-that is to say, my soul, by virtue of which I am what I am-) is entirely (and truly) distinct from my body and that it can (be or) exist without it.

At first glance, for Descartes, man’s body is just a material thing, extended, and as such does not seem to differ from a complex machine like a computerized robot. Yet Descartes himself also admits that the answer is not as simple as that. He mentions again in the Meditations, that we cannot say, for instance, that the relationship of the body and soul is like that of the captain and the ship, another metaphor of Plato. If the ship meets a collision, it is only the ship that is damaged or “hurt” but not the captain who simply observes the damage. But when my body is hurt, I do not just observe the incident; I am involved. When I a slapped, for instance, by a storekeeper in the market with whom I have quarreled, I do not say only my cheeks hurt, but I am hurt.

If we read Descartes himself, we can see that his inquiry is rather complicated, and he does not really say that man is a “ghost inside a machine.” In several writings, he admits that the body and soul of a man is a real unity. However, this unity itself of the body and soul cannot be known and discussed by philosophy due to its inherent ambiguity. In Descartes’ view, the aim of philosophy is to reach clear and distinct ideas regarding reality. Mathematical truth is for him the model of philosophical truth. But the truth regarding the unity of man’s body and soul cannot fit into this frame of thinking. Thus, even if Descartes recognizes the unity of man’s body and soul as truth based on experience, he emphasizes that this is not a philosophical truth.

Gabriel Marcel. In present times, a number of philosophers, notably the phenomenologists, have criticized the philosophy of Descartes. One of them is Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973). Like Descartes, Marcel is a Frenchman, but unlike Descartes, he is a playwright and musician. His propensity is not clear and skeletal order of mathematics but life itself and the clear-vague world of drama and music.

In Marcel’s philosophy, man’s embodiment is not simply a datum alongside other data but the primary datum that is the starting point and basis of any philosophical reflection. Descartes’ failure, according to Marcel, lies in the imprisonment of the methodic doubt which aspires mathematics-like truths. This way of thinking is on the level of primary reflection. In this kind of reflection, I place myself outside of the thing that I am inquiring on. An ob-jectum (“thrown in front”). It has nothing to do with myself nor do I have anything to do with it. I take each parts (analysis0 study their ordering (systematize) and arrive at some clear and fixed ideas regarding the thing itself (conceptualize). But in this manner, the body studied in primary reflection is no longer my body but a body. “A body” is an objective idea apart from me; I have nothing to do with it nor does it have anything to do with my life. This is the body talked about in anatomy, physiology and other sciences. Because this is an objective and universal idea, this can be the body of anybody else, and consequently of nobody.

There is a particular value in primary reflection on the body (Medicine, for example would not progress without the sciences that study the human body), but this is not the whole truth. In order to come closer to an understanding of the totality of all that exists (and isn’t this the primary aim of philosophy?), we have to go back and root our reflection on the concrete experience of my body. We have to enter into the level of secondary reflection. In this kind of reflection, I recognize that I am part of the thing I am investigating, and therefore, my discussion is sub-jective (“thrown beneath”). I have something to do with it and it has something to do with me. Because I participate in the thing, I cannot tear it apart into clear and fixed ideas; I have to describe and bring it unique wholeness in my concrete experience. In using secondary reflection, we discover that what exists is not “a body” but “my body” – a body full of life, eating sleeping, happy, afflicted, etc., my body that is uniquely mine alone.

Marcel’s philosophy of the body is an inquiry on the meaning of the experience of my body.

If we use secondary reflection and recognize the experience of my body as the starting point and foundation of our inquiry, we can see that it does not make sense to separate the body and to ask, “What is the relation of the I to the body?” The reason is because the body referred to here is no longer “my body” but the abstract “a body”.

But what is meant by my in “my body”? Is it the possession (avoir) that I refer to when I talk of my “ballpen” or “my dog”? Is the logic “I have a body” the same as “I have a dog”?

Marcel shows that in order for me to possess a dog, we must have an inter-relationship with each other. I must have a claim, for instance, on the dog: I decide when it will stay and I take care of it or have it taken care of. Likewise, the dog recognize my claim over it: it follows me, it loves or fears me, etc. in short, I must have responsibility and control over what I possess.

At first glance, it seems that this is also the relationship I have with my body. First, like having my dog, my body is mine and mine alone. Even in societies where slavery exists and the masters own the body of their slaves, the slaves experience that this is unjust and violates their rights as human beings. If they do not realize this, then we can say that their humanity is destroyed. Secondly, I have a responsibility over my body and I take care of it; I nourish it and let it sleep, bathe it, give it pleasure, etc. The limit of these examples is the ascetic who evades whatever pleasures of the body; it is difficult to say if he is still included in the experience of “my body”. Thirdly, I have control over my body. It can do whatever I want it to do if it can – sit, walk, go out of the room, drink cola, talk, etc. – if I so desire.

There is validity in liking “ I have my body” to “I have my dog,” but there is also limitation. Even if I am intimate with my dog, I cannot deny that our lives are still separate. It can be in the house while I am in the moviehouse; it was born while I was in my teens, it may die earlier than I. This is not the case with my body: our location and history are inseparable. Wherever I am, there also is my body, and wherever my body is, there I am too.

Upon reconsideration of second reflection, it does not make sense too to consider the relation with my body as only an instrument. If I say I own my body, I treat it like an instrument that I possess and use in order to possess and use other things in the world. Only by means of my body, for instance, can I possess and use this ballpen, this table, this car, this building and others. Is my body then an instrument?

For Marcel, the body that I can say I have is a body-object, “a body” that I or anybody can use. This is the body studied by primary reflection of the sciences. But if I treat my body as only a possession, its being mine loses its meaning. The experience of my body is the experience of I-body (body-subject). Here secondary reflection recuperates and states that there is no gap between me and my body. In short, I am my body.

If I say I am my body, this does not mean that I am the body that is the object for others, the body seen, touched, felt by others. Like the dualism of Descartes, this materialistic view is imprisoned in the Procrustean bed of primary reflection and reduces the experience of my body to the idea of “a body.” “I am my body” has only a negative meaning. It simply states that I cannot separate my self from my body. My being-in-the-world is not the bodily life alone nor the spiritual life alone but the life of an embodied spirit (‘etre incarnee’).

The Life of Embodied Spirit

We begin our reflection of the experience of my body by recognizing its paradoxical character. On one hand, I cannot detach my body from myself; they are not two things that happen by chance to be together. Rather, myself is absolutely embodied. Likewise, on the other hand, I cannot reduce my self to my body: I also experience my self as an I-spirit and will that can never be imprisoned in my flesh and bones. That is why we can say there are two faces shown in the experience of my body: “I have my body” and “I am my body”.

It is very tempting for any erudite person, philosopher or scientist, to forget this paradox and fix his attention to only one side of the experience. This precisely is the danger of any primary reflection: our inquiry becomes clear and distinct but we get farther away from real experience. The paradox is the experience itself, and this should be the one described by philosophy by means of secondary reflection.

The body as intermediary. I experience myself as being-in-the-world through my body. My body acts as the intermediary between the self or subject and the world .

When we use the term intermediary, we refer to one of two conflicting meaning. If I say, “Y is the intermediary of X and Z,” I may mean that because X, Y and Z encounter or become closer to each other or come to an agreement. Let us take this example from the story of Macario Pineda titled, “Kung Baga sa Pamumulaklak.” A young farmer named Desto wants to win the hand of the illustrious young lady named Tesang. However, he cannot just present himself directly to the lady of his affection to tell her of her feelings. He first approaches his uncle Mang Tibo who is the kumpare of tesang’s parents so he can act as intermediary between him and Tesang’s parents. Only then do Tesang’s parents allow Desto to court her. In this situation, the intermediary serves as the “bridge” for the union of the young man and the lady.

On the other hand, I can also mean the opposite. I can say that because X, Y and Z are separated. Still with the example of courting, the parents of the girl may stand between our affection and prevent our being sweethearts. In the old films of Virgo Productions, often Lolita Rodriguez plays the role of the “other woman” who stands between the beautiful relationship of the couple Eddie Rodriguez and Marlene Dauden. Here, the intermediary is not a bridge but an obstacle.

Now, when I say my body is the intermediary between my self and the world, I refer to the two meanings of intermediary. On one hand, because of my body, an encounter or agreement occurs between my self and the world. In reality, the encounter of the experience of my self and the experience of the world can only take place in the experience of my body. Because of my body, I experience the world as my world and we are familiar to each other. Because of my body, the chair I am sitting on is hard, the sunset is as red as a rose, the effect of the lambanog on my empty stomach is strong, the smell of the Pacwood factory in San Pedro, Laguna is like hell. Because of my body, I have an experience of “near” and “far”, “
up” and “below” and many other relations in space. The world of man is different from the “world” of the fly because their bodies have different frameworks. My body is by nature intentional (directed to the world), and it creates and discovers meaning that I am conscious of in my existence. Thus because of my body, the whole universe has and reveals for-me-and-for-man. Through my body, my subjectivity is openness to the world and the world is opened to me; the world fills me, and I fill the world.

On the other hand, also because of my body, I experience the world as separate from me. I am “not world”, and the world is “not-I”. In the giving-of-meaning-to-the-world of my body, I also experience the self as “outside” of the world, I am one who sees , and who gives-mane to this or that. My body shows that I am not simply a thing among other things in nature. The oneness and wholeness of my body is different from the oneness and wholeness of the world. If I did not have this kind of distance from the world, I would become only a thing without interiority; and clearly this view is not true to our experience of life. My body participates in the world but cannot be reduced to it.

The body in intersubjectivity. My body is not only an intermediary between me and the world but also between me and others. I show myself to the other and the other shows himself to me through my body.

Because of my body, we interrelate with each other in many different ways – in our vision, actions, attitude, in our rituals, signs and speech. We face each other in anger, tenderness, sadness, etc., because we have a body to present. If the other shows wrinkles on his forehead, he is indicating dissatisfaction, confusion or disapproval of what I am saying. The wry and red appearance of my face is anger, my fixed-to-the-ground look and my sigh are loneliness. The child does not have to disobey his parent, a look from the parent is enogh to prevent him. Every part of my body says something of myself and my world. As what a poet says of an alluring young woman:

There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,

Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out

At every joint and motive of her body.

The language of my body has its own grammar and rhetoric in expressing my interiority. If I love Maria, I show this through my kisses, embrace, holding tenderly her hand, etc., and also through exchanges of rings, daily telephone conversations, weekly visits. I respect my parents in kissing their hands; I accept new acquaintances in shaking his hand. Embodiment is not just an additional or external appearance; it is the gesture and appearance of what I truly feel inside. I cannot say I love my brothers and sisters if I do not show this love to them. I cannot say I respect my parents if my speech to them is not respectful. My faith is meaningless if I do not realize it in my daily actions and life.

Phenomenology

MARCEL’S PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD
by Manuel B. Dy Jr.

Traditionally, a formal study of philosophy begins with logic (the study of correct thinking), then goes through metaphysics (the study of being), followed by cosmology (the study of the nature of the universe) and ends up with philosophical psychology or the philosophy of man. The philosophical study of man comes last in the curriculum. Moreover, man is defined by traditional scholastic philosophy as a rational animal, or as a composite of body and soul. Under the aspect of body, he is like any other animal, a substance, mortal, subject to limitations of time and space. Under the aspect of soul, he is gifted with the power of reason, free and immortal. From the behavior of man to think and decide, it is concluded that he must be gifted with a human soul.

The method we are going to use in our reflection on man will attempt to do something different from the traditional approach. Instead of going first into logic (after all, reality is not always logical), we shall begin with man himself in his totality. Isn’t it that our understanding of the world, and even God, is somehow based on what we understand of ourselves? We shall not start too with definitions of man, definitions that may cut man into parts. Instead, let us describe man from his within, from what is properly human, not from a point of view that is external. Our method is phenomenological.

The existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel uses a phenomenological method less technical than Husserl’s. According to Marcel, reflection which is rooted in experience, is of two levels:

Primary Reflection. Primary reflection breaks the unity of experience. It looks at the world or any object as a problem, detached from the self, and fragmented. Primary reflection is the foundation of scientific knowledge, for science assumes a stand where the world is apart from the subject. The subject does not enter into the object investigated.

Secondary Reflection. Secondary Reflection, on the other hand, recaptures the unity of original experience. It does not go against the data of primary reflection but goes beyond it by refusing top accept the data of primary reflection as final. The unity of experience is grasped by placing back the object to the self. For Marcel, the level of the secondary reflection is the area of the mysterious because here we enter into the realm of the personal. What is needed in secondary reflection is an ingathering, a recollection, a pulling together of the scattered fragments of our experience.

The secondary reflection is strictly speaking, the phenomenological method of Marcel, whereas the primary reflection would seem to correspond to the natural attitude of Husserl.

Some examples:

Who am I? From primary reflection, I can answer the question by mentioning my name, date of birth, place of birth, height, weight – the items I would normally fill out in a registration card. But all these are contingent, relative to the inner self that I am. In secondary reflection, I would have to penetrate into the inner core of my person.

My body. Primary reflection would look a t my body as a body like other bodies, detached from the self that would make it unique. My body would be the body examined by a physician, or perhaps the body that I sell in prostitution house. But is this my sole experience of my body? Secondary reflection tells me that my body is mine. The way I carry my body is unique. The dentist cannot experience the pain I feel when he pulls my tooth because my tooth is mine. And if I am a prostitute and still have conscience, I experience (when I sell my body) a terrible feeling that I am selling myself.

Here is a true-to-fact example of primary and secondary reflection from a student:

Once, during the early years of my adolescence, I have a pet canary. I kept him in a small cage which I placed on the porch table. I never forgot to feed him regularly, a task which I never entrusted to anybody else.

I remember the time when I used to sit there on the porch, just listening to his beautiful singing. Whenever my friends called on me, I very often showed them my prized canary with pride. I had taught him to sing whenever I whistle a tune that was similar to his song.

Then one day, a terrible thing happened. After I had fed him I did not notice that I had left the cage door open. In a matter of minutes he was gone. My favorite pet had flown away, leaving behind him the empty cage, which I have thought was so beautiful and was not a mere reminder of the happy days when I used to hear him sing.

My first reaction was to try to get him back, no matter what it cost. I saw him perched on the fence, his wings not used to flying over long distances. I immediately rushed into the house and got my air rifle. I was desperate, and the only thought that was in my mind was to capture the creature even if it meant that I had to kill him. Fortunately, I was too late, when I returned, he was gone.

I was angry at everything. I kept on telling myself that it was unjust, after all the trouble I went through taking care of the bird. I could not bear it if I was to see him in the possession of another person. Maybe, that was the reason why I wanted to kill him rather than let him fly away.

Several days passed. One afternoon, just as the sun was about to set, I was sitting out on the porch. Suddenly, I heard him singing. I was surprised to hear it because canary birds are seldom seen here, and when you hear one singing, you cannot just mistake it for some other bird’s son. And my canary’s singing. I cannot mistake for some other canary’s.

I looked up and saw him, perched on one of the limbs of a tree. That time I felt a longing inside me, a longing to have him back. He was so close, yet it was almost impossible to catch him. But the feeling quickly passed, because I realized that the song I was hearing was just the same as, if not more beautiful than, the song that I heard from the cage. The song was still mine, mine to hear, mine to enjoy for a moment.

As I looked at that yellow bird up on the branches of the tree, it seemed as if he was happier then, because he was free. He was still my bird, yet he was free. That was the time I began to realize that every bird can, and does, sing a truly beautiful song. Unlike before when I only know how to listen to the song of a bird in a cage, now I have learned to listen how to listen to every bird I hear. As long as I could hear them, they were mine.

From that day on, I never saw my canary again. However, I was glad that he was able to escape from his prison, because, through that, I was able to see the real value of possession. My property does not end at the place where the fence surrounding my house stands. A creature, as long as it gives me pleasure whenever I see or hear it, belongs to me.

My neighbor’s pet dog is rightfully mine if he wags his tail in joy when he sees me coming. Real possession can be mine to a greater degree than the master’s if the bond of friendship between that dog and me is greater.

Beauty can also be the object of possession. When I see a flower blooming, though it does not grow in my garden, I own it. Before, I would be tempted to pick that flower and bring it home with me. But now I realize that it is better to let it alone to bloom for me, rather than have it within my reach only to see it wilt in my hand. Since I put value in it, it is, in a sense, my own.

Even a spider’s web is a thing of beauty. Very often, I would watch spiders spinning their webs. I would be tempted to destroy the web. I think that it is in man’s nature to have sadistic tendencies. However, I would hold back my hand for I know that the fulfillment of my savage tendency is nothing compared to the pleasure of appreciating the beauty of nature. Only then I say that I am the richest man on earth.

Man as Human Person

THE HUMAN PERSON
by Vitaliano Gorospe S.J.

What It means To Become A Human Person

We Filipinos in general would want to give a convenient excuse for our human frailty, our human weakness and failings. We say: “after all we are only human” (sapagkat kami ay tao lamang). However, we know deep down that this is rationalization. The main thing in life is not to be afraid to be human. But here, becoming human has a different meaning altogether; it means becoming authentically human. What does it mean to become fully human, to become an authentic human person?

THE POSSIBILITIES OF BECOMING FULLY HUMAN. First, Dasein (Heidegger’s term for man or the human existent) is never complete in its being. Man is always a “becoming”. According to Heidegger, the nature of man is time. “I” (ako) am my past, present, and future. One cannot really know the identity of a person unless he knows his past life, his present status and his future possibilities. Man is in the process of transcending his past and present life for his future possibility. Hence the moral life is not something given, complete and finished; it is not an accomplished fact but an on-going task to be achieved in one’s lifetime. This task is the same and open to all. Yet, secondly, Dasein is characterized in every individual case by unique “mineness” (pagsasarili). It is always a question of this unique person’s existence, a question of the “I” (ako) which I cal myself. “I’ve gotta be me” – I must strive to be myself and not somebody else. Many teen-age girls would like to be Nora Aunor. It would be much easier to be themselves. Perhaps one can pretend to be somebody else for a while but not for long. To become an authentic human person, to become moral is become “me”. I am a unique person different from everybody else. I can only become fully a human person in my own unique way (Sinatra’s “I did it my way”). Hence, the moral life is something very unique and personal. Thirdly, to be fully human is to become authentic, to achieve one’s true self (tunay na ako) (Heidegger I). To be authentic, in turn, is to respond to the call of Being as a responsible self (Heidegger II). Man realizes his own true self by responding fittingly to the whole of reality. Existentialist ethic stresses the individual vs. the crowd (doing what everybody else is doing). To be an individual, to choose and lead one’s own life, to realize one’s true identity – this existentialist emphasis balances the Filipino stress on fate or the “bahala na” mentality and patter of behavior. The authentic individual does not wait for events to decide his fate; he makes his destiny a task and a responsibility. Hindi bahala na kundi ako and bahala – ought to be the right ethical mentality.

AUTHENTICITY IN A PHILIPPINE SETTING. To become an authentic person in a Philippine setting is difficult because “social acceptance” is more highly valued in Philippine society than “being authentic”. Filipino values life “pakikisama” (smooth interpersonal relations), euphemism, the use of the go-between “hiya” (shame) or, “amor propio” (self-esteem) – are ambivalent; they can help or hinder authenticity. Yet “social acceptance” can have either a deferential (respect) or manipulative function. It need not necessarily hinder authenticity. Part of youth’s rebellion today is directed against a “phoney” or hypocritical society. Examples of lack of authenticity in Philippine society are the “double-standard morality”, “split-level Christianity”, the “querida” and the “lagay” systems. The young criticize many Philippine mores and customs as more “conventional” than “convictional”. Students recognize phoneyness even among their own peer group or barkada and call it, e.g., “porma lang yan” (that’s form only), OA (overacting). The authentic individual must take hold of the direction of his life. When the individual is solely determined by the eternal factors, e.g. external respectability (“What will the neighbors say?”), fate [“ganyan lang ang buhay” (life’s like that)], bad or good luck (“malas” or “swerte”; “I can’t do anything about it”), when he is dominated by the collective crowd. (“everbody else is doing it”) and is absorbed by the anonymous “they” (sila) – he becomes inauthentic or a phoney.

OTHERS MAKES US BECOME FULLY HUMAN. The existentialist insight that man is a “being-in-the-world-with-others” stresses the social dimension of becoming fully human. By “being-in” Heidegger does not mean physical but personal existence. I can be sitting next to a passenger in a bus without “ being present” to him. Human and personal presence is not just spatial, e.g. “there is water in the glass”, but rather “being present”, being at home” because we are bound by ties of affection, interest, work, etc.. e.g. “He is in love”; “he was in a conspiracy”.

By “the world”, Heidegger does not mean merely the physical world of things but the world of persons and of human meaning. We all perceive the Cordillera mountains as “something lying around” (“present-at-hand”), but we can become “aware” that the Cordilleras can have different meanings for different people such as “a recreation are or a tourist spot”, “an NPA hiding place or a look-out post for the AFP”, “a hazard to a pilot in a stormy weather” or a “copper-quarry or lumber concession” (ready-at-hand). The world is not the “world-in-itself-for-nobody” but the world-as-it-is-for-me”. The Philippines is very different to a Filipino than it is to a tourist or a foreigner. The world that has meaning for me is the world of my choosing. In a way each one of us creates “his own world”, e.g. “business world”, “sports world”, “the world of sex”, the “Ateneo world” (cf. Saint Antoine Exupery’s The Little Prince).

That man is a “being-with-others” has important implications for becoming fully human, for morality. I have no existence apart from others. It is others who give me my identity. And shape the meaning of my life. Kung wala ikaw; wala din ako (Without You, there is no I). Each one of us is created, shaped and re-shaped by those who loves us. “Being-with-others” excludes “using” others as things (merely functional relationship). The norm of morality is determined by the meaning of man as a “self-with-others”. Man as a “being-in-the-world” is responsible for humanizing the world.

HISTORICITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON. According to Heidegger, the essence of man is time. I am my past, present and future. Temporality with its dimensions of past, present and future is the most basic characteristic of human existence. The threefold structure of the human existence (the human person) are facticity (pas), fallenness (present), and possibility (future). First , all those elements in my human existence which are simply given and not chosen by me constitute my facticity. I did not choose to be born, to be male or female, to be a Filipino, to be poor or rich, to be a Christian or a Muslim, etc.. I find myself already in Philippine society at this time and this place with its limitations and possibilities. Secondly, the condition of finding myself “thrown-into-the-world”, without creating myself or knowing where I came from or where I am going, of being absorbed by the anonymous crowd (sila), of being alienated and scattered, makes up my fallenness. In Christian view, fallenness is the condition of man’s sinfulness and the “sin of the world” (the mystery of evil). Thirdly, the fact that I can transcend my past and present and create my own future which I can decide is my possibility. I am “ahead-of-myself” in the sense that I can project myself forward into my future possibility. I become my own self-project in search of my own authentic self. My possibility is not just any happening but the open future and self-project I have chosen. I just do not let events decide my life but makes things happen to fashion my true self.

Man and Liberty

PHENOMENOLOGY OF FREEDOM
Pius G. Morados

Are we free or not?

“All men seem to be aware of freedom in choice.”

The universal experience of freedom provides the greatest proof for its own existence.

B.F. SKINNER, an extremely influential behavioral psychologist from Harvard seems to affirm that man is not free because: a) all present behavior is controlled by previous behavior, including the entire network of environmental, psychological, and educational stimuli which have shaped our present characters and personalities, and b) all behavior (even the dropping of a book) has motivational causes which are necessitating causes. We might summarize this basically by saying: Man is determined by his historicity.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE’s position seems to be one of the absolute indeterminism or total freedom. In Sartre’s view man actually has no history. The individual has only his future project which he makes entirely of himself and for which he alone is responsible. Man is so free, so indeterminate, that he cannot even be defined.

ABRAHAM MASLOW offers something of a compromise position. Man cannot be reduced to his history, to his environment, to his determinism; nor can man be totally divorced from them. To be a human person means: a) to have potentialities which liberate him from blind necessity – to be able to know, question, and mould himself, and b) to be inserted into an environment and history which help him actualize these potentialities.

Phenomenological Analysis of Reflection and questioning

(We have) the ability to question, to hesitate, to achieve a distance from immediate necessity of from objects and demands presently before us.

All of us share in the ability to question our historicity and our past.

The immediate tasks at hand do not compel or force us.

We are not enslaved nor determined by our past.

(We have) the capacity to reflect upon myself, to acquire a distance from myself-as-immediately-concerned-with-the-present-stimulus.

With the distance we achieve in self-reflection, we are able to achieve at least to some extent self-possession and self-determination.

THAT IS FREEDOM!

Free Will (Freedom is for the good)

The will is an intellectual tendency, or a tendency toward an intellectually known good.

“Nil volitum quin precognitum.”

The intellect knows not only the present object as good but knows all subjects that exists as good in some way.

Everything that can be seen as good can be the object of the will.

The will is naturally determined to seek the good and its pursuit of the good always involves a choice among many particular goods all of which can be the object of its choice.

Moral failures is a question of wrong choice. The free will is a limited power and is fallible.

KNOWLEDGE AND CHOICE, INTELLECT AND WILL

There are forces which can shape and influence my present and future behavior.

There are also data which indicates that these forces do not totally destroy my ability to take possession of myself.

As long as I can question, as long as I can achieve a distance from my environment and from immediate needs and as long as I can know various values and goods as limited and conditional, I can take hold of my life and my situation and I can say something about it.

I AM FREE!

Freedom as Distance

Man’s consent to reality is never unreserved.

Man can never fully say yes to any reality

Man’s yes to the world includes also a no

Man distances himself from complete affirmation and consent

Freedom as Having To Be

Man as subject is not only a natural light but also a natural desire.

Man is a task-in-the-world.

Man is never finished.

TO DISREGARD HIS TASK IS TO DISREGARD HIS HUMANITY.

Freedom as Project

Man’s being a task involves his potentiality.

Man is a unity-in-opposition of factical being and potential being of “already” and “not yet” of past and future.

Man’s project is a project in the world.

Absolute Determinism (Burrhus Frederic Skinner)

“The hypothesis that man is not freed is essential to the application of the scientific method to the study of human behavior. The free inner man who is held responsible for his behavior is only a pre-scientific substitute for the kinds of causes which are discovered in the course of the scientific analysis. All these alternative causes lie outside the individual.”

SCIENCE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Man’s behavior is shaped and determined by external forces and stimuli whether they be familial or cultural sanction, verbal or non-verbal reinforcement or complex systems of reward and punishment.

I have genetic, biological, and physical structures which influence my behavior. They are part of the total me which is involved in choosing.

I have environmental structures which are part of me – my early life and psychological development, the culture, national and ecclesiastical frameworks that I find myself situated in.

I am keenly aware of external forces and demands which impinge upon me, sometimes creating needs and even values.

CRITIQUE OF SKINNER

There are levels of experience which cannot be explained by or reduced to my historicity.

“I can make myself aware of my biological and physical limitations compensating them, channeling them, improving them.

I can question my own environmental structures; I can revolt against them or validate them.

I can achieve a distance from external demands and forces. I can hesitate, reflect and challenge them.

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

If we are all absolutely determined, then we all must be deluded at the very heart of our primary experience for almost all normal persons experience some degree of freedom in choosing or being able to say something about their own actions.

If all our judgments and choices are conditioned and necessitated by prior reinforcement or external stimulus, this case would have to hold true for the determinist himself.

Absolute determinism cannot serve to explain the totality of human behavior for it fails to account for the data of questioning, self-reflection and intelligent inquiry.

Absolute Indeterminism (Jean-Paul Sartre)

“I am my freedom.” –The Flies

“Human freedom precedes essence in man and makes it possible, the essence of the human being is suspended in his freedom. What we call freedom is impossible to distinguish from the being of human reality. Man does not exist first in order to be free, subsequently there is no difference between the being of man and his being free.” – Being and Nothingness

Man is the only source which decides ends, motives and causes. The influence of his historicity and facticity upon his freedom is inconsequential.

Since man’s identity as a “le pour-soi” involves consciousness and freedom as immediate givens, his existence is a resistance to his facticity.

Since freedom is involved with the future and it is man’s identity, his environment and past motivation do not hinder his freedom.

Since man chooses his own identity and makes his own essence, man is not defined by limits.

CRITIQUE OF SARTRE

The facts of experimental psychology, biology and sociology militate against the view that we are totally free of external influence, hereditary factors, environmental tugs, and normal psychophysical development.

“I am inextricably bound to who I am and who I am includes my history, my growth and the total formation of the life which I have led to these moments – as well as my ability to question, to negate, and to achieve a distance from necessity.”

To be me involves the structures of what being me is and wherever I may go or flee, I will carry myself with me.

OVERSIMPLIFICATION

To hold freedom as diametrically opposed to structure is to posit that there are only two possibilities either absolute indeterminism (total structurelessness) or absolute determinism (total structuredness)

It is to think of freedom as a negation of external imposition of binding commitments of the past and an affirmation of pure, spontaneous, unreflective and unencumbered action.

MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

Sartre makes freedom impossible. If freedom is everywhere then it would be useless to pinpoint where freedom lies. We are free precisely when we are controlled by our situation as well as when we control it.

My freedom therefore must be a field, there must be special possibilities for me to choose.

Structure Freedom – Human Reality (Abraham Maslow)

Freedom and structure are complementary rather than contradictories.

The free man does not necessarily oppose structure.

The fact of being human gives rise to structures, values and demands which, instead of negating freedom, actually makes freedom possible and even enhances it.

Structures are not only compatible with freedom but are fundamental to all human growth, evolution, and process. Freedom is exercised only within the structure of our humanity and historicity and the vehicle by which we can remain faithful to these two.

Structures are the offerings of the human world to which come – embracing historicity, environment, the community of thought, cultural and moral heritage.

Structure is the internal constitution of being a man with human potentialities – the reason why values and demands emerge from my own identity as a questioning self, a knower, a lover.

“My own freely created life project is also a structure.

Conclusion

Value of Freedom. Through human freedom, man can possess himself and his destiny. And since his meaning and destiny is other-directed, man not only possesses himself. His freedom so constitutes man that he is never fully achieved until, having possessed himself, he gives himself to the other.

THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM HUMAN FREEDOM.

NO MAN CAN CHOOSE TO BE UNFREE.

TO BE HUMAN IS TO BE FREE.

Sources:

“Human Freedom” by John F. Kavanaugh

Outlines on “Phenomenology of Freedom” of J. Ranilo B. Hermida

Man and Work

PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF HUMAN LABOR
by Manuel B. Dy, Jr.

The topic of this paper is propelled by the many social issues plaguing the country today; the numerous strikes of workers, teachers included, against management; the increasing rate of unemployment with the accompanying growing demand for higher and the predominant attitude of looking down upon the latter; the industrialization gap between the urban and rural sectors, resulting in the migration of workers to the cities; and the ethical dilemma of the lagay and the pakikisama system that goes with the bureaucracy of large institutions. Overshadowing these issues are still the conflict of the ideologies, capitalism versus communism, individualism versus collectivism, and the problem of objectification, depersonalization or functionalization of the worker in a highly technological industrial set-up.

It would be much easier to tackle these social issues separately and propose an appropriate solution, but that, I feel, would not be solving the problems at their root: I agree with Pope John Paul II that the social problems of man today are related to work and the key to their understanding is the dignity of labor. The dignity of labor, however, cannot be seen merely from an economic point of view – it is properly speaking, a philosophical and technological question.

I shall not begin with a definition of work for the notion of work has undergone a long evolution in the history of civilization. Rather, my intent is precisely to trace this evolution of the notion of work in history and to link this with a philosophy or philosophies of man.

I think this is one way of finding the philosophical basis of the dignity of labor, and the first step in clarifying the social issues related to work.

The presupposition of this paper is thus in line with what Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical Laborem Exercens: “The sources of the dignity of work are to be sought primarily in the subjective dimensions, not in the objective one.”

Historical Valuation of Work

It seems that primitive man knows no specific value for work. Living in an undifferentiated world, where everything is thought to be under the control of the hidden forces of nature or gods, primitive man hunts and gathers food to keep himself alive. But more than mere security, man works in order to offer sacrifice to the gods. The switch from food gathering and hunting to agriculture and cattle breeding is prompted more by the desire to offer to the gods a more worthy sacrifice than by the motive of security of life. Barter assumes a symbolic significance that transcends mere necessity: an exchange of selves in a mythical bond.

For primitive man, work is not to change and manipulate the world but to appease the gods through ritual and magic.

The Greeks are said to have initiated the breakthrough from the primitive world of myth and magic to the world of reason. Logos governs the cosmos, and man is supposed to discover this order in the universe of contemplation. Man is different from the brute animal because of his capacity to perceive order, form, harmony in the cosmos. Thus the ideal is to philosophize and to take part in the activities of the polis, the city, by the standard of arête, excellence, harmony of the whole man.

The Greeks consequently cut off work from the sacredness of nature and made it profane. They now look upon it as fitting only for the slaves and the animals. Citizen is divided between the free and the unfree with the freemen living on the work of others. The notion of work follows the Greek notion of Logos. Work is not supposed to disrupt the order of nature but to harmonize with it, to repeat its rhythm. This is evident in the Greek techne which is simply the development of man’s natural abilities. The division of labor is patterned after man’s natural needs and capacities. Greek economy is simply the exchange of goods between consumers.

The predominance of Christianity in the Middle Ages puts an end to the devaluation of work by the Greeks. The Medieval man tends to look at work in the light of God’s creation. In the Genesis, God worked for six days and rested on the seventh day. Thus man must do likewise. To work is an imitation of God, a participation in His creative act.

Yet the Genesis also tells us that after Adam and Eve fell, God put a curse to Adam. “You will have to work hard and sweat to make the soil produce anything, until you go back to the soil from which you were formed.” (Genesis 3, 19) Work is also toil, a consequence of sin.

This ambiguity in work can be seen in the kind of work prevalent in the Middle Ages. The polis of the Greeks gives way to the towns of the medieval man, centers of crafts and industries. The craftsmen group themselves into guilds according to their kind of craft and call themselves (fraternities), working on the basis of mutual trust. Their work is duty to maintain their position but not to extract profit. Merchants are looked down because, more than often, they do commerce for profit rather than for the consumer’s needs. Those who do not have to work with their hands are the feudal lords who own properties and have the leisure of study. At this time, studying is not work. Thus work is limited to the manual labor of the craftsmen to preserve their community but not to derive profit.

St. Thomas regards work as good for man because it cultivates the virtue of the industriousness (Summa Th. I-II, q. 40), controlling his unruly passions and overcoming idleness. By working, man is also able to earn a living and give alms. Yet work itself does not seem to possess any intrinsic value since it does not require any intellectual talent.

The ambiguity of work is resolved in the motto of the monks, “ora et labora.” Work is noble as long as one is not attached to the fruits of one’s labor but offer it to God. Thus St. Benedict’s rule: “Laborare est orare.”

The next centuries, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, bring a new valuation to work. Gradually, the power of the guilds decline, and industry and technique merge to form big capitalistic enterprises. This is due to the growing individualistic spirit of the time (philosophically initiated by Rene Descartes) and the consequent rise of the spirit of the natural sciences. Now, there is no limit to making profit, to accumulating interest bearing capital. The natural sciences with their empirical investigations bring out the knowledge and power of man to control nature to make nature conform to man. This new impetus gives rise to cult of work: everyone must work, and man is the homo economicus.

It is at this point that we must turn our attention to the great philosopher of work, the young Karl Marx.

Marx’s Philosophy of Work

The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 of Karl Marx speaks of the interdependence and interaction of man and nature achieved in labor. Labor is central to the humanist Marx because it is through labor that man becomes man, and nature becomes nature for man. In his own words, “the whole of world history is nothing but the creation of man by human labor, and the emergence of nature for man.” (p.139, Eric Fromm’s edition)

Marx contrasts human labor and animal labor. The animals produce, but what they produce is only what is necessary for themselves and for their young to survive. In other words, they produce under the compulsion of direct physical need; they produce only themselves, in a single direction. As such their products belong directly to their physical bodies. Their construction is limited only to the standard needs of their own species. We can see that through their labor, animals are one with their life activity, they do not distinguish themselves from their own activities.

On the other hand, when man works, he works universally. He does not only produce out of physical need; he also produces when free from such need. And when he produces, he reproduces the whole of nature; he is not confined to his own species. (he can produce a plane which can make him fly like the birds). He knows how to produce in accordance with the standards of every species, and also with the laws of beauty. Man then is free in the face of his product. He is not completely identified with his work. “Man can make his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness” (p.101). His own life becomes an object for him, and thus his labor is a free activity.

From Marx, human labor is a process between man and nature, a metabolism of some sort established by man which man himself regulates and controls. Man transforms the earth by work, but by changing nature, man also changes himself: he develops powers, abilities lying dormant in his being – he develops himself. The development of work is likewise the development of man.

The development of labor is the process of production. Strictly speaking, only man can produce. Man produces when he utilizes mechanical, physical, and chemical forces to make instruments, tools, and machines which are extensions of his body. Work develops as man evaluates his labor by the perfection of the means of work. Human civilization, thus, is to be judged not so much by the things produced as by the complexity of the means of production.

Human labor is productive only when man uses tools. But the use of tools implies divisions of labor. The hammer is a tool for the carpenter only because someone else makes the nails. The division of labor, however, makes man independent with fellowman. Thus, productive labor makes man social, makes people work for one another. Work makes man a fellowman.

This human co-existence in work provides an interconnection in mankind’s history. Every generation finds at its disposal the means of work produced by the preceding generation and leaves behind certain means of production that will serve as the starting point for the future generation. Thus history becomes common history through work.

Consequently, for Marx, work is not simply a means to a goal outside; rather, work is an end in itself, a value in itself. It is not surprising then, that Marx is against working for the sake of a wage and the capitalistic system that makes work and worker a commodity in the market. Work cannot be simply reduced to a means to live. In fact man lives in order to work, for work is the way for man to realize his true humanity.

Implications in the History of Work

The history of work indicates that change, an evolution of an understanding of man. Human nature may be said to remain essentially the same throughout history; nevertheless, man’s understanding of himself develops. And this can be seen in our historical sketch of the valuation of work.

It is doubtful whether primitive man has any unique understanding of himself or his humanity as a value outside that of the tribe he belongs to and the gods that the tribe worships. His work is all part of sacred nature, his activity not dissimilar from the beings around him. His humanity is but the outcome of mechanisms, processes and forces in the cosmos.

The Greeks look down upon work and contrast it with their ideal contemplation. While man indeed may be a part of nature, he is no insignificant part for his rationality makes him different from the beast and liberates him from the finitude of nature. It is in the contemplative activity that man’s dignity is to be found, but not in work, for work is servile. The true man is the free man, free from the servitude to nature.

Christianity in the Middle Ages begins to appreciate the value of work as an imitation of God’s creation but is not unaware of the toil involved in the work of the craftsman. Work is still contrasted with study, with rational activity. Work is a noble duty insofar as it reflects man as a creature of God and a member of the Christian community. Nevertheless, the dignity of man lies in his being created in the image and likeness of God, which is to be found in his rational soul. As an activity of a rational animal, man’s duty to work is to serve as a means to attain his final destiny – the Beatific vision of God.

The cult of work in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries brought about by the gradual rise to capitalism gives us a view of man as a controller and master of nature, because of his independent thinking. Man’s dignity lies in his own ability to stand for himself, to acquire mastery over nature and his own passions. Here we have a notion of man as a subject but a subjectivity imprisoned in itself.

The intrinsic value of work reaches its culmination and exaggeration in Marx’s thought. For Marx, through labor, man confirms his own being as a species-being.

…the practical construction of an objective world, the manipulation of organic nature, is the confirmation of man as a conscious species-being, i.e., a being who treats the species of his own being or himself as a species-being. (p.102).

For Marx, man is not merely a natural being; he is also a human natural being. By this, he means to say that man is a being who treats himself as the present, living species. By this, he means to say that man is a being who treats himself as the present, living species. Man is the only being who can make the community his object both practically (in labor) and theoretically (in reflection). The theoretical, i.e., intellectual work, however, is simply an abstraction of the practical. This ability of man to make himself and his humanity his own object proves the universal and the freedom of man. Through labor, man shows the practical universality of his own being – by making the whole of nature his own inorganic body, as a direct means of life and as the material object and instrument of life activity.

Thus, for Marx, man is man because he can objectify himself through labor. By making a chair, for example, man is as it were transcending himself, making himself (as individual and as species) an object of himself (for-itself) by means of nature; thus asserting his being as a free being. So, the chair becomes an expression; externalization and realization of man’s species life, an embodiment of man’s creativity. We see therefore the human stamp in the chair; nature becomes humanized, reflecting man’s being as man, as species being – creative, free, universal.

Originally, the nature is not necessarily human. “Neither objective nature nor subjective nature is directly presented in a form adequate to the human being.” (p.183) The natural only becomes human for Marx when it assumes a social dimension.

As society itself produces man as man, so it is produced by him. Activity and mind are social in their content as well as in their origin; they are social activity and social mind. The human significance of nature exists for social man, because only in this case is nature a bond with other men, the basis of his existence for others and of their existence… The natural existence for man has here become human for him. Thus Society is the accomplished union of man with nature, the veritable resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature.

It is enough, therefore, to simply interact with nature. When man produces, he must produce for society and with the consciousness of acting as a social being. Only then is the work human, and the object, a human object, a social object. Only then does man not become lost in it. Man becomes a social being, and society a being for man in this object.

Marx does not make a distinction between individual human life and the species-life. Although man is a unique individual, he is equally the whole, the ideal whole, the subjective existence of society as though and experienced. Even when man does a purely scientific work, an activity that many be done without direct association with other men, he is still engaged in a social activity. Language itself is already a social product. The individual himself is the social-being. Man as a species-being is man conscious not only of himself as an individual but also of his own species and of his own being a member of his species. And it is in labor that man actively manifests his being a species-being. Through his work upon objective nature, man relates himself with other man – not only in the sense that he needs the help of others to do the work but also because he produces universally; he takes upon his work the whole of nature and humanity. His work can be called human only when he goes beyond considering the means of his individual subsistence to include the community. A human work is truly communal in nature and purpose, and the real human being is one who has re-incorporated in himself the social.

Work and Man in the Technological Era

The exaggeration of Marx in making all human realization governed by labor is understandable in the context of the dehumanization of the worker in the capitalistic system predominating in his time (and in our time?). Aside from the problem of alienated labor attributable to capitalism, history has given rise to a new phenomenon – technological work.

The present age is technological, and to the extent that technology has dominated man’s thinking and behavior, it has aptly been called “technocracy”. Ours is an age of machines and computers, of mass communication, video, print and telecommunication; of energized land, sea, and air travel. Technology has no longer just transformed nature; it has forced nature to reveal its secrets. Thinking that it is unformed and disorderly, man has interfered in nature, creating an artificial world of machines and computers. Rather than merely conforming to his given surroundings, man has made the earth become; he has in a sense created his own world of structures and institutions. While before the natural needs of man determined production, now man produces to stock and to create a demand by means of advertising. Intellectual activity has itself become work, for in order to survive, the technico-economico order needs constant growth through inventions and this requires rational planning, market strategies. Man has indeed become truly productive.

Much of what Marx says of work and man are true in the technological era: modern work is mastery over nature, humanizing nature and realizing man as species-being. Work has become very important that it now determines where man is to live – it has mobilized man to overcome spatio-geographical limitations, and yet there do exist the negative aspects of contemporary labor: the anonymous ties of urban life, the identification of the person with his function, the drudgery of repetitious specialized labor, the bureaucracy of institutions – in short, the functionalization and depersonalization of the person.

It seems that work is not the only way for man to realize himself. It seems that man’s work has come to assume a quasi-independent existence, threatening to swallow man.

At this juncture, we need to see work and man then from a new vantage point, from a viewpoint that overcomes the dualism of matter and spirit, body and soul, physical and spiritual.

Indeed, insofar as man is body, he is limited, he needs to provide for his physical well-being. He has to struggle against nature. But man’s body is none other than his subjectivity, his spirit embodying itself. Man is incarnate subjectivity manifests his interiority, his freedom and rationality, not only in work but also in word. Word, is as much an embodiment of man’s subjectivity as work, but with the advantage of providing a more total grasp of the world than work, modern work. As Paul Ricoeur says, word can provide a corrective for work, taking form as seminars and “tsismis” for functional workers.

As embodied spirit, when man works, he wrests a surplus from nature. Modern work has reached a point where man is able to wrest this surplus from nature, leaving room for other modes of self-realization beyond the self-realization of work concerned with “production.” By his rationality, man transforms nature in order to build up forces for higher purpose; this surplus becomes leisure, the basis of culture, as Josef Peiper would say.

Modern work has shown that besides productive labor, there is something more (surplus) to our earthly existence. It is enough for us to have food, clothing, and shelter. In the way we cook and prepare our food, dress ourselves, build and decorate our houses, we exteriorize ourselves, manifesting our personalities and culture. We cannot work eight days a week, especially when work is too specialized and boring, we seek for leisure or play, to be with our friends and families, to simply take nature as it is and not as a means – in short, to be just ourselves.

The danger is to make everything of human existence work. To work is a way of realizing oneself but not only the way. There is a counterpart of work, other ways of self-realization, call it leisure, word, contemplation, culture. In a sense, modern work is becoming leisure, but there will always be an aspect of “toil”, whether manual or intellectual labor. Modern work can also be contemplation and culture. They can no longer be separated. When modern man works, his activity aims at the world to change it, resulting in a product which man can use to perfect himself and for his fellowman. Yet, this activity also aims at man himself, expressing and communicating himself, resulting in a sign in order to speak of human existence to his fellowman in communion. Every product is a sign to some extent, bearing the stamp of interiority of the person.

Notwithstanding and because of the many kinds of work, the value of work lies in the worker, the dignity of man as an embodied person, free, communicating (social) and one in the diversity of his acts.