Human Person: Knowledge & Freedom - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Human Person: Knowledge & Freedom

From Timothy O’Connell’s ‘Principles for Catholic Morality’ with personal paraphrasing and commentary.Arranged by Zab lebrunSlide2

I. Human Person

The human person is and can be understood through its acts, human actions. Though this understanding may be an approximation due to permanence and accumulation, but nonetheless give a deeper understanding of the human person above anything else.Slide3

II. Understanding Human Acts

II.A. to be able to understand human actions is to consider that which impedes it.II.B. there are two essential concepts that must be considered in understanding human actions: Knowledge and freedom.II.C. Knowledge and Freedom both allows and impedes human act. But more than just merely allowing it, it broadens human act.Slide4

III. Defining Human Acts

Human acts by definition are passing things. They happen and after which they are gone, but human beings are not passing, they continue, they evolve or deteriorate but continue nonetheless.Slide5

IV. Definition of a Human Person

We cannot really have a concrete definition of the human person because we really cannot and will never see the ‘person’ in its bare reality. What we see and experience are ‘persons-clothed-in-action’. More precisely, we experience actions that do not stand by themselves, actions that reveal and manifest, and express a ‘person’ that lies beneath.Slide6

V. Asserting Our Personhood: First

ReasonEven if we understood the human person through human acts, we experience ourselves more than our actions. It is true that we are never apart from our actions, as in we are ‘never doing nothing’. The ‘doing’ and ‘being’ of our lives are never separated but always coexist. In the instance that we sense to view ourselves as nothing more than the summation of our activities is to reduce ourselves, cheapen ourselves and to withhold from a

fundamental

reality.Slide7

V. Asserting Our Personhood: First

ReasonIndeed it has some truth when we say ‘people are known by their actions’, but not altogether true. Even if we make a comprehensive list of all that we do, the deeds we perform, the thoughts we think, the feelings we possess, we would still fail to capture the ‘being’ that we are. There is ‘

moreness

’

in life, something that is not adequately accounted for, and to account for this

‘

moreness

’

is to posit the reality of

the Human

Person.Slide8

VI. Asserting Our

Personhood: Second ReasonIt is the personhood that gives actions their human importance. When I say “I am cold” I am asserting two things: first, I am asserting the experience of coldness; second, I am asserting the presence of a person. Coldness itself is unimportant, what is important is that it is mine.Slide9

VII. Asserting Our Personhood: Third

ReasonHuman beings are responsible for their behavior. Where does that “responsibility” come from? From personhood. We are not the sum total of all of our actions put end to end, nor do we mutate from one moment to moment, moving from identity to identity as we move from place to place. If we do, we cannot be held responsible for our actions, thus we could say, “That was yesterday’s human act,” “today I am someone different.” The reality is that the action pass but the

agent remains

. Whether we admit it or not, we are responsible for our actions, we are made responsible in as much as we are persons.Slide10

VIII. Layers of the Human Person

Understanding the human person is to look inwards and see for ourselves the layers that bound him together.Slide11

VIII. Layers of the Human PersonSlide12

VIII. Layers of the Human PersonSlide13

VIII. Layers of the Human Person

Who does this ‘looking’? ‘I’ do. The person that I am, the person that we are. But the person that I am, that we are, will always remain the ‘viewer’ and never the ‘viewed’.The eye cannot see and will never see itself, though it can perceive itself through another

eye

.Slide14

IX. The Human Person and the

Human ActTwo perspective or views to fully understand our personhood and our acts. IX.A. As Agents. We can be viewed as Agents, as ‘doers of Human act’ IX.B. As Persons. We can be viewed as Persons, ‘beings that precede, ground and transcend those actions’Slide15

X. Human-as-Agents

As Agents we are ‘objects’ (as in grammar, recipients of an act or that we are the ‘object’ of the human act). As ‘objects’ of the human act, we are able to be analyzed; we become the perfect focus for human knowing (recipient of knowledge). We are also understood as changeable beings, because actions change from one instance to another therefore the doer also changes.Slide16

X. Human-as-Agents

And as we understand ourselves as ‘do-ers’, we exercise our existence by doing. As Agents, we see ourselves as particular instances of ‘humanity’: I can make a given decision, perform a given deed; capable of making the same decision, and perform the same deed.Slide17

XI. Humans-as-Persons

As Persons we are ‘subjects’ (as in we are above and precedes our human act or that we are the ‘subject’ of the human act). We are self-aware; implied in an activity. We are never the direct object of knowledge (not its recipient but its origin). We perdure beyond the lifespan on an individual action. We understand ourselves as ‘be-ers’, thus we exercise our reality by simply being. And we are more than just an instance of human nature: never before real and never reduplicated.Slide18

XII. Distinguishing Persons from

AgentsThe clearest way to distinguish human-as-agents from human-as-persons is from the reality of knowledge and freedom.Slide19

XIII. KnowledgeSlide20

XIII.A. Knowledge:

Human-as-AgentsAs Agents the knowledge that we possess is an evaluative knowledge. Evaluative knowledge is the most objective of all knowledges, though deeply personal and cannot be shared in its entirety.The knowledge that is involved in human act is

‘reflex knowledge’

; it is knowledge that is or can be the

object

of its own reflection within our minds

.Slide21

XIII.A. Knowledge:

Human-as-AgentsSimplification: for this reason we shall call this the ‘head knowledge’, it is simply knowing the facts and owning the facts that we know. We know that we know. A mechanical knowledge. 

Example

: a person knows that it is his obligation to attend Sunday Mass and so he attends knowing

that it

is his obligation and none other.Slide22

XIII.A. Knowledge:

Human-as-PersonsOur personhood cannot be ‘reflected on’ and so in contrast with reflex knowledge, as persons we have ‘non-reflex knowledge’; the knowledge of our core human person.

Simplification

: we shall call this the

‘heart knowledge’

, it is knowledge that brings one into

action; knowing

what a person oath to do

.

Example

: a person knows that it is his obligation to attend Sunday Mass and so he attends not

only because

it is his obligation but that he must attend.Slide23

XIV. FreedomSlide24

XIV. Freedom

Freedom is an essential component of a genuinely human act. But what sort of freedom do consider? Liberum arbitrium – Freedom of Choice. We are confronted with multitudes of options, multitude of open doors, yet upon choosing one all others are closed, thus this freedom is also a limiting freedom.Slide25

XIV.A. Freedom:

Human-as-AgentsThe freedom of the human act of human-as-agent, is a dividing freedom: freedom that takes the experience of life and separates it, divides it into alternatives. This freedom is called categorical freedom.Slide26

XIV.A. Freedom:

Human-as-AgentsExample: a person who is celebrating an anniversary oath to prepare the dinner for the two of them, therefore upon choosing to prepare dinner implies that that person cannot do any other act in the same moment, solely focused on preparing dinner.Slide27

XIV.B. Freedom:

Human-as-PersonsAt the deeper level of being, of personhood, we’ll find that only objects can be categorized, our personhood is not an object therefor cannot be categorized. Inasmuch as we are a ‘being’

, really

the only

free decision to be made is the decision

“to be”

or

“not to be”

.Slide28

XIV.B. Freedom: Human-as-PersonsSlide29

XIV.B. Freedom: Human-as-Persons

I reality and in truth, can we really say ‘no’ to our very being? And in doing so, do we not also say ‘no’ to our own existence. Thus a contradiction of oneself, a denial of reality, opposition to the good, and act

of evil—that

which is against God. And so

“to be”

or

“not to be”

is the same as

“for the good”

or

“for

the evil

,”

“for God”

or

“against God”

.Slide30

XIV.B. Freedom: Human-as-Persons

Since this freedom is above all sorts of categories and instances, we shall understand it as transcendental freedom.Slide31

XV. Summary

Human persons are known through Human acts in which they both direct and is subject to.Whether a person is subject to his actions or directs his actions, both are essentially an act of freedom; freedom of choosing and freedom of defining oneself.A person’s individual acts is never separate from his self-definition; in an intertwined paradox, a person’s individual acts leads to his self-definition, and his self-definition is made manifest in his individual acts.Slide32

Human Person: Knowledge & Freedom

From Timothy O’Connell’s ‘Principles for Catholic Morality’ with personal paraphrasing and commentary.Arranged by Zab lebrun