Name : Mohammed Yassine Labib

Mid-Term Evaluation PHI 2301

The Philosophical Aspects of Human Being

Kant considered the question What is a Human being? In his book the Logic as a

central question around which all the philosophy turns about, and in which the answer to it may

be too hard to find. Hence, in this philosophical introduction, I am going to answer this question

from different levels. Lets start by examining the human being from an physical or organismic

level. Once we inspect human being at the organismic perspective, we notice the process of

regulations based on the self-regulation of procedures in the creature as a steady essential

structure. As we move "up" in the human body, we meet the world of the intellect, of

personality. By the side of the organismic level, the human being is portion of the natural inter-

relation of phenomena and follows its need, but at the personal level the nature of the human

being makes him a part of the whole. In other words, the human being cannot live solely but in

groups.

Now, by decomposing the Aquinass mathematical equation Man=Soul+Body we

derive that a human being is a human body, specifically, a sensitive, rational , living body, and

that a human being contains of a soul which make the equation balanced. In order to answer the

question of the relationship between body and soul, we need first to compare and contrast them.

There are particularly two major concepts concerning the connection of these two. The first one

is mainly claimed by Aristotle. He said that the soul as the shape of the body is engaged with the

body itself. In addition to that, he said that the aim of the soul is to make the body able to move
Name : Mohammed Yassine Labib
Mid-Term Evaluation PHI 2301

and to distinguish sensible matters. It makes the body as a part from the whole, which is in other

words, a unified part. Thus, we can conclude from the Aristotle perception that it is impossible to

separate the body and the soul since they are correlated as a matter and shape. Also, we can say

that the soul is incapable of having more existence after the bodily death. The insinuation of this

is that the soul is earthly or mortal.

On the other hand, the second major conception is the one that emphasizes about the fact

that soul can be separated from the body. This idea takes into consideration a living thing as

being structured of two major principles, which are the body and soul. The foremost proponents

of this perspective are Plato and Pythagoras. Pythagoras was taught the rebirth of the soul. He

claimed that once a person died, he believed that the soul chose another body and it transformed

into some other sorts of living things. Which means that any sort of thing comes into existence is

automatically born again in the life cycles and that nothing is being completely new. Therefore,

the embodied soul abandons the dying bodies and embraces others that are new. Furthermore, the

Platos theory which is mainly about the fact that the soul is a prisoner of the body , and that the

goal of the philosophy is to make the soul free from the intricacy of the body, that is, to facilitate

the road for soul to reach its highest perfection (Lisska 1977, 102). Therefore, this conception

indicates that the soul can be separated from the body. Moreover, according to George

Galloway, some cultures greatly pledge to this theory and even detained that the soul could

detach itself from the body to roam at large in the world, and hence one would wake up where he

lay down but in the interval his/her soul would have been abroad on strange adventures (1960,
Name : Mohammed Yassine Labib
Mid-Term Evaluation PHI 2301

p93). This claim insists also on the idea that the immortality of the soul and the likelihood of its

existing as a spirit since its providence would most possibly be intended to the ontological sort of

spirits.

However, the soul links two major faculties or as it is known in philosophy the Higher

Faculties in this part of my essay I am going to talk about the two important faculties which are

the human intellect and the human will, or more specifically their object .The intellect is ability

for distinguishing things in an immaterial and general way. It is the ability for distinguishing

essences and cores. Further, it is the power and ability to think reason, and judge. And,

subsequently, the extrinsic necessity of the intellect against the senses it exists we say that the

main-object of the intellect in this lifetime of a being is the cores of material things, the cores

which can be detected and sensed which is Truth. The will is the strong wish ability of the

human being soul. It is the ability of intellectual strong desire. It is the ability for going away, or

after. Will hence is exactly termed by St. T Aquinas as Rational Appetency. And so as a result

the will is the ability for tempting to Understood Good. Therefore, the main object of the will is

Good.

Since the beginning of the world, since Eve and Adam were created, Cain committed the

first crime by killing his brother Abel. Thus, Cain is symbolizes as the kind human being, while

Abel symbolizes the bad human being. Thus, we can say that the human nature consists of two

sides: the good and the bad side. However, if we move backward to Cain and Abel story, we see

that Abel regretted the fact of killing his brother. Hence, the truth beyond the human nature is as

a good one because every one of us regrets anything bad he or she has ever done. Furthermore,
Name : Mohammed Yassine Labib
Mid-Term Evaluation PHI 2301

the history shows that the nature of the human being has another side which is living with the

others. The human being cannot live only by him/herself and need to be with somebody else

because of so many things such as the natural disasters, diseases, danger and so on. Having a

social life, not necessary knowing thousands of people, makes the person feel secure and safe

which is considered as an advantage of course. Because when you know that you are not alone,

you know that once something bad happen to you, you will not go through all of it alone;

someone is going to be right there for you to help you. The last side of the human nature is

freedom. All human beings are born free and equal in pride and rights, and this consists freedom

of movement, freedom of thought and freedom of expression. Freedom of movement means the

fact that everyone has the right to move and resides wherever but within the borders of the

country. While freedom of thought means that everyone has the right to change believes either in

public or alone without being punished to doing so. However, freedom of expression means that

everyone has the right to express his opinion freely. Also, everyone has the right to hold an

opinion without meddling and to receive and impart an idea via any sort of media regardless of

the boarders.

However, in this last part of my essay a will discuss freedom and its relation with

equality. Freedom, this word seems obvious and can be defined as the ability to live freely and to

do whatever we want to do while equality is when all people regardless the social classes has the

same amount of rights and treatments. To me freedom and equality are not comparable but one

completes the other. Personally, I view fairness, equality, and freedom to exist on a triangle; the

angles of the triangle must always add to 180 degrees. To have a greater amount of freedom, you

must have less fairness and equality. To have a greater amount of fairness, you must have less
Name : Mohammed Yassine Labib
Mid-Term Evaluation PHI 2301

freedom and equality. To have a greater amount of equality, you must have less freedom and

fairness.

References:

- Lisska, J.A. 1977. Philosophy Matters. Columbia: Charles E. Merril Publishing

Company.

- Galloway, G. 1960. The Philosophy of Religion. Edinburgh: T & T. Clark.