TO: REV. FR. EDILBERTO H. JARAPA Ph.L. FR: JUNEL MARIO M.

LUMAGUI RE: REFLECTION PAPER IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF MAN DT: FEBRUARY 25, 2012 MORE THAN A THING She is just a toy and he is simply a machine; they are merely entertainments and others only puppets; they are mine, possessions they basically are, source of revenue and pleasure of desiresThey are mine, these things I possess! Along with the advances in culture, is the vibrant death of humanity. The name person is constantly buried alive by injustices and abuses, hatred and discrimination, pleasure and egoism and of every evil eye on the name human person. Persons, in direct sense, are merely reduced to material entities and slaughtered by objectification. We truly, essentially and actually bear the name PERSON. From the beginning of the existence of humanity, the name PERSON has been implanted inseparably into our very being. Yet, essences change effortlessly just because the world is so imaginative. The visions of reality occur subjectively different and extensively far from truth. HUMAN PERSONS are disregarded of their essential name HUMAN PERSON. They are identified with objects relatively to the way others eyes and mind would perceive and regard them. Immanuel Kant, a prominent thinker of the German Period of Enlightenment, sees the human person essentially as both matter and spirit. The material feature of man is a realm of necessity while his spiritual side is the realm of freedom. During the German occupation, many Jews were regarded as merely material objects and thus denying their spiritual elevation. Their life is based more on utility, which during those dark epochs, is indeed a pre requisite of life. The Germans treated these persons horribly not as persons. Their manner of thought is derived

from the Marxism, having completely eliminated the freedom of man, as these Germans clutched into their hands the life of the Jews, by reducing them to their materiality.1 Delving deeper into who really man is, another prominent thinker and lover of anthropological value is Max Scheler. He enlightens the minds of every man that the human being is free to develop himself, to shape that infinitely plastic segment of his nature through the guidance and direction of spirit. Man is strictly indeed not just a material reality but also a spirit inseparable from human freedom. Furthermore, Scheler's view of spirit as pure actuality and openness to the world led him to emphasize the human beings' task of development as he is constituted by freedom. The human being is not a thing, not a being at rest, but rather a direction of movement, a possible direction of development.2 Much more, the Christian view of human person gives us the human persons image endowed with dignity as human person. Persons must be treated as persons. Esse must be identified as it is so as the essence must receive its due. Further and more firmly, our philosopher pope, Blessed John Paul II pointed out one of mans structure i.e. self possession (as against merely possession by others) through which human beings experience freedom of the will, which expresses itself in each free act. Being endowed with a free will, the human being is able to grow in freedom. Lastly, he presented man as an objective entity in an objective world. Each human being is constituted by his or her inner self, which is absolutely exceptional because it is completely irreducible to anything else in the world. Thus, man is truly a human person. He is irreducible to the world, he is just more than a thing we can think of him, a HUMAN PERSON.

Cf. de Torre, Jospeh M. Christian Philosophy, Manila: Vera-Reyes, Inc. 1980, 160. Cf. Weiss, Dennis M. Scheler and Philosophical Anthropology, Pennsylvania. 13.