Man According to Some Western

Philosophers
For me, Man is

Let us find out, which western

philosophers has the same
identification or understanding
regarding What is MAN
 Overview:
People may differ in many aspects? They
may differ in size, color of skin, race,
social economic status and many more.
Despite these differences, they are all
human.
Man is considered a unique area of study since it
take man as the subject as well as the object of
knowledge. (Martin Buber)
 Definition of MAN
According to Thales
Man born from animals quickly find
nourishment for themselves: man alone needs a
lengthily period of sucking, so that had he been
originally as he is now, he could never have
survived.
According to Socrates
Mans body comes from his world matter but his
reason comes from the Universal Reason or Mind
of the world. He is more concerned of man as a
moral beings.
 According to Plato
Man is a knower and a possessor of an important
soul.
According to Aristotle
He viewed that man as the rational and a social
animal. To him, man is not the center of the
universe. He is only a part of it.
According to Augustine
Man is a great mystery. And the ultimate felicity
of man is in the contemplation of truth which
properly belongs to man alone. And in the
contemplation of wisdom, is God
 According to Thomas Aquinas
Man is a creature of God. According to him, man
is a composite of body and soul. The soul has the
elements of reason and will.
According to Mirandola
According to his thesis (on the Dignity of Man),
man make himself what he wishes to be. And also
according to him man is a three-chief zone of the
created universe; the immaterial angels, the
material but incorruptible heavenly bodies and the
corruptible earthly body.
 According to Teilhard de Chardin
Man is the only significant link between physical
order and spiritual one.
Without man, the universe will be a howling
wasteland contemplated by a unseen deity.
In addition, he said that man is a special
phenomenon. He is a being who knows and knows
what he knows.
In his masterpiece the Phenomenon of Man,
Chardin reconcile Christian theology with the scientific
theory of evolution, and he said the man is necessary
to discover man and take his measures.
 The Philosophy of Man
1. A sense of spatial immensity, in greatness and smallness,
disarticulating and spacing out, within a sphere of
indefinite radius, the orbits of the objects which press
round us.
2. A sense of depth , pushing laboriously through endless
series and measureless distance of time, which a sort of
sluggishness of mind tends continually to condense for us
in the slightest change in the universe.
3. A sense of number, discovering and grasping unflinchingly
the bewildering multitude of material or living elements in
the slightest change in the universe.
4. A sense of proportion, realizing the best we can, the
difference and dimension, the atom form the nebula, the
infinitesimal from the immense;
5. A sense of equality, or of novelty, enabling us to
distinguish in nature certain absolute stage of perfection
and growth, without upsetting the physical unity of the
world.
6. A sense of movement, making man capable of perceiving
the irresistible developments hidden in extreme slowness,
the extreme agitation beneath a veil of immobility; the
ability of making man capable of moving, thereby
breaking the monotony of repetitions of the same things.
7. A sense of organic, discovering physical links and
structural unity under the superficial juxtaposition of
succession and collectivities.
 According to Jean Paul Sartre and Gabriel
Marcel
Man is is a being-in-the-world
According to Gabriel Marcel the Mystery of being
illustrate his belief in the world if immediate experiences
and concrete data which are rich and mysterious. He
recognizes the problems of today to be primary
philosophical
According to Martin Heideger
Man is a being there part of this world and part of the
next. Everything around him is bounded by the human
situation and he is surrounded by other men and beyond
this, nothing no Heaven, no God. He believes that man
is responsible not only for himself but for all men, as well
 According to Engelber VanCrooneburg (Introduction of
Philosophy he gave the following thoughts about
man.
1. Man is raised above the abyss of nothingness
2. He lives on the dividing line between the part and the present and
the future;
3. He is embodied
4. He is above all subhuman and
5. He rise above lower levels of his existence and teaches consciously
beyond himself into being of which he partakes and becomes
more than he is.

He added the following:

1. Man has the experience of his own existence. It is only through mans
own being that he comes in contact in the reality of the world. The
experience of the self is the experience of ones own existence
2. To exist is to stand out. He is a being-in-the-world. Through mans
existence, he is raised above the abyss of his nothingness. He lives
in the demarcation line between the past and present. He is
fundamentally related to his body.
3. Man is related to his body. If man says I have my body it does
not mean that the I is equal to his body. He is more than his
body.
4. Mean is a being in the situation. Many elements of his situations
of are not his making. No man has ever chosen who his parents
would be. However, there are elements in his life where he can
make choices, he can make friends, he can develop interest, etc.
5. Man is more than his life, he lice his life. He becomes master of
his life. His vocation is the perfection of life and personality to
the full measure to which has been destined.
6. Man possesses his own values, his authentic growth take palce in
the here and how of the concrete situation. The values he has are
on the subject level and thus, enhances his own existence.
7. Man is creative. He is a Homo viator and as such, needs to
transform his life to a continuous growth to authenticity. He has
the ability to adapt to a constantly changing environment.
8. Man can experience pain and suffering. But, he can also find
meaning of them. Man is subject to pain and suffering. He has to
accept these pain and sufferings and attempts to find its
significance in his life.
9. Man is a being unto death. Death gets its full meaning only in
relation to life of which it is the end. Mans view of life influences
his understanding of death.
10. Man experience joy and pain. As accepted by philosophers, the
unfolding of the human personality is a mixture of joy and pain.
Life is a combination of successes and failures, joy and sorrow.
This die to the nature of man - a result of his material and
spiritual beings.
11. Man has super-temporal dimensions. Man knows that with the
emergence of his spirit, his real self will find highest expression.
Thank You!
For listening and cooperating!