To approach the proper understanding of human being, it is worth to note the distinction between the concepts of man and person. Man and Person are essentially different, but they complement each other. In his essay, Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being, Wojtyla presents two types of understanding that we can use to arrive at a clear grasp of these two concepts: the cosmological type and personalistic type. The former “understands the human being as being in the world and engenders human being’s reducibility, also, to the world”. The latter, on the other hand, “understands the human being inwardly” - this personalistic type of understanding the human being is not theantinomy of the cosmological type but its complement.1 Essentially, the approach of the personalistic type is to understand man in his innerness, his unique and irreducible character. Unlike the cosmological type, which classifies man merely as a creature in the world together with other lower beings, the personalistic type brings forth the incomparable and distinct character of man present in his innerness.Wojtyla asserts that the cosmological type of understanding holds the definition of Aristotle of man: homo est animal rationale. He traces the Traditional Aristotelian Anthropology in associating man with the cosmos. He argues, This definition fulfills Aristotle’s requirements for defining the species (human being) through its proximate genus (living being) and the feature that distinguishes the given species in that genus (endowed with reason). At the same time, however, the definition is constructed in such a way that it excludes the possibility of accentuating the irreducible in the human being. Therefore, it implies a belief in the reducibility of the human being to the world.2 Since Aristotle made such contribution in classifying individual creatures, the whole of scientific investigation “moved within the framework of this definition, and consequently, within the context of the belief that the essentially human is basically reducible to the world.”3 In effect, the human is treated merely as an “object, one of the objects in the world to which the human being visibly and physically belongs.”4 From this conception one sheds light the notion of objectivity which also presupposes reducibility of man. Wojtyla stands against the reduction of man to the level of the world and refuses to explain humanity merely in terms of its genus and its specific difference. Man, he asserts, is irreducible, and this irreducibility is identified with the subjectivity of man as a person.5 Thus, it proceeds to the personalistic type of understanding human being. The personalistic type of understanding rests on a. . . belief in the primordial uniqueness of the human being, and thus in the basic irreducibility of the human being to the natural world. This belief stands at the basis of understanding the human being as a person, which has an equally long1 Karol Wojtyla, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being,” in Person and Community: Selected Essays (Catholic Thought from Lublin, Vol. 4), trans. by Theresa Sandok (New York: Lang, 1993), 213. Hereafter cited as SIHB.2 Ibid., 211.3 Ibid.4 Ibid.5 Rolyn B. Fransisco, Karol Wojtyla’s Theory of Participation: Based on his Christian Personalism (Manila: St. Paul’s, 1995), 13.tenure in the history of philosophy; it also accounts today for the growing emphasis on the person as a subject and for the numerous efforts aimed at interpreting the personal subjectivity of the human being.6 Irreducibility signifies that man cannot be merely cognized, that what is essential in him cannot be reduced, but only manifested and revealed (through experience). This belief in irreducibility serves as the foundation for understanding personal subjectivity.7 The inward characterization of man transcending cosmological and corporeal limitations, views man as distinct among the reducible things, as somebody who has his own powers and abilities. It clearly points the unique character of the human being as someone who stands incomparable to other creatures because of his capacity as a personal subject to go beyond his cosmological composition. He is not just a mere “man” which is reducible to the world, but a person, a subject that transcends his corporeality. Wojtyla tries to reconcile the two ways of understanding human being the cosmological and personalistic, with the latter complementing the former. He does it treating man in two opposing ways: 8 both as 1.) subject and 2.) object. Wojtyla further argues that, “the subjectivity of the human person is also something objective.”9 This is made possible through the human experience. In other words, man as a subject, determines outwardly the object of his action. But also along with the determination of the object of his action, the act bounces back to himself as a determined object of his own action. In action, the subject dete
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