Philosophical Approaches to the

Study of Human Existence

according to Western Philosophy
Benito Villareal III
Philosophy of Man
Greek Understanding
of the
Human Person

What is Greek Philosophy?
Etymological Approach
Greek word
"philosophy" (philosophia).
The term "philosophy" is a
compound word,
composed of two parts:
philos (love) and sophia
(wisdom), so that literally it
means love of wisdom. To
be a philosopher is to love
wisdom.
Phenomenological Approach

philosophy was a knowledge of
the way things really were as
opposed to the way things
appeared to be.
What is philosophy of man?
is the study of man, an attempt to
investigate man as person and as
existent being in the world; mans
ultimate nature.
Socrates
(469-399 B.C.)
For him, he sought to discover
the truth and the good life.
He stresses the value of the
soul, in the sense of the
thinking and willing subject,
and he saw clearly the
importance of knowledge, of
true wisdom, if the soul is to
be properly tended.

Knowledge leads the way to
ethical action. To him, knowledge
and virtue are one, in the sense
that the wise man, he who knows
what is right, will also do what is
right.

Plato
(427-347)
Describes the soul as
having three parts, which
he calls reasons, spirit,
and appetite.---kinds of
activity going in a person
concept of soul
Reason, for there is an
awareness of a goal or a
value.
Spirit, which is the drive
toward action responds
to the direction of reason.
Appetite, the desire for the
things of the body.
The soul is most like
the divine and
immortal and
intellectual and
indissoluble and
unchanging, and the
body, on the contrary,
most like the human
and mortal and
multiform and
unintellectual and
dissoluble and ever-
changing.
R
S
A
Mans highest exercise is the
cultivation of the mind and control
of the body; this is the object of the
wise man, the philosopher.















Aristotle

Self-realization is the highest
good attainable by man.
The highest, richest, and
supernatural form of self-
realization stems from the full
cultivation of mans highest
nature, namely, rational.
















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Aristotle
He argues, that man does good and
becomes happy in life by fulfilling his
human nature through the exercise of
his rational faculty in accordance
with virtue.
Reason is his highest nature which, by
moral determination, he ought to
become through the exercise of virtue.
The Romans
Epictetus (c. 50-130) Stoicism
The most influential of all the Stoic
philosophers was born in Heiropolis
(Asia Minor) about the middle of the
1
st
cent. A.D.
Epictetus Stoic view of man-Man can
be enslaved on the outside,
externally (have ones body in
chains) and be free internally (be at
peace with oneself in aloofness from
all pleasure and pain.
Epictetus, Dualism of mind The inner
realm is a realm of freedom. The
realm is a realm of determinism
(things outside of our mind, including
our own bodies, are determined by
factors beyond control). We have
control over our thoughts and our
will, but we do not have control over
external fortune.
Plotinus (205-270 A.D.)
He was one of the leading neo-platonic
philosophers of the Roman Empire.
He was born in Egypt and studied
philosophy at Alexandria (Egypt).
He believed in the source of all
creation called by Him, the One.
Union with the One was the essential
goal of all persons, a unification that
was attainable through meditation
and contemplation (the attainment of
spiritual union).
The Middle Ages: The Theo-
centric Period
St. Augustine (c. 354-430)
He was probably the greatest of all the
Christian philosophers and
theologians. After being educated
both in Carthage and Rome he took a
position in Milan as a professor of
rhetoric. There he came under the
influence of St. Ambrose, bishop of
Milan, who succeeded in leading him
into the Christian fold.
Augustines Doctrine on Original Sin
Original sin is a situation wherein the
entire human race finds itself (massa
damnata), but from which only some
individuals are rescued by an utterly
gratuitous act of Gods mercy. God
desires the salvation of all in Christ;
only those who are justified by faith
and baptism are actually saved.
This doctrine is against Pelagianism,
that infants could not be guilty.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
He was born in Italy of a noble family.
He studied at the famous Abbey of
Monte Cassino then at the University
of Naples. In 1243 he joined the
Dominican Order, much to the
displeasure of his parents.
He wrote the famous books called The
Summa Contra Gentiles and
Summa Theologica.


He believed in the following: Every
agent acts for an end. Every agent
acts for a good. All things are directed
to one end, which is God. Mans
happiness does not consist in wealth,
worldly power, and goods of the body.
Instead, mans ultimate happiness is
God.


For St. Thomas, essence-ultimately
is a manner (way) of existence.
Essence is relatively to existence.
Existence esse is the ultimate
actuality and is also the nature
essence of God. In him alone,
essence and existence are identical.


Early Modern Period















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Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes was born on March 31, 1596 in
France. He was known as a jack of all
trades contributing to the areas of
anatomy, cognitive science, optics,
mathematics and philosophy. He is
considered to be the father of modern
rationalism.
















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Cogito ergo sum I think, therefore, I am.
The I in this claim is not a physical person,
but an immaterial mind. Through reasoning
there is a claim that cannot be doubted.
He sees God as the link between the rational
world of the mind and the mechanical world
of the intellect. The existence of god is
possible by the presence in our minds of
the idea of an all-perfect being.
















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Joseph Butler (1692-1752)
Joseph Butler was an Anglican clergyman.
In his own analysis of human nature, on
which he based his moral theory, that,
accordingly, highest in authority is
conscience. As he put it: Had it strength,
as it has right; had it powers; as he has
manifest authority, (conscience) would
absolutely govern the world.
















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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)















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In 1608 he left Oxford and had the good
fortune of becoming the tutor of the Earl
of Devonshire, William Cavendish.

Born in Malmesbury, Hobbes was
educated at Magdalen Hall, University
of Oxford.
During his travels Hobbes met and discussed
the physical sciences with several leading
thinkers of the time, including Italian
astronomer Galileo and French philosophers
Ren Descartes and Pierre Gassendi.















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Social Contract and the Sovereign
is a democratic organization wherein
participants are considered equal,
expecting the sovereign, who enjoyed
a privileged status, unbound by the
social contract and entirely above the
law, free to do what he will provided he
guarantees that his subject live up to the
terms of the compact that no power
superior to his own displace his
sovereign position.















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Baruch Benedict Spinoza
(1632-1677)















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He was born in Amsterdam in 1632
in a family of Portuguese Jews
who had fled from persecution in
Spain.
















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He was trained in the study of the
Old Testament and the Talmud
and was familiar with the writings
of the Jewish philosopher
Maimonides.















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Spinozas on God
Spinoza offered a strikingly unique
conception of God, in which he identified
God with the whole cosmos.















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His famous formula was Deus sive Natura,
God or nature, this pantheism in which
God or nature is intimately connected with
all things, existing in all things as all things
exist in God and flow directly from God.
















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The Levels of Knowledge
















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At the level of imagination our ideas are
derived from sensation,
The second level of knowledge goes beyond
imagination to reason.
The third and highest level of knowledge is
intuition.
John Locke (1632-1704)















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Locke was an English philosopher (born at
Wrington in Somerset) who studied and
taught at Oxford.

His father was a lawyer and a
parliamentarian who fought against
Charles 1.
















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In 1690, when he was 57 years old, Locke
published two books which were to make
him famous as a philosopher and as a
political theories: An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding and Two Treatise
on Civil Government.















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He regarded the mind of a person at
birth as a tabula rasa, a blank slate
upon which experience imprinted
knowledge, and did not believe in
intuition or theories of innate
conceptions.
Locke also held that all persons are
born good, independent, and equal.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)















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He was born in Geneva on June 28, 1712, and
was raised by an aunt and uncle following the
death of his mother a few days after his birth.



He was apprenticed at the age of 13 to an
engraver, but after three years he ran away
and became secretary and companion to
Madame Louise de Warens, a wealthy and
charitable woman who had a profound
influence on Rousseaus life and writings.















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In 1742 Rousseau went to Paris, where
he earned his living as a music teacher,
music copyist, and political secretary.















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For Rousseau, man is born free and
everywhere he is in chains.
The Nineteenth Century
Max Scheler (1874-1928), German
social and religious philosopher, whose
work reflected the influence of the
phenomenology of his countryman
Edmund Husserl.
Born in Munich, Scheler taught at the
universities of Jena, Munich, and
Cologne. In The Nature of Sympathy
(1913; trans. 1970) he applied Husserl's
method of detailed phenomenological
description to the social emotions that
relate human beings to one another
especially love and hate.

THE EMOTIONAL POWERS IN MAN AND VALUES
According to Scheler, if man is to achieve the total
realization of his ideal qualities and of his full
humanity, all his various emotional powers must
be cultivated and not just one or another of them
1. Identification (Einsfuhlung) is the experience in
which a person identifies his own self with
nature, with another person or with a group, and
feels an emotional unity.
2. Benevolence (Menschenliebe), or a general
love of humanity, regards individuals lovable qua
specimens of the human race.















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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)















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British philosopher, economist, and jurist, who
founded the doctrine of utilitarianism. He was
born in London on February 15, 1748. A
prodigy, he was reading serious treatises at the
age of three, playing the violin at age five, and
studying Latin and French at age six.















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He entered the University of Oxford at 12,
studied law, and was admitted to the bar;
however, he did not practice. Instead he
worked on a thorough reform of the legal
system and on a general theory of law and
morality, publishing short works on aspects of
his thought.















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In 1789 he became well known for his
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation.















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Benthams hedonism known as utilitarianism
furnished a basis for social reform.
He held that nature has placed mankind under
the governance of two sovereign masters, pain
and pleasure















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Any act or institution of government must justify
itself through its utility that is, its contribution to
the greatest happiness of the greatest
number.
Utility is Benthams norm of morality.















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Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)















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Born in Danzig (now Gdask, Poland), February 22,
1788, Schopenhauer was educated at the
universities of Gttingen, Berlin, and Jena. He then
settled in Frankfurt am Main, where he led a solitary
life and became deeply involved in the study of
Buddhist and Hindu philosophies and mysticism.
He was also influenced by the ideas of the German
Dominican theologian, mystic, and eclectic
philosopher Meister Eckhart, the German
theosophist and mystic Jakob Boehme, and the
scholars of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.















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For Schopenhauer the tragedy of life arises from
the nature of the will, which constantly urges the
individual toward the satisfaction of successive
goals, none of which can provide permanent
satisfaction for the infinite activity of the life
force, or will.
Thus, the will inevitably leads a person to pain,
suffering, and death and into an endless cycle of
birth, death, and rebirth, and the activity of the will
can only be brought to an end through an attitude of
resignation, in which the reason governs the will to
the extent that striving ceases.
Arthur Schopenhauer in The World as Will and
Idea (1819) argued that existence is fundamentally
irrational and an expression of a blind,
meaningless forcethe human will, which
encompasses the will to live, the will to reproduce,
and so forth.
Will, however, entails continuous striving and
results in disappointment and suffering.
Schopenhauer offered two avenues of escape
from irrational will: through the contemplation
of art, which enables one to endure the tragedy
of life, and through the renunciation of will and of
the striving for happiness.















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John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
British philosopher-economist. He had a great
impact on 19th-century British thought, not only in
philosophy and economics but also in the areas of
political science, logic, and ethics
Mills moral philosophy is called utilitarianism.
Its fundamental moral philosophy is that we
should always perform those acts, which will
bring the most happiness or, failing that, the
least unhappiness to the most people.
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Danish religious philosopher, whose
concern with individual existence, choice,
and commitment profoundly influenced
modern theology and philosophy,
especially existentialism.
Kierkegaard was a thinker who exerted
an influence on the existentialist mode of
thought.
Keirkegaards work has been
philosophically and theologically influential.
As he would put it: the only absolute
either/ or the choice between good and
evil. Freedom is the way to heaven.
The only valid act is one of choice.
For Kierkegaard, subjective truth is
individual truth, a call to faith.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818,
into a comfortably middle-class family in the
city of Trier, Germany. He was educated at
the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Jena.
In 1842, shortly after contributing his first
article to the Cologne newspaper Rheinische
Zeitung, Marx became editor of the paper. His
writings in the Rheinische Zeitung criticizing
contemporary political and social conditions
embroiled him in controversy with the
authorities, and in 1843 Marx was compelled
to resign his editorial post, and soon
afterward the Rheinische Zeitung was forced
to discontinue publication.
Marx was greatly influenced by the works
of the great German idealist,
G. W. F. Hegel.
For Marx, religion is the opium of the
people. Opium in the sense that is eases
suffering; a spiritual intoxication that
prevents us from seeing the reality.
Religion intoxicates the mind of man and
prevents man from viewing life as it is.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-19000),
German philosopher, poet, and classical
philologist, who was one of the most provocative
and influential thinkers of the 19th century.
Friederich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born in
Rcken, Prussia. His father, a Lutheran
minister, died when Nietzsche was five, and
Nietzsche was raised by his mother in a
home that included his grandmother, two
aunts, and a sister.
He studied classical philology at the
universities of Bonn and Leipzig and was
appointed professor of classical philology at
the University of Basel at the age of 24. Ill
health (he was plagued throughout his life
by poor eyesight and migraine headaches)
forced his retirement in 1879.
Ten years later he suffered a mental
breakdown from which he never
recovered. He died in Weimar in 1900.
As far ethics is concerned, Nietzsche
appears at first glance to be a moralist.

He entitled a book Beyond Good and Evil
and consequently advocated trans-
valuation of values.
In Nietzsches Hermeneutics of Suspicion,
the very core is the death of God.
In Nietzsches book
Thus Spake Zarathusra (1891), he insist
that Superman as the only man who can
live in the world without the illusion of God
since there is no limit to what humankind
might set itself to attain.

For Nietzsche, superman is the meaning
of the earth and the meaning of man.
For man is something that must be
overcome.
Good LUCK to everyone.