Philosophy 102

1. Philosophy of the Human Person JOEL C. PORRAS FACULTY ATENEO DE ZAMBOANGA UNIVERSITY

43. IMPORTANT STEPS IN THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD

50. It is the Phenomenological Transcendental Reduction that Edmund Husserl came up with the main insight of Phenomenology : “Intentionality of consciousness

51. Intentionality of consciousness means that consciousness is intentional, that consciousness is always consciousness of something other than consciousness itself. There is no object without a subject, and no subject without an object. The subject-of-the-object is called noesis ; the object-for-the-subject is called noema. There is no world without man, and no man without a world.

52. Gabriel Marcel uses a Phenomenological Method less technical than Husserl. He calls it Secondary Reflection

60. Reflection is rooted inexperience, but there are two kinds: Primary and secondary. Primary Reflection breaks the unity of experience and is the foundation of scientific knowledge. This is equivalent to the Natural Attitude in Husserl. Secondary Reflection recuperates the unity of original experience. It does not go against the data of primary reflection but refuses to accept it as final.

61. Example#1: Who am I? Primary Reflection: I am so and so…,born on this day…, in such a place…, with height and weight…etc.. items on the I.D. card. Secondary Reflection: I am more than the items above.. I enter into my inner core. Example#2: My Body Primary Reflection: a body is like other bodies.., detached from the “I” , the body examined by a doctor, studied by medical students, or the body sold by the prostitute. Secondary Reflection : I am my body, I feel the pain when my dentist pulls my tooth. I feel a terrible feeling when I sell my body( prostitute).

118. LOVE Introductory Note: There are many kinds of Love ( Love of Friendship, Marital Love..etc.). Our Phenomenology of Love here is not a description of a particular kind of Love but of love in general between persons

119. We begin our phenomenology of love by first using epoche, braketing the popular notion of Love as a pleasant sensation, as something one “ falls into “. 1. According to Erich Fromn in his book, “ The Art of Loving” , Love is an art that requires knowledge and effort. 2. Erich Fromn cites three reasons for this wrong popular notion of Love as “Falling in Love”.

120. 3.The first reason is that now a days the problem is stressed on “being loved” rather than “on loving”. Note the proliferation of books on “how to win friends and influence people”, “how to be attractive”. 4.The second reason is that nowadays the problem is focused on the “object” rather than the “Faculty”. Nowadays people think that to love is easy but finding the right person to love or be loved is difficult. So love is reduced to sales and follow the fad of the times.

121. 5.The third reason is the confusion between the initial state of “falling-in-love” and the “permanent state of being-in-love”.

122. 6.The experience of love starts from the experience of “Loneliness” 6.1. Loneliness is one of the basic experience of the human being because of “self awareness”.

124. 9. Some answers to this problem are the following: A. Orgiastic States: trance induced by drugs, rituals, sexual orgasm, alcohol etc. The characteristic of this states are: violent, intense, involving the total personality, but transitory and periodical. They are addictive

126. 10. All the above are not interpersonal. 11. Love is the answer of Loneliness, but Love can be immature. 12.Immature love is symbiotic union where the persons lose their individuality. The following are immature forms of Love: A. Biological: the pregnant mother and the fetus: both live together.

128. 13. Loneliness ends when the loving encounter begins, when the person finds or is found by another. 14. The loving encounter is a meeting of persons. 15. The meeting of persons involves an “I-Thou communication”. 16. This meeting of persons happens when two persons are free to be themselves yet choose to share themselves.

129. 18. This meeting of persons is not simply a bumping into each other, nor an exchange of pleasant remarks, although this can be an embodiments of a deeper meaning. 19. This meeting of persons can happen in groups of common commitments although social groups can impose roles.

131. 23. I can ignore the causal remark of the other as a sign for the meeting. 24. My self-centeredness makes it difficult for me to understand the other’s appeal to me. 25. I need more than eyes to see the reality of the other, to see his goodness and value.

132. 26. I need an attitude that has broken away from self –preoccupation. If I am absorbed in myself, I will not understand the other’s appeal but will just excuse myself. 27.I must get out of the role I am accustomed to play in my daily life to understand the other’s appeal.

134. 30. Once the qualities ceases to be attractive, then love ceases. 31. Also, the person is more than his facticity. 32. The appeal is not any explicit request, because the other may go away dissatisfied, because my heart was not in fulfillment of his request. 33. The other’s appeal is HIMSELF.

135. 34. The call of the other is his subjectivity: “be with me, participate in my subjectivity”. The other person is himself a request. 35. The appeal of the other makes it possible for me to liberate myself from myself. 36. The appeal reveals to me an entirely new dimension of existence: that myself realization maybe a destiny-for-you. “ Because of you , I understand the meaninglessness of my egoism”.

136. 37. What is my reply to the other’s appeal? It is not the outpouring of my qualities to the other. 38. Compatibility of Qualities is not necessary in love. 39. Neither is my reply the satisfaction of his request or desire. 40. Sometimes refusal to grant his request or desire maybe the way of loving him if granting it will do him harm.

137. 41 . My reply of the other’s appeal is MYSELF. 42. As a subject, the other is free to give meaning and new dimension to his life. 43. His appeal then to me is an invitation to will his subjectivity, to consent to his freedom, to accept, support and share it.

139. 47. Willing the happiness of the other implies I have an awareness, a personal knowledge of his destiny. 48.1 Love is not only saying but doing, since the other person is not a disembodied subject, to love him implies that I will his bodily being, that I care for his body, his world, his total well being.

140. 49. My Love will open possibilities for him but also close others, those that will hamper his self realization. 50. I can be mistaken in what I think will make other happy or I may impose own concept of happiness so Love requires RESPECT for the OTHERNESS of the other. 51. This respect the other necessitates PATIENCE, because the rhythm of growth of the other maybe different from mine.

141. 52. Patience is harmonizing my rhythm with the other’s, like melody or an orchestra. 53. Is love concerned only with the other and not at all myself? No, because in love I am concerned also with myself. 54. This does not mean to be loved but in the sense that in love, I place the limitless trust in the other, thus delivering myself to Him.

142. 55. This TRUST, this defenselessness, is a CALL upon the love of the beloved, to accept my offer of myself. 56. The appeal of the lover to the beloved is not to will to draw advantage from the affection for the other. 57. The appeal of the lover to the beloved is not compelling, dominating or possessing the other. Love wants the other’s freedom in that the other himself choose this safe way and avoid that dangerous path.

143. 58. There is indeed that element of SACRIFICE in loving the other which is often (mis)understood as loss of self. 59. I renounce motive of promoting myself, abandoning my egoism. 60. But this does not mean loss of self. On the contrary, in loving the other I need to love myself, and in loving the other I come to fulfill myself. 61. I need to love myself first in loving the other because in loving I offer myself as a GIFT to the other, so the gift has to be valuable to me first, otherwise I am giving a garbage to the other.

144. 62. This loving myself takes the form of being-loved: I am loved by the other. 63. I come to fulfill myself in loving the other because when my gift of self is accepted, the value is confirmed by the beloved, and I experience the joy of giving in the process I also receive. 64. Thus, there exist in loving the other the desire to be loved in return. But this desire is never a motive in loving the other.

145. The primary motive in LOVE is the YOU-FOR-WHOM-I-CARE. 65. The “you” is not the “he” or “she” I talk about. 66. The “you” is not just another self. ( “not just a rose among the roses” Little Prince) 67. The you is discovered by the lover himself, not with the eyes nor with the mind but with the heart.(“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eyes” Little Prince.) “I love you because you are beautiful and lovable, and you are beautiful and lovable because you are you”.

146. 68. Since the you is another subjectivity, He is free to accept or reject my offer of self. Love is a risk. 69. What if the other does not reciprocate my love? 70. The rejection of the beloved can be a test of how authentic my love is. 71. If I persist in loving the other in spite of the pain, then my love is truly selfless. 72. The experience of rejection can be an opportunity for me to examine myself, for self-reparation, for emptying myself , allowing room for development.

147. 73. when love is reciprocated, love becomes fruitful, Love becomes creative. 74. Loving although it presupposes knowing, it is different from knowing. 75. In knowing I let reality be, but in loving I will the other’s free self realization, I somehow “make” the other be. 76. In any encounter, there is a “making” of the other: e.g. the teacher makes the student a student; the student makes the teacher a teacher.

148. 77. In loving encounter, the making of the other is not causalistic because love involves two freedoms. 78. To understand the creativity of love, let us do a phenomenology of being-loved. 79. When I am loved, I experience a feeling of joy and sense of security. 80. I feel joy because I am accepted as myself and a value to the lover. I feel free to be just myself and what I can become. 81. I feel secure because the other participates in my subjectivitry, I no longer walk alone in the world.

149. 82. So, What is created in love is “we”. 83. Together with the “we” is also a “new-world”—our world, one world. “ My life is monotonous, he said, I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All chickens are just alike. And , in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine in my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground

150. Yours will call me, like music, out of burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat-fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have the hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat….” The Fox to the Little Prince

151. 84. Again, the creative influence of the lover is not causalistic because the beloved must freely accept the offer of the lover. 85. Only when the beloved says “yes” will the love becomes fruitful,: e.g. the teacher’s love is fruitful only when student accepts freely the education. 86. The “we” created in love is a union of persons and their worlds. Therefore, they do not lose their identities. 87. In the union of things, the elements lose their identities.

152. 88. In love, a paradox exists: The “I” becomes more an “I” and the “YOU” becomes more of Himself. 89. We can clarify and deepen this paradox in love by describing the nature of love as a “Gift of Self”. 90. A gift is “something” I cause another to posses which hitherto I posses myself, a giver. 91. The other has no strict right to own the gift.

153. 92. The giving is disinterested, unconditional: There is no “string attached” to the giving. I do not givein order to get something in return; otherwise the giving is an exchange or selling. 93. In love, the giving is not a giving up in the sense of being deprived of something because the self is not a thing that when given no longer belongs to the giver but to the given. 94 Nor the giving in love coming from a marketing character because I do not give in order to get something in return.

154. 95. The giving in love is also not of the virtuous character. I dot give in order to feel good. 96. Why do I give myself in love? Because I expereince a certain bounty, richness, value in me. 97. I can express this disinterested giving of self to the other as other in the giving of sex, material things…. But when I do so, the thing becomes unique because it has become a concrete but limited embodiment of myself.

155. 98. To give myself means to give my will, my ideas, my feelings, my experiences to the other--- all that is alive in me. 99. Why do I love this particular other? Because you are lovable, you are lovable because you are you. 100. The value of the other is his being unique self. Therefore, since every person is unique, everyone is lovable.

156. 101. If I am capable of loving this particular person for what he is, I am also capable of loving the others for what they are. 102. From this nature of Love as disinterested giving of oneself to the other as other, we can derive other essential characteristics of love.

157. 103. Love is Historical because the other is a concrete particular person with history. 104. I do not love abstract Humanity, but concrete persons. 105. I do not love ideal persons, nor do I love in order to change or improve the other. e.g the friends of Jesus, His Apostles, were not ideal people.

159. When friendship is breaking down, we want to reconcile, we recall the the things we did together: “You are beautiful, but you are empty, he went on. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passer-by would think that my rose looked just you—the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than the hundrds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; Because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars(except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose….” The Little Prince in passing by a garden of roses.

160. 107. In Love, I do not surrender my liberty to the other, I do not become a slave to the other. The wife’s submission to her husband is done in freedom in recognition of his position in the family. 108. Rather, in Love two freedoms become one and each becomes more free.

162. 112. Love is Total because the person in love is indivisible. I do not say, “you are my friend only insofar as you are my colleague”. 113. Love is Eternal because love is not given only for a limited period of time. 114. Love is Sacred because persons in love are valuable in themselves.