Philosophy of Man - chapter 7: the phenomenon of man

1. The Phenomenon
of Man
Chapt
er 7

2. phenomenon
1. a fact or situation that is observed to exist or
happen, especially one whose cause or
explanation is in question.
"glaciers are unique and interesting natural
phenomena"
2. PHILOSOPHY - the object of a person's
perception; what the senses or the mind notice.

3. Jean Telemond in
“Man is the only significant link
between the physical order and the
spiritual one. Without man the universe
is a howling wasteland contemplated
by an unseen Deity…”
Man is a very special phenomenon. He
is a being who knows, he is also a being
who knows that he knows.

4. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• Born in France in 1881
• A Jesuit priest and a
paleontologist
• One of those involved in
the discovery of the
Peking Man in 1929
• Wrote the masterpiece
“The Phenomenon of
Man”

5. Here he reminds us of two things:
1. That nothing exists in pure
isolation
2.Science, philosophy, and
theology tend to converge the
nearer they try to explain the
whole man

6. The author’s
evolutionary approach
1.PRE-LIFE
2.LIFE
3.THOUGHT
4.FUTURE

7. Certain terms used by Teilhard:
1. NOOGENESIS – gradual evolution of the mind
2. COSMOGENESIS – gradual evolution of the cosmos
3. HOMINIZATION – denotes the process by which the
original proto-human stock becomes (and is still
becoming) more truly human.
4. NOOSPHERE – sphere of the mind
5. CONVERGENCE – denotes the tendency of mankind,
during its evolution, to superpose centripetal on
centrifugal trends.
6. COMPLEXIFICATION – this includes the genesis of
increasingly elaborate organization during cosmogenesis

8. • Sense of SPACIAL
IMMENSITY
• Sense of DEPTH
• Sense of NUMBER
• Sense of PROPORTION
• Sense of QUALITY
• Sense of MOVEMENT
• Sense of the ORGANIC
For man to discover man and take his
measure, a whole series of senses
have been necessary.

9. In Teilhard’s Foreward entitled “Seeing”
Seeing. We might say that the whole of
life lies in that verb – if not ultimately, at
least essentially. Fuller being is fuller
union…But let us emphasize one point:
union increases through an increase in
consciousness, that is to say, in
vision…To see or to perish is the very
condition laid upon everything that
makes up the universe, by reason of the
mysterious gifts of existence. And this, in
superior measure, is man’s condition.