As an embodied subject, the human person has inherent limitations: he has facticity, he is a spatial-temporal being, and his body is intermediary. The presence of inherent limitations imposed by being an embodied subject may make us think that our life is very restricting. However, it is also these limitations that make our lives more interesting and challenging because these offer us the possibility of overcoming or transcending them.

4. HUMAN PERSON
Human is a biological term, which refers to a bipedal
primate of the species homo sapiens sapiens.
Person is a moral term, which refers to a being who
is part of our moral community and deserves moral
consideration.

8. Legal Criterion
You are a person if you are a being susceptible of
rights and obligations.
According to law, there are two kinds of persons:
natural and juridical.
Juridical persons are artificial beings susceptible of
rights and obligations or of being the subject of legal
relations such as the State and corporations.

9. Legal Criterion
Natural persons are human beings (Rabuya, 2006).
Under Article 5 of P.D. 603 (The Child and Youth
Welfare Code), civil personality of a natural person
shall commence from the time of his conception, for
all purposes favorable to him, subject to the
requirements of Article 41 of the New Civil Code of
the Philippines (NCCP).

10. Legal Criterion
The fetus is considered born if it is alive at the time it
is completely delivered from the mother's womb.
However, if the fetus had an intra-uterine life of less
than 7 months, it is not deemed born if it dies within
24 hours after its complete delivery (Art. 41, NCCP).
Civil personality is extinguished by death (Art. 42,
paragraph 1, NCCP).

16. Genetic Criterion
You are a person if you
have human DNA and
you’re not a person if
you don’t.

17. Genetic Criterion
You are a person if you
have human DNA and
you’re not a person if
you don’t.

18. Cognitive Criteria
You are a person if you have the following traits:
1. consciousness;
2. reasoning;
3. self-motivated activity;
4. the capacity to communicate;
5. and self-awareness.

27. Social Criterion
You are a person whenever society recognizes you
as a person, or whenever someone cares about you.

31. Sentient Criterion
You are a person if have sentience or the ability to
feel pleasure and pain.

39. Other Views on Personhood
The Gradient Theory of personhood posits that
personhood comes in degrees, and you can have
more or less of it.
Some think that personhood is a right that you forfeit
when you violate the laws of society in a major way.

40. "Crime against humanity?
In the first place, I’d like
to be frank with you: Are
they humans? What is
your definition of a
human being?“

47. THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN PERSON
The nature of the human person can be approached
different ways: in terms of the mind-body problem, of
consciousness, or of the identity of the self.

48. The Problem of Identity of the Self
You will learn more about this in college, in the
general education course “Understanding the Self”.

49. The Mind-Body Problem
The mind-body problem asks what the relation is
between the physical (the realm of atoms, neurons,
nerves, brain, matter, etc.) and the mental (the realm
of beliefs, emotions, sensations, pains, etc).

50. The human person is
an immortal soul.

51. Plato
Plato believed our bodies belong to the physical
realm: They change, they’re imperfect, and they die.
Our souls, however, belong to the ideal realm: They
are unchanging and immortal, surviving the death of
the body.

52. Plato
Plato defines the soul as having three components:
1. Reason - our divine essence that enables us to
think deeply
2. Physical Appetite - our basic biological needs
3. Spirit or Passion - our basic emotions

54. The human person
is a composite of
body and soul.

55. Aristotle
For Aristotle, the soul is the form of the body, and the
soul and the body cannot be separated into discreet
existences.
The human person is the entirety of his body and
soul and can only exist as a unity of both: an
ensouled body.

56. The human person is
a thinking thing.

57. Rene Descartes
For Descartes, the soul is a nonmaterial, immortal,
conscious, thinking being while the physical body is a
material, mortal, nonthinking entity.
The human person is a “thinking thing,” a dynamic
identity that engages in all of those mental operations
we associate with being a human self.

58. Rene Descartes
For Descartes, your soul and your body are
independent of one another, and each can exist and
function without the other.

65. The human person
is an embodied
subject.

66. Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty simply dismissed the dualism of Plato
and Descartes as a product of philosophical
misunderstanding.

67. Merleau-Ponty
Merleau-Ponty simply dismissed the dualism of Plato
and Descartes as a product of philosophical
misunderstanding.
“I live in my body. I am a lived body.”
The human person as “living body” is a natural
synthesis of mind and biology: an embodied subject.

68. The Problem of Consciousness
Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware
especially of something within oneself.

69. The Problem of Consciousness
German philosopher Edmund Husserl conceptualized
consciousness as a consciousness of something.
Consciousness (a subject) transcends (surpasses)
itself to reach an object.
Sartre defined consciousness as the knowing being
in his capacity as being.

70. The human person
is a transcendent
being-for-itself.

71. Sartre
Sartre distinguished between two types of beings: the
being-in-itself and the being-for-itself.

72. Being-in-Itself Being-for-Itself
An object A subject
Without consciousness Is consciousness itself
Dissolved in identity Lacks identity
Lacks transcendence Transcendent
No possibilities of becoming
something else
Must perpetually find its
identity through its
possibilities

73. Sartre
The human person is therefore a transcendent being-
in-itself who has to appropriate a goal.
 A human person is thus a being of action.

74. LIMITATIONS OF THE HUMAN PERSON
Embodiment refers to the bodily aspects of human
subjectivity: the biological and physical presence of
our body as a necessary precondition for the
experience of emotion, language, thought, and social
interaction (Gordon, 2013).

75. LIMITATIONS OF THE HUMAN PERSON
As an embodied subject, the human person has
inherent limitations: he has facticity, he is a spatial-
temporal being, and his body is intermediary.

80. Is the ability to change, be dynamic, and continually
redefining one’s self which works with our facticity to
create change.
TRANSCENDENCE

82. Limitations of the Human Person
as an Embodied Spirit
1. Facticity
2. Spatial-Temporal Being
3. The Body as Intermediary

83. 1. Facticity
Refers to the things
in our life that are
already given

84. 1. Facticity
Refers to the things
in our life that are
already given

85. 1. Facticity
Refers to the things in our life that are already given
Refers to all the details that surround us in the
present: our environment, our language, our past
decisions, our past and present relationships, and
even our future death.

87. 1. Facticity
At times we use our facticity as an excuse for our
difficulties and failures.

91. 2. Spatial-temporal Being
As spatial beings, we are limited by our bodies to be
present in two or more places at the same time.

95. 2. Spatial-temporal Being
As temporal beings, our most obvious limitation is our
finitude – our finite quality or state.

97. 2. Spatial-temporal Being
We are limited by space (spatial) and time
(temporal).
Our spatial-temporal situation sets our preconditions
of understanding.

102. 2. Spatial-temporal Being
We are more concerned with the past and/or future
that is why we never appreciate the present.

111. 2. Spatial-temporal Being
We cannot be at the place where we want to be at
an instant.

117. 3. The Body as Intermediary
Intermediary means acting as a mediator (Merriam-
Webster).

118. 3. The Body as Intermediary
Intermediary means acting as a mediator (Merriam-
Webster).
Our body serves as an intermediary between us and
the physical world.

119. 3. The Body as Intermediary
Intermediary means acting as a mediator (Merriam-
Webster).
Our body serves as an intermediary between us and
the physical world.
Our body limits our experience of the world to our
world.

120. 3. The Body as Intermediary
This imposes limitations concerning communication
and expression.

135. QUESTIONS?

138. [1] Biology Online. Human Definition and Examples.
https://www.biologyonline.com/dictionary/human [accessed November 14,
2020]
[2] Calano, M.J. et. Al. (2016). Philosophizing and Being Human. Quezon
City: Sibs Publishing House, Inc.
[3] Caraan, A. (2016). Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person.
Makati City: DIWA Learning Systems Inc.
[4] John Chaffee. (2016). The Philosopher’s Way: A Text with Readings.
Boston: Pearson
[5] Consciousness. https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/consciousness [accessed November 18, 2020]
[6] CrashCourse. (July 25, 2016). Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy
#21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxM9BZeRrUI [accessed
November 14, 2020]

139. [7] Susan Gordon (ed.). (2013). Neurophenomenology and Its Applications to
Psychology. New York: Springer
[8] Intermediary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intermediary
[accessed November 18, 2020]
[9] National Human Genome Research Institute. Deoxyribonucleic Acid
(DNA). https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Deoxyribonucleic-Acid
[accessed November 14, 2020]
[10] Dr. David L. Perry. (Dec 11, 2001). Ethics and Personhood.
https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/bioethics/resources/ethics-and-
personhood [accessed November 14, 2020]
[11] Rabuya, E. (2006). Persons and Family Relations. Quezon City: Rex
Printing Company, Inc.
[12] RSBI. (2016). Civil Code of the Philippines. Quezon City: Rex Book Store
[13] Sioco and Vinzons. (2016). Introduction of the Philosophy of the Human
Person. Quezon City: Vibal Group, Inc.