MAN: A

BODY,
HIS

Valuing
ones
Body.

 It is impossible to talk of human

existence which is detached from a bodily
existence for human existence always
implies a bodily existence.
Mans body is basically mans
expression of his presence to his fellowmen
in the world.
In this case man does not have
a body, but man is a body. In
fact, man is his body.

WHO AM I???
Man in his body
therefore, is the
immediate
datum w/c gives
man a primary
consciousness of
his own
existence.

 As previously
mentioned, human
nature has inseparable
levels w/s are;
SOMATIC
BEHAVIORAL and
ATTITUDINAL.
In view of this fact,
our discussion on man
as a body should not be
misunderstood as an
inquiry w/c is exclusive
only in the somatic
level of human nature.

In other words, our purpose in

studying man as a body is to
discuss the whole human person
with an emphasis on the body.

Our inquiry of human body

will be presented under
three perspectives;
FINITUDE
SUBJECTIVITY and
ENCOUNTER.

1.) The HUMAN BODY as

FINITUDE..
Human existence as a bodily
existence is a finite existence.
Mans bodily existence is finite
since mans thrownness into a
body explains the limitation of
man.
Man, obviously has many
limitations; one of them can
primarily be located in the

Thus, mans
existence in the
body proves the
finitude of man
since mans
presence in the
world is primarily a
Through his presence.
body, man is put into
physical
the world. This thrownness limits
man in terms of time, space, and
eternal (bodily) existence since
man is a being towards death.

When we speak of
limitation, it has its twofold
dimension:
First, mans bodily existence is confined to
a particular beginning, w/c is birth and an
inevitable end death.
Second, mans bodily existence cannot
occur in two places at the same time. At a
particular time, man is situated in a concrete
place and not simultaneously in another
place; in other words, through his body mans
existence is limited and incomplete.

Further, aside from

positing the idea of
the finitude (in the
context of time,
space and death) of
human body, it is
also considered as
finite in the context
of its accidental
constituents like
accidental
constituents
shape,
height,
can be summed up in
weight
color
terms and
of race,
culture and
among others.
civilization.

It is obviously true that the Easterners

bodies are distinctively different from
the Westerners. In the eastern setting,
the bodies of the Japanese are
different from the bodies of the
Taiwanese, the Indonesians from the
Singaporeans, etc.
At any rate, the point that we are
trying to drive home is that mans
shape, height, weight and color also
manifest the limitation of mans
existence from the standpoint of his
body.

BUT

ay, w/ the advancement of scien

technology, the human body is
nipulated extensively. There is w
called the
ENTIFIC TRANSFORMATION.

ff.lifts
oning
rious kinds of surgery

To consider the goodness or

badness of these bodily
manipulations, however, cannot
be tackled in the Philosophy of
the Human Person since such an
undertaking falls under ethics or
moral philosophy.
Most of the time we insist that
all these bodily transformation are
good in the sense that they mean
progress and development of
mans consciousness.
However, all these scientific
bodily manipulations only prove
mans incapability to accept the

2.) The Human

Body as
Subjectivity
The Human Body cannot
be dissociated from man
as a subject. Mans body
is not anyone elses body,
because it is embedded in
mans personhood or
subjectivity. In other
words, I am my body; my
body is inseparably
identified to me. And my
body permeates the

Since man is a subject and since

mans body is infused in his
subjectivity, it necessarily follows
that mans body is not reducible to
become
an object-body but a subject-body.
This is clearly emphasized by

Merleau-Ponty says that

the human body cannot
be considered as the
object of the having.
For him, having a body
is totally different from
having a house, a table,
a chair, a pair of shoes,
etc.
These havings for
him shows the
EXTERIORITY of their
being OBJECTS; while
mans having a body
shows the INTERIORITY
of man himself.

 This interiority can be

seen in the virtue of
the fact that mans
body cannot be
dislodged from mans
self-consciousness.
Whereas the objects of
mans external having
are disposables, the
object of mans
internal having is not.
In the end, he is
telling us that the
human body is not

Further, since the human

body is not a thing in the
world, it is not proper that
it must be studied as an
object of experimentation.
All these sciences treat the
human body not as a
SUBJECT-BODY but as an
OBJECT-BODY.
Because the human body
is not an instrument but an
expression of human
existence, then, the human
body assubjectivity
refers to the wholeness of
man; thus, includes the
RATIONAL, AFFECTIVE, and

3.) The Human Body as a

Gesture of ENCOUNTER
The human body is not an instrument of mans
encounter of others-both entities and persons-but
an expression of man as a conscious self.
Human encounter cannot occur w/out the body,
the one embodied subject enters into the other
embodied subject.

 This encounter of
two subjects enable
them to conceal each
others worlds. My
encounter of another
person makes me part
of the meaning of the
world of this person
and vice-versa. So, in
my encounter w/ the
world of students, I
become open to their
world and these
students to me. This
can only happen

On the degrees of relationship, ( I-IT, IHE/SHE, I-THOU of Martin Buber,a Jewish

philosopherbest known for his
philosophy of dialogue) it is in the I-THOU that
fits in authentic human encounter.
The reason is that ("IThou" or "IYou") is a
relationship that stresses the mutual, holistic
existence of two beings. It is a concrete
encounter, because these beings meet one
another in their authentic existence, without
any qualification or objectification of one
another. Even imagination and ideas do not
play a role in this relation. In an IThou
encounter, infinity and universality are made
actual (rather than being merely concepts)

REMEMBER!!!

Criticism may not be

agreeable, but it i
s necessary. It fulf
ils the same functio
n as pain in the hum
an body. It calls at
tention to an unheal
thy state of things.

Reported by: Sr.

Nerlyn L. Silao