The human person has a definitional difficulty. One definition of the human person will be one sided. The human person reflects the philosophical analysis of manifold reciprocal relations and fundamental wholeness. The human person is a unique rational being who is very complex from the domain unified understanding of his nature. It constitutes a rational element and characterized by the social, physical, metaphysical, psychological, existential, global, dialogical, moral, and African plane. The human person is deeply rooted in the fundamental existential question of who he is, what he does governed by its rational ability, cognitive capacity and inter-subjective relation. The human person is both a spiritual and a material being, that is, he is characterized by soul and body. The human person is characterized by the stylization of rational conduct and common good or collective interests. We shall critically examine the psychological, ontological, global, dialogical dimension of the human person, this philosophical elucidation of these dimensions is not exhaustive, the human person can also be viewed from socio-political, moral religious and existential dimension.
The article shows the lost paradigms of human nature. It is also a sign of concern for respect for human dignity. The source of reflection is the thought written in the latest catechetical documents and the teaching of the Second Vatican council. The aim of the article is to recall theoretical assumptions important in catechetical ministry and to research for practical guidelines for their implementation. This goal is done through three points. The first is a reference to the philosophical and theological foundations that determine human dignity. The next step is to consolidate catechetical paradigms that express concern for the right view of man and his dignity. The third element is research for specific actions to promote human dignity. All considerations are interdisciplinary. His main thoughts and conclusions are the space of theological sciences. However, the issue raised requires the correlation of theological content with philosophical premises.
The article deals with the problem of the importance of Karol Wojtyła’s philosophy. He is shown as a thinker interested in the achievements of many philosophers throughout history, like Aristotle, St. Augustin, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant or Max Scheler. However, he is also presented as someone who undertook his own way of philosophizing focused on the human person. Therefore the article underlines Wojtyła’s dialogue with other philosophers at the time when he was developing his own philosophical standpoint. Moreover, his philosophy is shown as a discipline associated with real problems rather than with meta-philosophical ones. The article also discusses Wojtyła’s philosophy of the human person and how it can deal with anti-personalist tendencies in contemporary philosophy. Finally, the author considers some difficulties associated with the philosophy of Wojtyła and how it should be developed in the future.
Bioethics is a young, dynamically developing science. Its main goal is - in the opinion of some - to establish ethical limits for medical interventions; others think that it should guide the development of medicine itself. Irrespectively, the practical character of presented findings depends mostly on the anthropological assumptions. This study presents some main trends in the anthropological discussion in bioethics, and their consequences for medicine.
PL
Bioetyka jest młodą, dynamicznie rozwijającą się nauką. Jej głównym celem jest - zdaniem niektórych - ustalenia granic etycznych dla interwencji medycznych; inni uważają, że powinnna ona prowadzić do rozwoju samej medycyny. Niezależnie, praktyczny charakter prezentowanych wyników zależy głównie od antropologicznych założeń. W opracowaniu przedstawiono niektóre główne trendy w antropologicznej dyskusji w bioetyce oraz ich konsekwencje dla medycyny.
This article concerns the way of philosophizing by Karol Wojtyła; a special emphasis is put on the relation between philosophical anthropology and ethics in his thought. The Polish thinker was active in both of them and it seems initially that ethics was his main area of expertise. However, a close examination of select works of Wojtyła confirms that philosophical anthropology was his main field. He was interested in how the person is revealed in his acts, including moral acts. Thus, the person as such remains at the center of attention and reflection of the thinker and his involvement in ethics was to demonstrate how that person matures on the dynamic level. Karol Wojtyła is pre-eminently a philosopher of the human person.
The paper presents a general outline of the author’s relational sociology,showing it to be different from other relational sociologies, which are,in fact, figurational, transactional, or purely communicative. Relational sociologyis conceived as a way of observing and thinking that starts from the assumption that the problems of society are generated by social relationsand aims to understand, and if possible, solve them, not purely on the basisof individual or voluntary actions, nor conversely, purely through collectiveor structural ones, but via new configurations of social relations. Thesocial is relational in essence. Social facts can be understood and explained by assuming that “in the beginning (of any social fact there) is the relation.”Ultimately, this approach points to the possibility of highlighting thoserelational processes that can better realize the humanity of social agentsand give them, as relational subjects, the opportunity to achieve a goodlife in a society that is becoming increasingly complex as the processes of globalization proceed.
Paper has three parts. Te first part gives the reasons for need of liberty external-social of science guaranteed by law. Speaks about it Declaration of human rights in 1948 and social teaching of Church – including documents of Vaticanum II and Jean Paul II, which indicate of subjectivity and dignity of man as person. The second part of this paper based on personalism demonstrates that science can harmoniously develop only in the climate of internal-moral freedom of scientist. The purpose of science is revelation of truth, but effects of scientific investigations – in particular of biological-medical sciences – influence on the life of human individuals and societies. Conscious and free activity of man has ethical character, therefore liberty of science ought to be responsible liberty and then to be subordinated the ethical criterions. Science cannot ignore values and rules moral. The third part of paper stated that good of human person and common good of society demand juridical limitations of scientific inquiries’ liberty. Liberty is man’s right but also its obligation to respect of human person’s fundamental rights – including right to life, integrality and dignity. Therefore internal-ethical and external-juridical limitations are necessary of scientist’s liberty.
The status of the child in the context of contemporary socio-cultural processes that are reflected in the market is the main issue discussed in this paper. It may be surprising to concentrate on children and the market, while the sphere of economic exchange is the scene of such actions as work, production and consumption which seem to be reserved to adult members of the society. Although there are issues – such as kids advertisement and its consequences, and children’s participation in the process of buying – that are discussed, the range of problems that deserve consideration is far wider. The questions analyzed in this paper concentrate on two aspects. First of them is the influence of the market sphere on the life of children as members of the families and the society. The question that should be asked here is whether a child can and should be regarded as any other consumer, or should be protected – e.g. against controversial marketing practices. The second group of problems is connected with the objective way of treating children which leads to formation of something that can be called the markets of children”. Both these sets of issues are the stimulus to analyze the way of understanding a child and its status in the society. It is also done through taking into consideration such issues as current concepts of socialization, antipedagogy, infantilisation and adultisation that influence and shape market processes. Finally the analysis undertaken in this paper leads to an attempt to answer the question whether in the current context children are seen as persons or resources.
This paper is intended to consider whether human vulnerability as manifested in the situation of being ill can be accepted as a profound human limitation in life that contributes to a deeper understanding of what it ultimately means to be human—to learn not only to live with suffering but to live through it. Also a further horizon, which is looked at more closely from philosophical and theological points of view, is drawn by understanding one’s own being as gift.
This article examines Karol Wojtyła’s concept of participation and alienation by starting the discussion on his personalist anthropology, leading to his structure of the human community. Wojtyła’s personalist anthropology reveals to us the nature of the human person as a unique, unrepeatable personal subjectivity. According to Wojtyła, the human act takes us to the knowledge and understanding of the person’s interiority and simultaneously allows us to have a glimpse of the human person’s specific complexity. Then, I analyze the correlation between person-action in living and acting with other persons. Here, I attempt to demonstrate that if our existence has to acquire any human significance, it is that, rather than alienation, which makes such a unique experience possible. Finally, I explored the impact of the failure to grasp a genuine understanding of the human person and the capacity to participate in the humanity of other persons, setting a profound sense of alienation that dehumanizes us to our very core. This paper aims to answer the following questions: Given the actions that can be performed ‘together with others,’ how does the person’s acting with others affect the dynamic correlation of the action with the person? What is the significance of this participation for the personalistic value of the action? Why is alienation antithetical to participation?
A lie is incompatible with the objective state of affairs, meaning that it is an assertion divergent from the truth. It is an act of deliberately bringing someone into error; at its core is the offender’s free decision to express thoughts contrary to his own conviction on a given matter – the liar in fact says what is untrue not because he does not know the truth, but because someone to whom he transmits this message will accept as truth what is not. And he does so with the knowledge and intention of convincing someone that he knows the truth. However a lie is considered by some to be an ordinary means of communication, we can conclude that this is not so. There is no doubt that lying is an example of some kind of anti-communication. It is in fact an action which on the surface resembles an act of communication. Due to its nature, which is not to build up a community, but the realization of self-serving, unauthorized purposes, it does not deserve to be called a communicative action.
It is generally considered that the principle of individuation is matter and that this doctrine comes from Aristotle. This paper will examine how medieval philosophers approached this problem and we will show that they offered various theories by which the principle of individuation could be matter, form, combination of matter and form, accidents or some special principle such as haecceitas, which we find in the school of J. Duns Scotus. We will assess how all these theories resolve the problem only partially, and thus indicate the need of a single principle of individuation. This becomes particularly relevant in the context of the metaphysical study of a human person. Our research will show that it is actus essendi, which is not only the act of all acts, but also the principle of all principles.
A confessor is not required to have special knowledge about bioethical issues. In these cases the confessor needs to discern the internal dispositions of the penitent; i.e., their repentance, conversion and the readiness to change. The minister of reconciliation needs to keep in mind that this sacrament was established for men and women who are sinners, and for this reason the confessor should receive penitents and assume their good will to be reconciled with the merciful God who is willing to be born in a humble heart. The attack on human life touches the very core of the human person. In this area there are no light or irrelevant issues and, therefore, the confessor dealing with this problem is in contact with life and death. God is always first in the sacrament of reconciliation. Let every confessor keep in mind that the confessional is not a torture chamber but the place where the penitent experiences God’s mercy and where they receive an invitation to change and to do good. The penitent should always hear the truth and receive the assurance of salvific love which, in a mysterious way, is at work in every human being independently of their shortcomings and shortfalls.
This paper is the eulogy which was delivered by Dr. Peter A. Redpath (Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas) on the occasion of the funeral of Ronald “Max” Weismann (1936–2017) on 06 May 2017 at St. John Chrysostom Church, Chicago, USA.
The author shows that in the contemporary crisis of Christianity fits crisis of questioning his “claim to the truth.” Skepticism about the truth that bringing Christianity is supported by the achievements of modern science, which intends to overcome thinking about the existence of man and his relationship to God. To contribute two more factors: critical exegesis and critique of classical metaphysics. In the context of these risks, the Author attempts to read the explanatory signs of the times, pointing to the issue of religious truth through the prism of the uniqueness and universality of Jesus Christ. The position to be adopted in relation to truth, Author believes for crucial, because it gives rise to this, to talk about the true religion. In this way he desires to make a challenge for Christian thought associated with the current growth and spread of religious movements.
PL
Autor pragnie wykazać, że we współczesny kryzys chrześcijaństwa wpisuje się kryzys związany z kwestionowaniem jego roszczenia do prawdy. Sceptycyzm wobec prawdy, którą niesie chrześcijaństwo, jest wspierany przez osiągnięcia współczesnej nauki, która zamierza przezwyciężyć dotychczasowe myślenie na temat egzystencji człowieka i jego relacji do Boga. Do tego przyczyniają się jeszcze dwa czynniki, jakimi są: krytyczna egzegeza oraz krytyka klasycznej metafizyki. W kontekście wymienionych zagrożeń, Autor podejmuje próbę wyjaśniającego odczytywania znaków czasu, wskazując na kwestię prawdy religijnej przez pryzmat wyjątkowości i powszechności Jezusa Chrystusa. Stanowisko, które przyjmuje Autor w odniesieniu do prawdy, uważa za decydujące, ponieważ daje ono podstawę do tego, aby mówić o prawdziwej religii. W ten sposób pragnie sformułować wyzwanie dla myśli chrześcijańskiej związane z obecnym wzrostem i rozprzestrzenianiem się ruchów religijnych.
In the Christian life the baptism is a possible breakthrough because it introduces the human person in a radically new reality. Although the gifts of God are irrevocable, the human person is invited to cooperate with God’s grace in becoming holy. The life of Christians today it is not always a visible testimony of the grace of baptism and obligations arising from it. The human person, if based solely on his or hers own merits and pursuing only own ideas, many times betrays the grace of baptism. This is precisely the existential situation of the human person of today. In this article, we aim to analyze the existential situation of modernity and to present a vision of a radical transformation, which can be experienced, when the human person receives fully the spiritual gifts through the sacraments of Christian initiation.
PL
W życiu człowieka wierzącego chrzest stanowi moment przełomowy, ponieważ wprowadza człowieka w radykalnie nową rzeczywistość. Od strony Boga dary łaski są nieodwołalne, jednakże człowiek jest zaproszony do współpracy z łaską, by mógł się uświęcić. Życie współczesnych chrześcijan, ludzi ochrzczonych, nie zawsze jest świadectwem pełnego przyjęcia łaski chrztu świętego i wypływających z niej zobowiązań. Człowiek, gdy opiera się wyłącznie na własnych siłach oraz realizuje własne pomysły na życie, wielekroć sprzeniewierza się łasce chrztu świętego. Taka jest sytuacja egzystencjalna współczesnego człowieka. W niniejszym artykule stawiamy sobie za cel przeanalizowanie sytuacji egzystencjalnej współczesnego człowieka ochrzczonego oraz ukazanie radykalnej przemiany, której może doświadczyć, otwierając się w pełni na dary duchowe wynikające z przyjęcia sakramentów wtajemniczenia chrześcijańskiego.
The concept of a person has gone through several stages of development in the history of thought. In the classical tradition, a person is considered to be a substance. In modernity, John Locke brought forward the notion that social existence and consciousness are the most salient properties of a person, which brought about a possibility of renouncing one’s personhood because of a lack of some perceivable and observable traits. This is why in a Christian anthropology there is such an emphasis on personalism, which from the very beginning of the twentieth century has been opposed to the treatment of people as obscure elements of matter, or elements be manipulated unquestioningly. In this paper we have indicated some elements of anthropology that demonstrate important limitation of any attempt at explaining away the mystery of being a human person.
PL
Pojęcie osoby przeszło wiele zmian w historii myśli ludzkiej. W tradycji klasycznej osoba jest uważana za substancję. W oświeceniu John Locke przedstawił pogląd, że egzystencja społeczna i świadomość są najważniejszymi właściwościami osoby, co spowodowało możliwość utracenia godności osobowej z powodu braku pewnych dostrzegalnych i możliwych do zaobserwowania cech. Właśnie dlatego w antropologii chrześcijańskiej kładzie się tak duży nacisk na personalizm, który od samego początku stanowi przeciwwagę wobec traktowania ludzi li tylko jako elementów materii, którymi można dowolnie manipulować. W niniejszym artykule przedstawimy taką charakterystykę antropologii, która ukazuje istotne ograniczenie wszelkich prób wyjaśnienia tajemnicy bycia człowiekiem.
The article deals with the analysis of human and citizen’s rights, which became apparent in human culture, because just with culture is bound together everything directed to self-preservation, reproduction and improvement of human person and is embodied both in objects of material and spiritual world and in social life norms.
Niniejsza praca jest recenzją książki "Ulepszanie człowieka. Perspektywa filozoficzna" (pod. red. G. Hołuba i P. Duchlińskiego, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii Ignatianum w Krakowie, Kraków 2018). Zasadniczym celem tekstu jest krytyczny przegląd wybranych problemów oraz poglądów zamieszczonych w tej publikacji. Artykuł zawiera dopowiedzenia, komentarze, polemiki, jak również uwagi o charakterze metodologicznym, opierające się na rodzimej oraz anglojęzycznej literaturze przedmiotu.
PL
This work is a review of the book "Human Enhancement. Philosophical Perspective" (edited by G. Hołub and P. Duchliński, Jesuit University Ignatianum Press in Krakow, Krakow 2018). The main purpose of the text is a critical review of selected problems and views that are included in this publication. The article contains additions, comments, and polemics, as well as methodological remarks based on the literature in Polish and English.
Celem artykułu jest zwrócenie uwagi na kwestię całościowego (holistycznego) podejścia do osoby ludzkiej. Z szerokiego spektrum właściwego dla tej problematyki uwzględniono następujące trzy obszary życia: (1) duchowość, (2) komunikację społeczną, (3) troskę o zdrowie. Odwołano się do uznawanych, ze względu na oddziaływanie, za szczególnie istotne dla wskazanej tematyki danych, w tym do Biblii, nauczania Kościoła katolickiego, informacji medialnych jako związanych z podejściem do człowieka informacji powiązanych z szeroko rozumianą troską o zdrowie i z podejściem do osoby ludzkiej. Dane te zostały podzielone i przedstawione z uwzględnieniem obszaru duchowości, komunikacji międzyosobowej i troski o zdrowie. Wskazano na potrzebę coraz pełniejszego uwzględniania holistycznego podejścia do osoby ludzkiej jako warunku dobrej komunikacji i skutecznej troski o zdrowie.
EN
The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the question of a holistic approach to the human person. From the wide range proper to this issue there are presented the following three fundamental areas of human life: 1) spirituality, 2) communication, 3) care relative to health. The article is based on the sources recognized as particularly importantinfluential for the specified themes such: the Bible, the teaching of the Catholic Church, the information about the media’s reports related to human being, the information related to the concern for the health and the approach to the human person. These data were divided and presented with regard to the area of the spirituality, the interpersonal communication and the area related to the concern for health. It is necessary to take ever more fully into account a holistic approach to the human person as the condition of good communication and effective care of health.
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