scholarly journals Not Just a Terminological Difference: Cartesian Substance Dualism vs Thomistic Hylomorphism

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-117
Author(s):  
Jeremy W. Skrzypek
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Substance Dualism ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Richard Swinburne

In Are We Bodies or Souls? Richard Swinburne presents an updated formulation and defense of his dualist theory of the human person. On this theory, human persons are compound substances, composed of both bodies and souls. The soul is the only essential component of the human person, however, and so each of us could, in principle, continue to exist without our bodies, composed of nothing more than our souls. As Swinburne himself points out, his theory of the human person shares many similarities with the hylomorphic theory of the human person espoused by Thomas Aquinas. Swinburne suggests at one point that the differences between the two theories are “almost entirely terminological,” pertaining chiefly to how each understands the term ‘substance’. In this essay, I aim to show that the differences between Swinburne’s Cartesian substance dualism and Thomistic hylomorphism are much more significant than that. I argue, moreover, that the distinctive claims of Thomistic hylomorphism allow it to successfully avoid some key concerns for Swinburne’s view.

The Human Person in Contemporary Philosophy

Philosophy ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 25 (92) ◽  
pp. 3-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick C. Copleston
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Individual Substance ◽  
Rational Nature

I. In the early part of the sixth century a.d. Boethius defined the person as “an individual substance of rational nature” (rationalis naturae individua substantia). This definition, which became classical and was adopted by, for example, St. Thomas Aquinas, obviously implies that every human being is a person, since every human being is (to employ the philosophical terms of Boethius) an individual substance of rational nature. If one cannot be more or less of a human being, so far as “substance” is concerned, one cannot be more or less of a person. One may act as a human person ought not to act or in a way unbefitting a human person; one may even lose the normal use of one's reason; but one does not in this way become depersonalized, in the sense of ceasing to be a person. According to St. Thomas, a disembodied soul is not, strictly speaking, a person, since a disembodied soul is no longer a complete human substance; but every complete human substance is always and necessarily a person.

WHEN DOES A PERSON BEGIN?

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Rudder Baker
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Human Organism ◽  
Substance Dualism

According to the Constitution View of persons, a human person is wholly constituted by (but not identical to) a human organism. This view does justice both to our similarities to other animals and to our uniqueness. As a proponent of the Constitution View, I defend the thesis that the coming-into-existence of a human person is not simply a matter of the coming-into-existence of an organism, even if that organism ultimately comes to constitute a person. Marshalling some support from developmental psychology, I give a broadly materialistic account of the coming-into-existence of a human person. I argue for the metaphysical superiority of the Constitution View to Biological Animalism, Thomistic Animalism, and other forms of Substance Dualism. I conclude by discussing the single implication of the Constitution View for thinking about abortion.

Thomas Aquinas and Natural Inclination in Non-Living Nature

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 211-222
Author(s):  
Steven Baldner ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Good Sense ◽  
Natural Substances ◽  
Natural Inclination ◽  
Good For ◽  
Living Nature ◽  
The Universe

Thomas Aquinas recognizes natural inclination to be present everywhere in nature, and this inclination is always toward what is good both for the natural thing itself and also for the universe as a whole. Thomas’s primary example of natural inclination is found in the four simple elements, which have natural inclinations to their natural places. The inclination of these non-living elements is then the basis for understanding that natural human inclinations are towards goods for the human person and that the whole world shows a universal intelligent ordering toward what is good. I argue, however, that the natural inclination of non-living, natural bodies to ends that are good for the elements themselves makes good sense in Thomas’s cosmology, but not in ours. Natural substances still show finality in our cosmos, but in a more restricted way than what Thomas was able to find.

scholarly journals The Dignity of the Person in the Context of Human Providence

1970 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-118
Author(s):  
Piotr S. Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The World ◽  
The Absolute

Thomas Aquinas understands providence as the reason of directing things to ends (ratio ordinis rerum in finem), and as the execution of that directing, i.e. governance (gubernatio). Thus, providence is one of the fundamental attributes of the person that reveals the person's perfection and dignity. Providence consists in a free and reasonable directing of oneself and the reality subject to oneself in order to actualize potentialities of oneself and of other beings in the context of the ultimate goal of existence. Human providence joins the providence of the Absolute with regard to the world. In spite of its deficiencies human providence reveals the essential dignity of the human person.

scholarly journals The Human Person in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-34
Author(s):  
Tomáš Machula
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas

scholarly journals New Personalistic Philosophy Based on Hans Eduard Hengstenberg’s Interpretation of Max Scheler's System

Verbum Vitae ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Pasterczyk
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Phenomenological Theory ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
Cognition And Emotion ◽  
Metaphysical Theory ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Original Concept

The article discusses the possibility of a new personalistic anthropology rooted in philosophia perennis and modern phenomenology, based on the thoughts of German anthropologist Hans Eduard Hengstenberg. Unlike Wojtyła and Stein, who did not create a new synthesis based on Husserl’s or Scheler’s phenomenology and the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, Hengstenberg was able to create an original concept of the human person involving metaphysical and phenomenological inspirations. It is personalism, based on the phenomenological theory of a spiritual act (Scheler) and the metaphysical theory of constitution (Plato, St. Augustine). According to Hengstenberg, the possibility of a new personalistic philosophy starts with a phenomenological analysis of three basic attitudes of human behavior: consensual to the object of cognition and emotion, contrary to the object of cognition and emotion, and utilitarian. The metaphysical heart of Hengstenberg’s personalism forms the theory of the metaphysical constitution of the spirit, body and personalistic principle.

John Paul II in the Light of Thomas Aquinas

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-51
Author(s):  
Mary Christine Ugobi-Onyemere ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Human Being ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Human Worth

In the quest to understand the meaning of existence, the human being is torn between many choices, exposed to individualism of all forms, especially atheistic perspectives. John Paul II’s personalism in the light of Thomas Aquinas’ personalistic notion of mercy suggests an alternative of meaningful living, co-existence, and holistic transcendence. John Paul’s search for the basis on which individual and social rights may grow and enhance human dignity demonstrate the ontological human worth. Following Aquinas’ model, John Paul shows that human dignity takes precedence over all options and needs preservation. Similarly, Aquinas’ classification of the human person as “rational subsistent” portrays this dignity in “effective mercy” that allows one to thrive in all kinds of existential vicissitudes. This essay explores John Paul’s personalist notion of mercy reflecting Aquinas’ model in the contemporary milieu in view of holistic existence.

The Immortality of Man

1941 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-427
Author(s):  
Jacques Maritain
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Soft Or ◽  
The World

Let us think of the human being, not in an abstract and general way, but in the most concrete possible, the most personal fashion. Let us think of this certain old man we have known for years in the country, —this old farmer with his wrinkled face, his keen eyes which have beheld so many harvests and so many earthly horizons, his long habits of patience and suffering, courage, poverty and noble labor, a man perhaps like those parents of a great living American statesman whose photographs appeared some months ago in a particularly moving copy of a weekly magazine. Or let us think of this certain boy or this girl who are our relatives or our friends, whose everyday life we well know, and whose loved appearance, whose soft or husky voice is enough to rejoice our hearts. Let us remember—remember in our heart—a single gesture of the hand, or the smile in the eyes of one we love. What treasures on earth, what masterpieces of art or of science, could pay for the treasures of life, feeling, freedom and memory, of which this gesture, this smile is the fugitive expression? We perceive intuitively, in an indescribable not inescapable flash, that nothing in the world is more precious than one single human being. I am well aware how many difficult questions come to mind at the same time and I shall come back to these difficulties, but for the present I wish only to keep in mind this simple and decisive intuition, by means of which the incomparable value of the human person is revealed to us. Moreover, St. Thomas Aquinas warns us that the Person is what is noblest and most perfect in the whole of nature.

The Roots of Catholic “Revolution”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr H. Kosicki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
Rerum Novarum ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Just Society

This chapter explores the origins of Catholic discourses of “revolution” in the writings of Thomas Aquinas and his late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century interpreters. Leo XIII (1878–1903) launched his papacy with a promise of “Thomist renewal.” In response, a generation of Catholic thinkers from across Europe developed their own visions of a just society. French philosopher Jacques Maritain and his Polish counterparts, the priests Władysław Korniłowicz and Antoni Szymański, made a passionate case for the “human person” as a concept rooted in their study of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. Their generation confronted powerful currents of integral nationalism in French Action (France) and National Democracy (Poland). Responding to Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, they attempted to break with the integralist currents—with, at best, limited success. These early Catholic “revolutionaries” included Thomists, social Catholics, and Europe’s first Christian Democrats. In the 1930s, as republics collapsed across Europe and both fascist regimes and the nascent Soviet Union grew in power, the generation of laymen who had studied under Korniłowicz, Maritain, and Szymański began looking for more radical solutions. First and foremost among these budding radicals was Emmanuel Mounier, and it was principally to him that subsequent generations turned.

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