Subjectivity In Anthropology

b.3. Subjectivity and Irreducibility Indeed, man has appeared in our analysis as the subject, and it is he as the subject that is experiencing himself. Nonetheless, the issue on the subjectivity of man lies on the delineation of philosophy with its different views and perspectives. Wojtyła is convinced that the line of demarcation between the subjectivistic (idealistic) and objectivistic (realistic) views in anthropology and ethics must break down and is in fact breaking down on the basis of the experience of the human being. The traditional-Aristotelian and Thomistic concept of man as a rational animal (óor homo est animal rationale) is a cosmological type approach to man. The objectivity here lies on person as a being that may be reduced as a mere object in the world. On the other hand, Wojtyła acknowledges that of Descartes discovery that man is “I think” of conscious cognitive shows as something irreducible. What Descartes thus discovered, or perhaps recovered, and what gave modern philosophy its special impetus, was the subjectivity, the interiority, of the human person. This is what Wojtyła in a sense adopted with the Cartesian philosophy. However, he is critical with the post-Cartesian thinking which absolutize the subjective element of the human person. This personalistic type understands man inwardly, in its interiority. Also, this type of understanding man is “not the antimony of the cosmological type but its complement.” For this reason, subjectivity is, then, a kind of synonym for the irreducible in the human …show more content…
Karol Wojtyła’s philosophy. Man is a person. (Człowiek jest osobą.) However, to have full grasp of his philosophy it is indeed essential to discuss his influences together with their own concept of the human person. The succeeding chapter shall discuss the phenomenological experience of the human