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CHAPTER - VIII THE HUMAN PERSON AND CULTURE

Introduction.
- Philosophically, any given culture implies human beings and how the existence of
human beings produces the existence of cultures.
- In this chapter, our discourse will focus on the relation of the human being and culture.
• This conversation prepares us to understand two things:
 the role of the human individual in the culture to which he belongs,
 And also the problem of value of culture itself.
- So we will first consider the animal dimension of the human being. Second the human
being as intelligent and active being. Third human being as volitive and free.

The Human being as an Animal.


- The human being is an animal, in the sense of his/her being physically endowed of
biological and experiential activities.
• Human being has biological and psychical needs, s/he satisfies them in some
way by means of direct behavior from psychical experiential acts.
• Her/his psychical activity is complex and flexible, subjected to perceptive,
imaginative, affective learning... which render the behavior in more determined
and proportionate to the natural environment in satisfying his needs.

- The learning process of the human being plays a very important role, in as much as
the human specie is less specialized as s/he occupies a determined environment.
• This would be under the organic aspect than psychical, and exposing
herself/himself for longer years under her/his parental care.

- The human specie is a very social specie.


• This is evidenced by her/his proper need of the long parental care.
• The learning process of the human being greatly involves his/her relation to the
behaviors of the older members and "the experienced" of the group.
• However, by analogy, this is also true to non-human animal specie.
 For example: a monkey transmits to all the members of the group some
new ways of behaving itself "invented" by an individual and
perpetuating itself so of a little "tradition" proper to a group.

- The flexibility and indeterminacy of the human-animal, the role of apprehension, and
that of the social life constitute the background on which s/he should know
himself/herself.
• Therefore, from the intellective-volitive activity of the human being, grounded
on her/his experiential or psychical and biological activities, emerges culture and
cultures.

The Incarnate Human Spirit

- Our study in philosophy of man tells us that the human person is not only an animal, a
being endowed with the biological and experiential psychical.
• Although, the fact is that it is in the context of such activities (biological and
experiential) that he/she understands and formulates concepts to answer the
question: what is it? (quid sit), confronted with her/his natural environment.
 However, the cognitive process does not stop there.
• The human being continues to answer with judgment the question: is it so? (an
sit)?
 This is accomplished by verifying its concepts, gathering the evidence
that grounds the answer.
 From new experiences so also new concepts and new judgments as
further new questions arise.
 This is because the pure desire to know does not stop, dealing
with being as it is. (i.e. excess of being (Levinas), “saturated
phenomenon” (Jean Luc Marion), “multiple multiplicities” (Alain
Badiou)
 And also because s/he is opened to the infinite, extending
herself/himself as the subject that knows and judges and to his
situation of being conditioned by an environment.
 Occasioned by such situation emerges also the first knowledge of
good of order and of value, which can successively extend to
himself/herself finally taking the whole reality as ontologically
good.
 From such knowledge emanates the volitive tendencies towards
things as far as they are intellectually known:
 Acts which tends towards things as function of the subject
but also to enjoy the things as they are in themselves-
love-desire (concupiscible) and disinterested love (of
benevolence).
 Finally, given the nature of knowledge from which they rise
taking the reality as finite and contingent, these volitive acts are
free of arbitrary freedom or of choice.

- The above activities always account the human-animal.


• It also accounts that the existence of the human being implies the emergence of
culture as behaviour and as world.
 The intellective activity animated by the pure desire to know,
beginning from the data of experience will bring the human individual
to initiate the knowledge of the natural environment, which surrounds
it, the knowledge of self, knowledge of others as a group.
 This knowledge is filled with difficulty.
 Its limits are due to the experience, and not representative of
nature, of its environment, of the men of each group.
 Knowledge gives coherence and unity to the various aspects of
the cognitive and also provides ultimate explanations.
 This is expressed in symbolic images, in behaviours, and in
objects considered as symbols and signs.
 Here, begins the direct experiential knowledge, of the great
unitary theories: social, cosmic, philosophical, religious type.

- The human being lives in a group and true knowledge, presumed to be acquired by the
individual, becomes accessible in some way to the other members of the group.
• N.B. From the beginning such knowledge, having acquired a direction and a
diverse configuration from group to group, would be the cause of the diversity of
the given individuals and of their distribution from group to group (especially in
a small community).
• It would be finally the cause of the intervention of freedom in directing the
knowledge.

- Disinterested knowledge: Therefore, through the very nature of human being - a social
animal given the intellective activity - the disinterested knowledge becomes largely the
common patrimony of the group.
• It expresses itself and incarnates in their behaviours and in their environment
(which they become cultural)
• It differs from one group to another.

- Evidently culture cannot be reduced only in terms of disinterested knowledge.


• It is never separated from utilitarian knowledge, creative knowledge and from
the whole of human existence.
 This is true in all cultures.

- Utilitarian knowledge supposes a certain disinterested knowledge of the situation, of


the relationship the human being-environment.
• In this context, it takes the good of order and of value and motivates the
volitions to realize them through behaviours means-to-end.
• It cultivates the natural environment to satisfy human needs of food, protection
from the weather… but also on the social organization.
• It departs from its observation and from certain degree of disinterested
knowledge for the understanding of the possibility of exploitation, verifying it
through experiment, and the actual application of it.
 Thus, the actualizing of the methods of hunting, fishing, systems of
agriculture and development, the making of war, types of clothing.
 This leads the way to modern industry and sophisticated scientific
experimentation destined ultimately to pure knowledge.
• Utilitarian knowledge has to organize hundreds of observations, hundreds of
movements, and use various instruments.
 All these imply acts of knowledge as applied and verified.
 Every instrument is an original invention, disposing the old ones –
instruments of stones, etc.
 Every time that the human being (intelligent and willing animal) invents,
there are new solutions to problems of her/his existence.
 All these imply acts of knowledge as applied and verified.
 Every instrument is a new invention. Although they built on past
instruments already made and used: we think of the instruments of stones,
etc. which are now difficult to find.
 Every time that a human being (with his intelligent and will) invents a new
solution to human problems, these inventions are made available for future
inventions workable and modifiable for the future situations.
 The utilitarian knowledge also becomes common to the community, thus
considered as social solutions to common problems.
 Such knowledge is diverse and cumulative. Changes are introduced by
human beings rather than the environment for other solutions to human
problems.

- The Creative knowledge results from the fact that knowing can also undergo needed
verification to arrive at the knowledge of the reality.
 In human behavior, as well as those of superior animals, there is
exploration and activities, not immediately, directed towards the
satisfaction of the biological needs.
 Knowing here is considered in terms of the forms, of structures, or
of relationships by actualizing more ulteriorly.
 These are behaviors and objects that do not express the knowledge
of the real nor serve the satisfaction of the biological needs.
 This kind of knowledge is later on used in magical, religious, social
prestige and distinction or communication (symbolic, religious, cosmic,
social…).
 It corresponds, at the same time, to the experiential nature and the
intellective nature of the human being, and liberating it from the limits
imposed by reality.
 It vibrates harmonically to the so called esthetic experience.
 As gratuitous and free from constrictions, such behaviors and objects
derived from the creative knowledge which assumes infinite forms and
styles.
 Therefore, in different cultures, we find most varied arts according to the
materials in which they are actualized (the human body, voice, body
movements, decorations, ornaments and vestments, stones, wood, color,
sounds, words…), the technique adopted, the modulation of the space, the
styles.

- These three types of knowledge, inextricably intricate, form but one: it is only for
purposes of clarity in our understanding that we have them separated.
• Disinterested knowledge is based on the utilitarian and reflects itself in the
creative.
• Utilitarian knowledge, finally, not only procures the processes that they derived of
the models of disinterested knowledge but also offers the instruments of
observations and of verification.
• All the various aspects of human life are pervaded by these three types of
knowledge, as the religious, and the social life.

- Volitive Acts.
- The volitive acts which mediates between knowledge and behavior, they complete the
picture of culture which derives itself from human existence.
• They direct the behavior towards the goods beyond the biological needs, and
thus they assure the search and the verification without which the development
of disinterested knowledge would be minimal, and also the continuation of the
ideal orders of life, of societies, and relations with the reality.
• They are not limited to the good of the individual, because they tend towards the
actualization of that which comes to be known as the good of the other and of
the group, cosmic order, and the Transcendent divinity.
• Moreover, the acts of the will directs, by means of imaginative symbols, itself
the human being (from infancy onwards) which becomes the link of the scale of
values of a particular culture.

- The limits of culture, of any culture, can be purely derived from the human being itself.
The human being is finite, so also his/her creation – culture.
• Intellective knowledge remains to be difficult for the incarnate human spirit,
because it requires the collaboration of many individuals and of many
generations for developing itself to some extent.
 Its expression in symbols and signs are imperfect.
 The human being is constantly distracted by the needs and the
emotions involved in human existence.
 For becoming a patrimony of culture, it must in some way be approved
and accepted by the members of the group.
 The human being, being an animal, is in fact self-centered, while the
intellective activity tends to overcome her/his point of view, knowing
things as they are.
• Culture is always imperfect, considering its limitations, due to the very nature
of the human being.
 This affects to a certain measure the multiple forms, which contribute
to its diversification in cultures.

- General schemes of the various sectors of culture: Arts, Rites and Technics
1. Arts:
 We refer to the works of Levi-Strauss in his “Mythologiques” (1971).
 Listing a kind of table of all the possibilities of humanity
actualized in individual cultures, past and present. (This was
criticized by Dan Sperber.)

2. Rites:
 We refer to the work of Jean Cazeneuve – “The Archaic Mentality”
1961 – inspired by the works of Levi-Strauss.
 Rites as means or ways for overcoming the existential anguish
that is cause by the indeterminateness of reality (i.e. from its
mystery and from its unforseability)
 Three Families of Rites:
• First family of rites = Various taboos and prohibitions
of any kind which aim to protect from the unusual or
uncommon. Another one, is rites of passage (rites of
puberty, etc) which exorcises the becoming or growth.
• Second family of rites = Magical rites = tend to impose
itself on the unusual or uncommon forces. What
prevails is not the flight but the desire to control.
• Third family of rites = Religious rites = these rites
constitute the synthesis of the two tentative precedents.
o These types of rites allow the world of rules to
participate in the superior forces in the rules of
making good the human condition of power.
o How? By finding in it a foundation of the
beyond itself, not leaving it to the anguish of
indetermination.

3. Technic – the use of instruments for an end.


 We have partly seen this with the work of Strasser – how he separates
cognitively the means from the end.
 However, in very primitive cultures, the production and the use
of means are very much connected to the global and symbolic
vision of religion, magic, social order, art…
 For primitive cultures, the work and the means themselves are
not seen as an isolated sector, as affectively cold to existence,
as something that disintegrates the human being.
 The same is true in some measure to the traditional cultures
considering the slow development of the time of its
elaborations.
• Here, the integration of the technic is already more
progressive: we think of the old European villages or
the medieval arts and trades.

 Rapid development of the technology: with the increasing


development of technology, things did not stand so anymore: the
augmentation of efficiency, rationality triumphs.
 The rapid changes of means together with organization of work
separate them from life.
 There are advantages but also the inconveniences of the
advancing technology:
• The alienation not so much economic as human, i.e. of
the integration of work in the whole life.
• The functional coldness of the factories, laboratories,
hospitals
• The specialization of the various sectors of life in the
actual culture.

Some Conclusions:

- From the unity of the human being derives the interdependence of all-human activity
and directions which are taken, and also because of the unity of culture, any of the
individual cultures.
- There is incoherence present in various degrees in all cultures, as we recognize the
difficulty of the exercise of its activity, from the tensions that necessarily hide there.
- From the fact that the exercise of acts and of their constellations comes first, and only
after – i.e. partially – knowing them reflectively, this shows that no culture includes the
full knowledge of reality.
- We believe that we could not pretend to exhaust understanding the nature of culture and
its forms. Such is not possible for the human being: no one can take all acts of knowing
and of free will.
- We believe that the human essence stands in openness and perfectibility to the Infinite.

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