Introduction to the Philosophy of

the Human Person

Quarter 2 – Module 6 Week 6-7
Human Persons as Oriented Towards Their
Impending Death
 Republic of the Philippines
Department of Education
Region VIII
Division of Northern Samar
Laoang III District
RAWIS NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET IN INTRODUCTION TO THE HUMAN PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN

PERSON Grade 12 (QUARTER 2, MODULE 5)(Day 1-4)
1. Recognize the meaning of hi/her own life (PPT11/12-IIh-8.1)
2. Enumerate the objectives he/she really wants to achieve and to define the projects he/she really
wants to do in his/her life; ((PPT11/12-IIi-8.2)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THE LEARNERS:

Traditional definition: Death- was a simply equated to the stopping of heartbeat and breathing.

Legal definition: - Section 2, paragraph (j) of the Organ Donation Act of 1991 (Republic Act 7170):

(j) “Death”- the irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or the irreversible
cessation of all the functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. A person shall be
medically and legally dead if either:

(1)In the opinion of the attending physician, based on the acceptable standards of medical
practice, there is an absence of natural respiratory and cardiac functions and, attempts at
resuscitation would not be successful in restoring those functions. In this case, death shall be
deemed to have occurred at the time these functions ceased; or
In the opinion of the consulting physician, concurred in by the attending physician, that on the basis of
acceptable standards of medical practice, there is an irreversible cessation of all brain functions; and
considering the absence of such functions, further attempts at resuscitation or continued supportive
maintenance would not be successful in restoring such natural functions. In the case, death shall be
deemed to have occurred at the time when these conditions first appeared

Meaning of Life (Where Will This Lead To?)

• Tragedy, according to Nietzsche, grew from his unflinching recognition and the
beautification, even the idealization, of the inevitability of human suffering (Johnston 2010)
• Our true existence is not our individual lives but our participation in the drama of life and
history
• Realizing ones "higher self” means fulfilling ones loftiest vision, noblest ideal. On his way
to the goal of self-fulfillment

A. Friedrich Nietzsche
The individual has to liberate himself from environmental influences that are false to one's
essential beings, for the "unfree man" is "a disgrace to nature'.'
The free human being still has to draw a sharp conflict between the higher self and the lower
self, between the ideal aspired to and the contemptibly imperfect present.
• Unless we do "become ourselves," life is meaningless.
• total reality = phenomenal realm (highly differentiated world of material objects in
space and time) + noumenal realm (single, undifferentiated something that is space less,
timeless, non-material, beyond the reach of causality) which is inaccessible to experience
 B. Arthur Schopenhauer
 The noumenon cannot cause the phenomenon –– so Schopenhauer concludes: the noumenon and
phenomenon are the same reality apprehended in two different ways: the noumenon is the inner
significance, the true but hidden and inaccessible being, of what we perceive outwardly as the
phenomenal world.
• Schopenhauer's ethics: humans are separate physical objects in space and time,
temporary manifestations in the phenomenal world, of something noumenal –– this implies that
in the ultimate ground of our being we are the same something –– so the wrongdoer and the
wronged are in the last analysis the same –– this explains compassion.
• Schopenhauer contends that all of life is suffering caused by desire Our desires lead us to
harm each other ultimately, amounting harm to ourselves.
• The person who wickedly exerts his will against others suffers too
(Solomon & Higgins 1996)
• Schopenhauer's ethics: humans are separate physical objects in space and time,
temporary manifestations in the phenomenal world, of something noumenal –– this implies that
in the ultimate ground of our being we are the same something –– so the wrongdoer and the
wronged are in the last analysis the same –– this explains compassion.
• Human existence is exhibited in care
• Care is understood in terms of finite temporality, which reaches with death.
• Death is a possibility that happens

C. Martin Heidegger
Threefold structure of care:
• Possibility. Humanity gets projected ahead of itself. Entities that are
encountered are transformed merely as ready-to-hand for serviceability and out of
them. Humanity constructs the instrumental world on the basis of the persons' concerns.
• Facticity. A person is not pure possibility but tactical possibility: possibilities open
to him at any time conditioned and limited by circumstances. A person's situation as a
finite entity is thrown into a world where he/she must project his/her possibilities not
disclosed by theoretical understanding but by moods.
• Fallenness. Humanity flees from the disclosure of anxiety to lose oneself in
absorption with the instrumental world, or to bury oneself in the anonymous impersonal
existence of the mass, where no one is responsible. Humanity has fallen away from one's
authentic possibility into an authentic existence of irresponsibility and illusory security.
Inauthentic existence, thus, is scattered and fragmented.
D. Jean-Paul-Sartre
For Sartre, the human person desires be God; the desire to exist as a being that has its sufficient
ground in itself (en sui causa).
For an atheist, since God does not exist, the human person must face the consequences of this.
The human person is entirely responsible for his/her own existence.

Sartre’s dualism

• En-soi (in itself) — signifies the permeable and dense, silent and dead. From them comes
no meaning, they only are. The en-soi is absurd, it only finds meaning only' through the human
person, the one and only pour-soi. the world only has meaning according to.

• Pour-soi (for-itself) the world only has meaning according to what the person gives to it.
Compared with' the en-soi, a person has no fixed nature. To put it in a paradox: the human
person is not what he/she is.

• For Sartre, there is no way of coming to terms with the other that does not end in
frustration. This explains why we experience failure to resolve social problems from hatred,
conflict and strife
 E. Karl Jaspers
• Freedom reveals itself as a gift from somewhere beyond itself.
• Freedom without God only leads to a person’s searching for a substitute to God
closer to oneself, usually, he himself tries to be God.
• Jaspers asked that human beings be loyal to their own faiths without impugning
the faith of others.

F. Gabriel Marcel
• Philosophy's starting point is a metaphysical "disease.
• secondary reflection – process in which the search for a home in the wilderness,
a harmony in disharmony, takes place

Marcel's Phenomenological Method

• Primary Reflection – this method looks at the world or at any object as a
problem, detached from the self and fragment. This is the foundation of scientific
knowledge. Subject does not enter into the object investigated. The data of primary
reflection lie in the public domain and are equally available to any qualified observer
• Secondary Reflection – Secondary reflection is concrete, individual, heuristic, and
open. This reflection is concerned not with object but with presences. It recaptures the
unity of original experience. It does not go against the date of primary reflection but goes
beyond it by refusing to accept the data of primary reflection as final

ACTIVITY 1. DIRECTIONS: Enrichment. What I want in life

Direction: List at least (5) five goals you wants to accomplish in life. It can be long term or short term
goals.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

ACTIVITY 1. MULTIPLE CHOICE: Read and understand each question. Select and write the CAPITAL letter
of your answer on the space provided before the number.

_________ 1. Death was a simply equated to the stopping of heartbeat and breathing.
This meaning is meaning of death.
A. Dictionary C. Traditional
B. Legal D. Webster
_________ 2. Based on Section 2, paragraph (j) of the Organ Donation Act of 1991 (Republic Act 7170) a
person is considered dead, if?
A. The attending physician declared the person death based on the acceptable
standards of medical practice.
 B. The nurses or any of the medical practitioners give resuscitation to the patient
and the patient is still unconscious.
C. The attending physician finds out that the person has no pulses.
D. The patient looks pale.
_________ 3. A lady after suffering from 5 years of fighting for her life because leukemia, meets the
th
creator on her 35 birthday. This lady is a Christin believer, what do you think is she expecting on her
afterlife?
A. To be reincarnated C. To be another person
B. To have an eternal life D. To be born again
__________ 4. This pertains to the personal life, and precisely therein is fulfilled the essence of
humanity created according to the image of God.
A. Eternal life C. Death
B. Reincarnation D. Transcendence
__________ 5. According to Aristotle everything strives towards the end, what Greek word did he use
to describe the process which means “to become its essence?
A. Entelechy C. Enthelenchy
B. Entilenchy D. Entelency

_________ 6. This reflection is concerned not with object but with presences. It recaptures the unity of
original experience. It does not go against the date of primary reflection but goes beyond
it by refusing to accept the data of primary reflection as final.

A. First Reflection C. Primary Reflection

B. Second Reflection D. Secondary Reflection

_________7. This method looks at the world or at any object as a problem, detached from the self and
fragment. This is the foundation of scientific knowledge. Subject does not enter into the
object investigated. The data of primary reflection lie in the public
domain and are equally available to any qualified observer
A. First Reflection C. Primary Reflection
B. Second Reflection D. Secondary Reflection

_________8. Signifies the permeable and dense, silent and dead. From them comes no meaning, they
only are. The en-soi is absurd, it only finds meaning only' through the human person, the
one and only pour-soi. The world only has meaning according to.
A. Self-Care C. En-soi
B. Careful D. Pour-soi

_________9. The world only has meaning according to what the person gives to it. Compared with' the
en-soi, a person has no fixed nature. To put it in a paradox: the human person is not what
he/she is.
A. Self-Care C. En-soi
B. Careful D. Pour-soi

_________10. A person is not pure possibility but tactical possibility: possibilities open to him at any time
conditioned and limited by circumstances. A person's situation as a finite entity is thrown
into a world where he/she must project his/her possibilities not disclosed by theoretical
understanding but by moods.
A. False C. Fallenness
B. Facticity D. True

INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN PERSON Grade 12

MELC Module.Quarter 2. Module 6

Prepared by:
 CRISTINE GRACE R. ACUYAN
T-III/Subject Teacher
Facebook Account: Nayuca RC/Cellphone Number:09500334545