Philo

CHAPTER 5 “NATURE OF MAN”

- Man cannot be capsulated into one single definition. Different thinkers give different ideas about him

- According to Thales, “Everything was water”  Wherever goes what was seen was water. It seemed that this would lead to nothing but water.

- Anaximander, another ancient greek thinker contended that there must be a source to all these. He further added that “man must have come from animal of the rare kind”

- Socrates, He had another theory that claimed “Man to be composite of matter and reason”  This matter is the human body and the reason he referred to is from a Universal Reason.  Therefore man’s essence is a human body and an immortal soul.

- According to Boethus, “Man to be substance with a reasoning power and questioning nature”

-ARISTOTLE’S POSTULATE

The force or the power to keep the rock, the branches and the dog moving is an animted force he called “SOUL”

Aristotle categorized this moving force into three distinct kinds of soul.

• VEGATIVE SOUL – force found in plants for their growth development and reproduction.
• SENTIENT SOUL – force found in animals that keeps them responsible for moving with the capacity to feel and sense.
• RATIONAL SOUL – force possesses by human being capable of feeling, sensing, thinking and reasoning.

This gift of rational soul is equipped with the gift of language for man to :

• Communicate his ideas
• Express his thoughts and feelings
• Relate with fellow beings, his feelings of digust and fear, anxiety, and insecurity, love and trust.
• Rene Descartes’ Views
• He claim that only human beings have mind he called SOUL. This enables man to have thoughts classified into:
•             Believing and doubting, hoping or wanting, loving and deciding.

Dualism vs Physicalism

. The concept that there is eternity is for those who advocate dualism. A person must therefore possess a physical body and a non-physical one, soul or spirit to get his promised glory after a good life or his damnation if he is prove unworthy.

the physicalism proponents who support the idea that man is purely physical and has no soul or spirit. The physical component or the human body has determinate mass, weight and spatial structure.

Hinduism

Brahman is believed to be the Absolute and the ground of all things. He is the power to animate, the principle of life Atman, the mere reflection of Brahman.

The final goal of Atman is to know the live reality by destroying ignorance through acquisition of proper knowledge. This can be attained by YOGA.