From Wüster to the cognitive-based Theories of Terminology:

Phenomenological Intuition and the Unity and Complexity of the Man-Person

The preceding remarks about the relation of the transcendence of the person to the spiritual nature of man impel us to look more closely into the problem and to discuss

the complexity of man as a corporeal and spiritual being - "corporeal" as here used referring to matter and to the material though primarily in the metaphysical rather than in the physical sense. Experience - seen as accessible in phenomenological intuition - tells us in the first place that man is a unity. His unity is also manifested in his dynamism, though in this respect we note a striking disparity between acting (the experience "man acts") and happening (the experience "something happens in

man"), which so far has not received a full interpretation and will therefore be considered again in later chapters. The disparity in the dynamism of acting and happening does not prevent the unity of man as the person but reflects a certain complexity, which was already noted in Chapter

3. The unity of the person is most completely manifested in the action, that is to say, through transcendence. But again the person's transcendence in the action also shows a certain complexity; the one who possesses himself is simultaneously the one who, according to the principle of self-determination, is possessed by himself;

according to the same principle he both governs and is governed by himself. His superiority is correlated with his subordination. Each helps to compose the unity of the person.

This complexity is clearly revealed in the phenomenological approach, but the

remarkable thing about it is its structure, which is manifested first of all as a specific organic unity and not as an unintegrated manifold. It is how the complexity

manifests itself in the action. The fact that in the performance of the action man also fulfills himself shows that the action serves the unity of the person, that it not only reflects but also actually establishes this unity. In point of fact the analyses in this chapter are meant to show that it is owing to the spiritual nature of man that the person's unity in the action is manifested and actually established. When speaking of man's spiritual nature we are not referring to the set of symptoms that determine the person's transcendence in the action but to the real source of all these

symptoms, to the spiritual element in the human being. The experience we rely upon and the analyses we carried out suggest the conclusion that it is this element that constitutes the unity of man. Thus the transcendence of the person in the action, understood in the phenomenological sense, seems to lead to an ontological conception of man in which the unity of his being is determined by the spirit.

The Spiritual Element Underlies the Spiritual Virtuality of Man

We hope that our considerations have shown with sufficient clarity that the specific dynamism of the person has its source in the spiritual element. The dynamism itself is manifested in efficacy and responsibility, in self-determination and conscience, in freedom and the reference to truth that impresses upon the actions of the person and his being itself a specific "measure of goodness." As the source of the specific dynamism of the person, the spiritual element must itself be dynamic. Dynamism is, as already demonstrated in Chapter 2, proportional to virtuality. We infer from this the presence of the spiritual virtuality in man, the powers of his spiritual nature. The correlates of these powers are the dynamic reference to moral truth in the cognitive function and freedom together with the dynamic dependence of freedom on truth in the function of self-determination. The former we equate with the notion of the intellect and the latter with that of the will. Hence the powers of the intellect and the will seem to be partaking of and exhibiting themselves as a spiritual element. They constitute the dynamic conjunction of the person with the action. Consequently, these powers contribute creatively to the profile of the person, and they themselves

bear a distinctly personal stamp. They are not reducible to nature. Attributing

"spiritual aspect" to the intellect and the will may indicate that their appropriate dynamism, their mode of dynamization, does not pertain to and remain at the level of nature alone.

Spirituality Determines the Personal Unity of the Corporeal Man This notion of "spirituality" may serve as the key to the understanding of the

complexity of man. For we now see man as the person, and we see him first of all in his acting, in the action. He then appears in the field of our integral experience as somebody material, as corporeal, but at the same time we know the personal unity of this material somebody to be determined by the spirit, by his spiritual nature and spiritual life. Indeed, the very fact that the personal - as well as the ontic - unity of the corporeal man is ultimately commanded by man's spiritual factor allows us to see in him the ontic composite of soul and body, of the spiritual and the material

elements. The phenomenological insight does not reveal directly this complexity but only brings into prominence the unity of man as the person. We also know that it does not obscure the complexity, but on the contrary leads up to it. For once attention is focused on the person's transcendence in the action because of his spiritual nature, the need immediately arises to understand better not only the manifestations of this spirituality but also its ontic basis and roots. Other questions then refer to the relation between the spiritual and corporeal, all that is visible in man and accessible to sense; for the spiritual is invisible and inaccessible to sense, even when in its manifestations it contributes to the vividly expressive content of intellectual intuition. Neither efficacy nor obligation, responsibility, freedom, nor moral truthfulness are in any way accessible to sense and thus they are

"immaterial," they are not "flesh," but even so they indubitably belong to the

experience of man; they are objects of intuition as evident data, which the mind can grasp and whose understanding it may itself cultivate and develop suitably. ⁶⁰

The Experience of Personal Unity Helps to Understand Man's Ontic Complexity

Thus the experience of the unity of man as the person stimulates the need to understand the complexity of man as a being. Such understanding entails extensive knowledge of how to measure the limits or perhaps the depth of things. It belongs to metaphysics, in which throughout the ages thinkers have been unraveling the nature of man as a being consisting of soul and body, of spirit and flesh. It is possible, however, that while returning to those arguments and analyses already attempted in this study, those reserved for later chapters may shed on them some new light of their own. For there is no question but that the conception of man as the person - though it is accessible in the original intuition within the frame of phenomenological insight - has to be completed and supplemented by the metaphysical analysis of the human being. Thus while the experience of the personal unity of man shows us his complex nature, the attempt at a deepened understanding of this complexity allows us in turn to interpret human nature as the one and ontically unique person.

The Experience of the Soul

It is to metaphysical analysis that we owe the knowledge of the human soul as the principle underlying the unity of the being and the life of a concrete person. We infer the existence of the soul and its spiritual nature from effects that demand a sufficient

reason, that is to say, a commensurate cause. In this perspective it is evident that there can be no such thing as a direct experience of the soul. Man has only the experience of the effects which he seeks to relate with an adequate cause in his being. Nevertheless, people often think and speak of the soul as something of which they have had an experience. But in fact the content of what is meant as the

"experience of the soul" consists of everything that in our previous analyses was attributed to the person's transcendence in the action, namely, obligation,

responsibility, truthfulness, self-determination, and consciousness. It is the innerness of all these moments, however, that is most vividly manifest in this experience; they make the vital fabric of the inner man, they inhere in his inner life, and as thus experienced they are identified with the experience of the soul. But the possible knowledge of the soul is not limited solely to these moments and their specific role;

it encompasses in and through them man's entire, as it were, spiritual ego. Thus the possible knowledge of the soul as the spiritual ego of man seems in its own way to point out the direction of metaphysical analysis.