Philosophy of the Human Person

I'm studying for my Philosophy of the Human Person exam this afternoon. . . going through my notes I found a few interesting lines and important things I thought I'd remind you of or point out to you. Here's your crash course in Philosophy of the Human Person based largely on St. Thomas Aquinas "On Human Nature."

--> Anima est actus primus corporis physici organici. Remember that.

--> What is the proof that we have immaterial cognitive power? We can conceive of "what if we did not exist?!"

--> One way that we're different from animals is that we can know being, animals can't.

--> Human dignity? Once we say that intellect is not tide down to bodily organs than it doesn't matter whether the bodily organs aren't fully developed or are injured, the intellect remains intact.

--> "Without the scientific proof of the existence of spiritual persons, including human persons, a genuine metaphysics would neither be possible nor necessary." (Quote from an article by Fr. Benedict Ashley, OP)

--> Love is the highest reality in our subjective experience. It is love that actualizes the human potential.

--> Our actual experience is that by which we know ourselves.

And if you didn't find any of that interesting, you'll probably find some of these quotes I found written down in my notes entertaining:

- "Reality is reality independently of your object world. You might be living in lala land and the reality is going to come and bite you ahd you'll have to revise your object world."

- "I've given you so much freedom on this assignment that some of you find this freedom frightening." (comment from the prof on our term paper that we were all panicking about)

- Discussing abstraction our professor commented "Our experience is not, "my stomach wants my thoughts to be quiet," it's the other way around. "Does your stomach ever say to your thoughts, "be quiet thoughts, I'm busy?""

- An interesting commentary I came across in my notes. . . "What a waste of the mind if the only concepts you're focused on are cookies and crack. . . what have you activated in your immaterial soul. . . in your lifetime? God is the ultimate actuality. You don't want to get fixated on cookie. The cookie would be like the solar eclipse. What are you writing in your soul for all of eternity? I don't want the cookie eclipse. I want to turn to God."

- Commenting on Plato's idea of the eternal forms, "Where do these eternal forms exist? In the divine mind. It's true to say that. But the idea of some eternal Wal-Mart is ridiculous. What's not ridiculous is God, who's pure act."

- "St. Thomas Aquinas is a rock upon which to build intellectual inquiry."

- "Post-modern usually means a bunch of garbage."

- "Faith is like natural reason on divine caffeine. Faith is like a cup of coffee that only God can buy for you."

- "If all you're caring about is food and sex, you're living on the plant model!"

And for the final verdict, if I remember nothing else from the course, I need to remember this. . . "As a human person you are an assignment to yourself. Your mission? To develop the habits of being that will actually make you happy."

There you have it. The highlights of the Philosophy of the Human Person course. If you've read this far you're probably wondering "why the heck is she blogging her study notes?!" Well . . . I had to study anyways. May as well blog it. If Dr. M is reading this (I know you know of my blog. . .), well, hopefully I haven't grossly misunderstood the course. . . I also hope that I haven't grossly misquoted you. If I have, mia culpa. Why blog this stuff? Because it's just so interesting! What an amazing course. My brain hurts a little now, the readings were really really difficult to wrap your mind around at first and I have no idea how I'll do on the exam, but in the end, it was worth it. I also learned that reading St. Thomas, though difficult, isn't as scary as I first thought it would be.