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CHAPTER 2

HOW IS ONE A MAN?

Man is a personal reality, he is a reality formally “his own”, a reality whose formal character is “mine-ness”. He is a relatively absolute reality with respect to everything else and everyone else. And he is such, I repeat, formally. Because of it, this mine-ness, this relatively absolute, is life. Actually, life is possession of oneself as reality, it is auto-possession. However, this auto-possession is an ongoing realization. To live is to be going on, taking possession of one’s own reality as such. In summary, a person makes himself by “living”. Life is personal realization. This realization is carried out by executing actions. The actions are not life but, on the contrary, life is molded through actions; and only because of this are such actions vital. They are vital because they are the possession of oneself. A person makes himself while executing actions; reciprocally, the actions are executed because life molds itself on them. Taken by themselves, the actions are not life but the argument of life. Therefore, two questions arise:

§ 1. What is man according to these actions?
§ 2. How does man make himself a person in his actions?


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§ 1

WHAT IS MAN ACCORDING TO THESE ACTIONS?

As we have seen, each man is a co-determined person individually, socially, and historically, with respect to everything and everyone else; he always executes his actions in accordance with these three interpersonal dimensions; that is to say, human actions are always configured in accordance with this triple dimension. Taken this way, we ask ourselves, What is man with reference to his actions? Or put in another way, What is man as executor of his own actions as referred to “the” reality and to other persons?

Above all, man as executor of his own actions is the agent of his actions. The actions are primarily actuations of my potencies and faculties. It is necessary to insist that any action is proper to the entire substantive system comprising each man. There are no actions of just sensing, just intellectively knowing, just willing, etc. Any action, I repeat, is executed by the entire system with all its notes. What happens is that in this acting system, one or more of its notes may predominate in diverse ways over the others. The entire substantive system, when acting, has its predominances. To say that some note does not take part in a particular action does not mean that it does not form part of the action, but rather that it contributes something like a “futile” activity. Therefore, it does intervene in the action, because to be something futile is a real intervention. If we compare the entire system to the surface of a large pond, we may say that each action is like {77} an undulation of its entire surface. This undulation has its crests and valleys, both changing in the course of the action. Each action is first and foremost an actuation of the whole system of crests and valleys, i.e., of the totality of the notes of the system. It is always actuation of the notes as potencies and faculties in a varying predominance. In this fashion man is above all agent of his acts, or what comes to the same, is the agent of his own life: he possesses himself through actuation of his potencies and faculties.

Nevertheless, man does not carry out his actions only as their agent. The life of man is not just the life that he carries out, but at the same time is intrinsically the life which fortune delivers to him, so to speak. In accordance with his times, his social framework, and his peculiar mode of individuality, man lives within the outline of a context already partially traced out. This is the canvas of a life which, before he carries out his actions as an agent and precisely to be able to exercise them, has been given to him. Life does not begin in a vacuum but in a determined vital context. We can also include in this context, at least partially, such phenomena as vocation, etc. Vocation is not perforce something merely natural, like the potencies and faculties, but is primarily a vital context. Man certainly executes his actions as their agent but also at one and the same time as the actor of them. Man, while he is agent of his life, is actor of his own life. The person is in a certain sense the great personage of his own life.

Finally, with his potencies and his faculties, and within its already drawn context, man executes his actions. But with respect to certain limits, man is not just an agent {78} and actor of his life. The fact is that within these limits man can execute very diverse actions. To do this he must opt. And to opt is more than to choose an action; to opt is to adopt in that action a certain form of reality among others. Each thing imposes on us the necessity of a particular form of reality. Its adoption among the diverse forms of reality is just what opting is. Therefore, in this respect, man is not simply agent and actor of his actions. He is the author of them. As I said above, each action confers a form of reality. And when this form of reality is optional, I am the author of my own life, of my actions, author of my auto-possession. But let it be understood, this is within very narrow limits, though in a very real area.

Carrying out actions as an agent, actor and author of them is how man realizes his own personal life. In this realization he realizes himself as a person, that is, he proceeds to acquire reality as relatively absolute. Now the essential question arises: why in his actions is the personal absolute reality only relatively so? And how does man make himself a person in his actions? This is what we must investigate.


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§ 2

HOW DOES MAN MAKE HIMSELF A RELATIVE
PERSON IN HIS ACTIONS?

As the one who carries out his own actions man acquires his character of relatively absolute. What is this “acquiring”? It is a moment which belongs, intrinsically and formally, to the person himself, because the absolute in the personal human reality consists in being ab-solute when facing everything else and everybody else. Without this “facing” one cannot be a human person. Now, in order to be real “when facing” it is intrinsically and formally necessary that there be something that one may be “facing”. This necessity is imposed upon man by his own reality. In the measure in which it is imposed on him, his reality, though absolute, is so only relatively. The relativity of my absolute reality formally consists in being so “when facing”, because this “facing” is not a relation to that “facing” which one is, but is a respectivity intrinsically and formally constitutive of my personal reality qua person. To acquire is then to execute actions “when facing”. When facing what? When facing all things, because all actions are carried out with them. I employ here the word “thing” in the sense which the term has when it is not set against, for example, vitality itself; in other words, when “thing” is not taken to mean that which is understood by “thing-ism” (cosismo). In my expression “thing” has the broad and common meaning of “something”, regardless of its kind. The things with which man carries out his actions as an agent, {80} actor and author are a-personal things, other persons, and even the very notes of his own personal substantivity.

Granting this, to be with things has an essential ambiguity which must be eliminated. Man builds his life with things. This “with” is not a moment added to human reality, a kind of extrinsic relation, but a moment which intrinsically and formally belongs to the person precisely as absolute. It is not the case that man begins by being absolute and later tries to configure himself among things; but that man is not effectively really absolute unless living with things in his actions. To live is to actually be in his actions with things. And here an ambiguity arises: there are two prepositions in the phrase, “with” and “in”. This is not merely a syntactical construction, but the case of two essentially different moments in any human actions. We may ask, where are we men, really and effectively, when we execute a personal action? Apparently the question is already resolved: I am in this country, in this house, with some friends, etc. But, is this formally true with respect to our problem? The truth is that we are among these things, that is, we are “with” them. But that is not all, nor even the primary matter. Certainly, we are never without things; that would be impossible. But what is essential is that where we are with things is in reality. Every human action, precisely because its actional terminus formally has a moment of reality, where it is is precisely in that form of reality (which in extreme cases has been adopted). I repeat: we are with things, but where we are with them is in reality. The mission of things is to make us to actually be in {81} reality. It is not the same to be with and to be in. That with which we are is what makes us actually be in reality. Consequently, to live is to possess oneself as a reality while being with things in reality. And this being is what configures our very form of reality. We cannot be in reality unless it is with real things, and in virtue of that real things have, with respect to our problem, the mission we might say of serving as the vehicle for “the” reality. In each action, then, the human person has his position in reality. Man fundaments himself in reality as reality. Only in accordance with this moment of reality can man be a person. The “when facing” is but an aspect of the fundamentality of reality. And now four issues arise:

I. What is this fundamenting of the human person in reality?
II. What is the structure of this fundamentality?
III. How does this fundamentality happen?
IV. The problematics of the fundamentality.


I

The person as founded in reality

Man is a person because he possesses a sentient intelligence, the formal act of which is the impression of reality. Since intellection is the mere actualization in the sentient intelligence of that which the apprehended is de suyo, i.e., of what the apprehended is really, it is then undeniable that reality is that upon which man supports himself {82} in order to be what he really is, viz. a person, not only de facto, but in an essential, constitutive manner. This should not seem strange because, as we have just seen, that in which we actually are is reality, not just these or those real things. Therefore, the character of reality in one’s actions is to support being a person. And this support has a very precise character: it consists in being the fundament of the person. In what sense?

1) In the first place, reality understood not as a real thing, but as the formality of the de suyo, is something ultimate in my actions. It is ultimate not only with respect to things themselves, but to the actions of my person. It is the ultimate support of all of them. Many things may fail for a man, perhaps even all of those with which he happens to find himself; but he thinks that as long as he is real and there is reality, not all is lost. This is an appeal to a kind of ultimate, supreme jurisdiction which man has. Reality supports man as something ultimate: this is the ultimateness of the real. The very sad fact of suicide is proof of this ultimate character of the real. The one who commits suicide by removing himself from reality seeks to evade this ultimate support for being a person.

2) In the second place, reality has another moment, different than ultimateness. Indeed man, from the point of view of being the author of his acts, interposes what is called a plan for adopting a specific form of reality between what he does and himself. In the most modest of his decisions man has opted for one possibility among others, e.g., the possibility of going for a walk, of talking, etc. All these are possibilities, but possibilities of what? I have already stated it: possibilities of a real and effective form of my reality, of my manner of being considered as ab-solute. And then, {83} the moment of reality has a special character: it is just that which constitutes the possibilities. All the possibilities are possibilities inasmuch as they are possibilities of realizing myself in one form or another. Whence it follows that the moment of reality must have a possibilitating character: that which makes it possible for my reality to be human. All possibility is founded in reality as possibilitating.

3) Though ultimate and possibilitating, reality still has an ulterior character, that of being an impellent support. This because when he proceeds to act, not only can man carry out an action, he has no other recourse than to do so. It is indeed inexorable that he do it. He has to realize himself and realize himself through an imposition of reality. And this does not comprise what might immediately come to mind, namely, an attachment to life. It is not attachment to life, but something much more radical albeit more modest. It is the support of my own reality qua my own. If one wishes to talk about attachment, then it will have to be said that the attachment is to my character, relatively absolute. That is why, for example, the case of the suicide I mentioned above is possible. Reality is impelling. It impels us, velis nolis, to sketch a system of possibilities among which we must opt and which constitute the ultimate instantiation of his own reality. The realization of my person as relatively absolute is absolutely imposed on me by reality itself. Man not only lives in reality and from reality, but lives also by reality. Reality is not only ultimate and possibilitating; it is also impelling.

The intrinsic and formal unity of these three characters of ultimateness (in), possibilitation (from) and impellence {84} (by), is what I call the “fundamentality of the real”. The real has this fundamental character, where “fundamental” does not mean only that it may be more important than others, but that it is foundational. In other words, reality founds my personal being in accordance with the three characters which reality possesses: as ultimateness, as possibilitation and as impellence. These characteristics constitute the fundamentality of the real.

As a person, i.e., as a relatively absolute reality, I am founded in reality as such and the founding moment has the character of ultimateness, of possibilitation and of impellence. In this founding, reality comprises a great paradox. On the one hand, reality is what is most other than I, since it is what makes me to be. On the other hand, it is that which is most mine, because what makes me is just my reality-being, my “I being real”. This strange unity is what constitutes the paradox of founding. Then one may ask, in what does this founding consist in itself? In what does the fundamentality of the real strictly consist?


II

Structure of the fundamentality of the real

The person, then, is founded on the real. Clearly we are dealing with the fundamentality of the real formally qua real, in other words, with the fundamentality of reality. And so, we ask ourselves, with respect to reality, in what does its fundamental character consist?

Let us say at the outset what this fundamentality is not. It is not a cause. This requires some {85} explanation. What is a cause? Modern Philosophy began its attack on metaphysics with a critique on the idea of cause. Everyone knows Hume’s analysis: we apprehend that the pull of the rope precedes the sound of the bell, though we never apprehend that the pull produces the sound. In other words, there is always the underlying idea that causality is the production of reality. For Aristotle himself aitía is a production of varied nature, but always a production of reality. Of course, one may ask: can there be a unique, indisputable case of a production of reality? (I leave aside human actions in order to avoid the problem of freedom: is liberty a productive cause?). It is here where the critique of Hume has a perfect application. Among the rope, the bell and the sound there is no perception of production in the apprehension. Here, I repeat, is where the critique of Hume is correct.

But what Hume ignores is another aspect of the question. In the first place, to my way of thinking, causality is not primarily and formally a production of reality, but something much more elemental though still undeniable: the functionality, the case of one reality as a function of another. That this functionality may have the character of a production is much more problematic; and whatever the solution to that problem, production is not the primary notion of causality. Causality is mere functionality. And in Hume’s example, the functionality between the rope, the bell and the sound is undeniable.

But in second place, Hume has only thought about the content of what is apprehended (rope, bell and sound); he has overlooked the formality of reality, the impression of reality. And in the impression of reality real things, qua real, are functionally {86} united. They are not so, just by virtue of what real things are with respect to their suchness, but are united in their very moment of reality. The functionality among things concerns not only their content but their character of reality. Therefore, to my way of thinking, causality is the functionality of the real qua real. And this is a fact of experience. How could I deny that even though I may not apprehend what happens between the pull of the rope and the sound of the bell, there is nevertheless in fact a functionality? The sounds of the bell do not appear unless there are pulls of the rope. Mere succession is, consequently, one form of functionality among many. The functionality of the real qua real is, I repeat, the strict notion of causality.

In the problem which here concern us, namely, in what functionality consists with respect to my personal reality, we do not deal with the functionality of the real qua real. We are not dealing, then, with fundamentality in the sense of causality. To be sure, there is a functionality of mine with respect to the real qua real: I am born, and endowed with certain characteristics, etc. This is evident, but it is not what intervenes in the actions which I carry out for my personal reality. In my actions I do not find myself merely as a function of reality. I find myself with something quite different.

I find myself actually being in reality in such a way that this reality somehow determines me to “confront” it. This determination is physical; it is not something merely intentional. Physical determination, without being a cause, is just what we call domination. To dominate is not to stand out, it is to exercise dominion. Dominion is actually a {87} real and physical character of the one who dominates. Therefore, the reality which makes us be personal realities is dominating, is that which exercises (let us say it this way) dominion over my “relative absolute”. Indeed, reality is not a kind of sea in which real things may be submerged. That would be absurd. There is no reality outside real things. But in these real things their moment of reality is “more” than their moment of suchness. This real green is not only green (suchness), but it is real. And that is why to be real is more than merely to be green. The fact itself that this suchness carries with it a form of reality (greenness reality) indubitably expresses that being real is more than being merely green. And precisely because of this, that moment of reality, even though “more” than greenness, is still in the greenness itself. Reality is “more” than real things, but is “more” in their own selves. And to dominate is just this: to be “more”, but in the thing itself; the reality as reality is dominating in this thing, in each real thing. It is not the case that being dominant consists in being more important than being green, but that the moment of reality physically determines, without being a cause, that the green is a form of reality.

Consequently, this dominion is what we may call power. To dominate is “more”, it is to have power. Here “power” does not mean to be a cause. Power is what in German, for example, is called Macht. It is power in the sense, for example, of having power in a corporation, or having political power, etc. It is a valid concept, which should have a place in philosophy. The moment of reality dominates over suchness, it has power. Because of this it is “more” than suchness. And this “more” is just an aspect of the constitutive respectivity of reality qua reality.

{88} Now let us return to our problem. Reality as reality is what founds; it is the fundament of my personal reality. This means that reality as founding my personal reality exercises a power over me. Reality is the power of the real. And this is not identical to causality. All causes dominate, but not all dominance is causal, nor is the causal moment in the cause itself identical to its dominating power. They are both aspects which are not only different, but distinguishable. Causality is the functionality of the real as real. Power is the dominance of the real as real.

Power seizes that over which it dominates. Dominance is seizure. The power of the real seizes me. And it is thanks to this seizure that I make myself a person. Reality founds personal reality through seizure in accordance with the power of the real.

How does fundamentality take place, that is, how does this seizure by the power of the real take place? This is the third issue with which we shall be dealing.

But before we proceed with it, let us direct our attention to an Appendix.