{29}

§ 3

THE RADICAL ATTITUDE OF MAN¹

In order to find out in what the religious attitude consists, it will be necessary that we ask four things in succession:

In the first place, What is a personal attitude?
Second, Which is the radical personal attitude?
Third, What is the object and structure of this attitude?
And in fourth place, How do all things appear, man himself among them, from the point of view of this attitude?


I. What is a personal attitude?

Man is a personal reality. And the personal reality of man is constituted by something, which essentially differs from the reality of an animal, which does not act, nor responds to things, nor senses himself except as stimulus. Quite differently from this, man possesses that essential ingredient of {30} his intelligence, which viewed from my perspective, is the organ with which man formally confronts things, and himself qua reality. Unlike stimulus, which specifies animal life, the formal characteristic of reality specifies the strictest dimensions of man. Intelligence is, therefore, a capacity which man has for handling everything as reality, and, of course, also himself as reality.

One might think that any dog, which has a stimulus, is also dealing with a reality. Yes, and no. There is no doubt he is dealing with something which is quite materially a reality, but it is not present to him qua reality. On the other hand, because of his intelligence, to man, at least on the level of a conscience somewhat more labored, even his own stimulations are present to himself as real stimulations. The characteristic of reality is specifically inscribed in the intelligence of man, and excluded from the animal. That is why it is incorrect to say the animal “himself” feels (Sp. “se” siente) hungry: the animal has hunger, which is something different, because he lacks the moment of the self (Sp. se). And lacks that moment of self precisely because he has no intelligence. In the intelligence, on the other hand, man has to deal not only with all the things that surround him, and with other men, but also with himself insofar as reality. That is why he has a self (Sp. se). Man as a reality certainly has a set of properties that belong to him de suyo (literally “from its own self” —Tr. note), just like all things: stones, animals, vegetables, stars... But, inasmuch as man has an intelligence, he behaves towards himself not only through the properties he actually possesses, but behaves towards himself qua reality, precisely by the bare and simple characteristic of reality. With {31} this, man appears to himself not only as a reality comprised of certain properties which belong to him de suyo, but appears as belonging to himself, i.e., to his own reality. And this characteristic of belonging to himself as a reality, and qua reality, is precisely what is called person. I shall immediately explain why I call this characteristic personhood.

It follows that man encounters himself among other things in a peculiar situation: he finds himself among things not only as a stone is among other stones. Not only finds himself as a man in what he naturally has among other men, or among other things, but rather finds himself in an absolutely unique manner. Because if it is true that man is among things, which for example, surround me in this room, the more profound truth is that, together with these things, that in which man is, is in reality as such. Things are but the pillars by which man is actually supported in reality, which only offers itself to him through things, and it is to their characteristic of reality that intelligence is formally inscribed. Man, consequently, possesses this personhood, and has it a nativitate, by the mere fact of being man. For this reason I call it personhood. Personhood is not something to be acquired. One begins to be a man by having personhood. And personhood perdures throughout the whole human existence. Because of it man —I repeat— finds himself placed among other real things. Precisely because this placement is something absolutely unique, I prefer to use a term, which has a noticeably different shading. Man, surrounded by things and finding himself among them is, however, installed, implanted in reality as such, not independently {32} of things, but rather in the characteristic of reality which things offer to him.

How is he implanted among these things? That is the essential question. Man is not implanted among things quiescently². He is not simply there. Man is among things with a characteristic, which is appropriately and specifically human. He finds himself restless among things. In what does this restlessness consist, this restless and non-quiescent implantation of man among things? Man, while performing his personal acts, his acts upon other things surrounding him —sees them, feels them, avoids them, is pleased with them, greets a friend, strolls, writes— is doing something quite subtle in all these acts which we must point out carefully. On the one hand, with all these acts man is tracing the way of his life. A life constructed with the things that surround one, with other men and in addition with his own reality. This with used by man to make his own life belongs formally to the very structure of human life. It is not the case that we have life, and in addition that we have the things to which life refers, but indeed that life formally and by itself, constructively involves, the characteristic of with. This is life with things, with other men, with oneself. Since living is, ultimately, to possess oneself, the entire course of life is nothing but the transcurrence of the way man actually possesses himself. Yet, this is not the most radical thing.

Man possesses himself in life not only in the sense that with his own life he activates himself in the properties emerging from his nature. In personal life —the term appears here in its specific determination— man {33} does not perform simply as a person, but realizes himself as person. Let us take, to better understand what this means, any kind of act; for example, I am writing at this moment. This simple act “I write” can be enunciated in two different ways. One, saying what it is that I am doing now —I write, I do not sleep or walk. But I can enunciate the phrase in another way: I can say that “it is I who writes”. In this case it seems clear to me that in every personal act which man performs, besides that which he is doing, there is this subtle dimension of the I ³ performing that action. What is this I?

Certainly, the I is not my own substantive reality. From the moment of my conception I have my substantive reality, as germinal as one may possibly consider it, but with all the ingredients that are going to constitute my whole reality throughout the extent of my life. In the I, therefore, we are not dealing with my substantive reality. We are dealing with something different. Actually when I say “I”, I am adding a small adjective “I-myself”, wherein lies the specific difference, which separates the “I” from substantive reality. When I say “I”, I am not referring simply to my substantive reality, but rather to the fact that my substantive reality somehow reactualizes itself in this act, which is I. And this reaffirmation of my own substantive reality is that in which the I consists. The I is not the substantive reality of man, but that posterior act in which this substantive reality reaffirms itself and constitutes what we call being (Sp. ser). The I is not my substantive reality, but rather my substantive being⁴.

{34} This distinction, which may appear somewhat subtle when applied to cosmic realities, acquires the fullness of meaning when applied to human reality. What this I is doing (that is the origin of the adjective “self”), and consequently this being, does not add any notes to my substantive reality, but simply reactualizes it. By identity it reverts this second act to the substantive reality from which this second act emerges. And in that reversion by way of identity is in what intimacy consists metaphysically. Intimacy is not something hidden. It can be, but it is not intimate because it is hidden. The color of my face is perfectly intimate, purely and simply because it is mine. This moment of being “mine” is that in which my intimacy formally consists. The I, which constitutes the substantive being of man, as it reverts through intimacy it identifies itself with the substantive reality. The I is not the person, but the substantive being. And that is why I can say I am “myself”, i.e., the reaffirmation of my substantive reality in this second act of being in which the I consists.

Let us now take it through the other dimension, as when I write: “I write”. Certainly, to write is one of the many things I do. I put on or remove my eyeglasses, I move, etc. What I do is enormously variable throughout my life. On the other hand, my substantive reality as personhood is always the same, I am always the same (“el” mismo). And thanks to the variability of my acts, I am never that same (“lo” mismo). In what does it consist that I may not be that same?

{35} It consists in the fact that both dimensions, the I as the being of man, and the acts he performs —for example to write— are not unconnected dimensions. Farthest from the truth. It is an ingrained error in many philosophical conceptions to believe that the I is the subject of attribution and execution of concrete acts: for example, “I write, I think, I understand”. The truth is that the predicate in these cases essentially modulates and refines the I itself. It is not only an I who talks, but an I who is exercising the form of talking. Each one of my acts modulates, strictly speaking, the internal characteristic of the I. That modulation does not refer only to this trivial example I have suggested. From the moment of his conception man is not yet I, but evidently all his organic vicissitudes are modulating the form and figure of that which I am. No one knows —only God— in what the form and figure, which the I is acquiring will ultimately consist. Since the I is not the substantive reality of man, but rather his being, it means that each one of the actions, which man performs is configuring the figure of his being. Quite really, man throughout his life is never that same (“lo” mismo) because in reality his being is in the process of being configured by all the acts he performs.

From this stems, of course, the dreadful problem posed to each one of us by our own substantive being. While a man is always the same as personhood, he never has that same form and figure of being. And this form and figure of being is precisely what has to be called “personality”. Personality is not primarily a psychological concept; it is above all an entitative concept. It is the form and figure of being, which in second act is acquiring substantive reality in the performance of its acts. The gravity and importance of personal life is quite evident. The I affirms itself confronting all possible reality. It is {36} I myself that confronts everything else, including God, yet not in a vacuum, but performing a series of acts in which the figure of my being is being configured unremittingly and without any possible loss. Unremittingly because even though man may perform —for example in the field of moral acts— certain acts about which perhaps and in good time he will repent himself, that does not mean the acts are erased. They are preserved —under that mysterious form, which repentance is— in the figure of being.

Therefore, man finds himself laboring at the ongoing configuration of his being, sometimes not being aware of it, and sometimes being aware. The result is that man, from the point of view of the figure of his being, is a living question for himself: mihi questio factus sum, St. Augustine said⁵. And precisely this question of the figure, which my substantive being is acquiring in the production of the acts that my reality goes on performing, is what formally constitutes the constant and constitutive restlessness of the life of man. Language expresses it with total accuracy by employing just that perfect distinction between substantive reality and being: “What will become of me?”, i.e., “What kind of being is my being going to be?”. This is the radical and fundamental restlessness of the human being. Man is not restless about things. Ultimately and radically what keeps him restless is his own reality, confronting which and from which man goes forward acquiring painfully and at length, the figure of his being.

Nevertheless, this phenomenon can be seen from two perspectives. One, from the very I who is going to acquire a certain figure or configuration. [As seen from the I, that which it does —knowingly or not, in a hidden way or explicitly, at the {37} bottom of every personal action— constitutes in the I a kind of turning (Sp. versión) towards whatever is being done, in view of the being that is being acquired]⁶. Still, this version is not a new act, but also it is not my own substantive reality. It is neither act nor substantive reality. This is just what an attitude is. It is the turning of the I, which is going to acquire a certain form in the acts to be performed: that is what attitude is. From the point of view of life itself, i.e., of the acts, it is evident that each act is ordered essentially, not by a finality, but velis nolis by a physical characteristic of its own, to configure my own being. That is the reason why the entire life of man incorporates the characteristic of mission. Here “mission” does not mean a mission that man has in life —that is a problematic question internal to life— here it means something more radical. It is not the case that life may have a mission, but that it is constitutively mission. It is by this characteristic of mission that the course of life is always configuring the substantive being of the I. That is why life is not just a simple factum: it is the factic mission of being.


II. Which is the radical personal attitude?

By radical personal attitude I do not mean one more attitude, the first of the attitudes, but the attitude, which lies underneath all the rest of them, and thanks to which in the end all are attitude⁷. Man —I was saying— finds himself among things, with himself, and with other men. But that with which man builds his life is not simply and {38} formally that in which he is. What he is in, is in reality. And in this reality and through that which he has of reality, is how man is going to configure the being of his own substantive reality from things. Man, therefore, lives from the reality of the real, does not live purely and simply from things. There is a phenomenon —a sad one—, which exemplifies this perfectly; it is the case of the one who commits suicide. In the formal act of suicide what man does is to dispose of his life because it is his, i.e., because it is his own reality. It is not precisely things, but the characteristic of reality what the one committing suicide would pretend to abolish with his suicide. And if the one who commits suicide were to have the possibility of radically preserving the “my” of his own reality, he would not commit suicide. Man, therefore, lives and constructs his being from reality. And it is reality itself, which impels him to do it, and to do it in a particular way. Furthermore, that characteristic of reality of real things is that in which man supports himself ultimately in order to acquire the figure of his being. Of course, it is not a material support, but still a support strictly speaking. We could say, that man supports himself upon things, but not precisely because of what they are particularly, but simply because they are real. He supports himself in reality itself. And yet, this support comprises three moments.

1) In the first place, reality is an ultimate support. For no transcendent reason. We are not talking here about anything transcendent, or that the ultimate might be God. We are merely pointing out that reality is an ultimate support in view of a very elemental consideration. To say that something is real is the ultimate and most elemental thing we can say about it. Reality is an ultimateness.

2) Reality is not only an ultimateness, but in addition it is that, which possibilitates that man may be acquiring {39} the figure of his being. If things were the ones making, simply because of their content, the figure of the being of man, man would be like a dog, or the dog would be like a man. This conception of an animal as a small man has sadly burdened the whole of psychology and psychological anthropology. But let us leave this question aside. The support on reality is not simply support upon the ultimate, on ultimateness. Reality is that, which is ultimate, ultimateness, but also that, which on last resort makes possible for man the configuration of his substantive being.

3) Reality is not only the ultimate, and the possibilitating, but in addition impels man to realize himself. Man realizes himself in reality, and by reality. Consequently, man cannot ignore reality. Reality imposes itself upon him⁸. This imposition of reality does not have the characteristic of an attachment to life —the question of suicide appears again here. The attachment to life is a phenomenon more or less physical, and basically also animals do have it. It is not a question of having an attachment to life because life tends to preserve itself. It is a question of man considering life as “mine”, and precisely that subtle dimension of being mine is the one the suicidal man is toying with, which the man that does not commit suicide tries to resolve in some fashion. Therefore, it is not a question of physical support or a mere natural attachment to life, it is precisely a question of this inalienable characteristic —of “mine”—, which man possesses in his life, purely and simply by virtue of being a personal life.

The three moments of ultimateness, possibilitation, and imposition characterize reality as something, which is not {40} I, my I. As such, despite not being I and being the most other than ourselves, since it makes us be, it constitutes paradoxically what is most ours. Simply because it is what makes us to be in the figure of our very own substantive being. And so, taking these three characteristics at one and the same time, according to which man goes forward configuring his substantive being, they precisely define the radical attitude, and that radical attitude I call religation. Religation is not something, which may accompany any of those three terms taken in isolation. Not only with respect to the point we are making here, but not even with any other. It is said, for example, that God is something ultimate; but the Theós, of Aristotle has no religious significance whatever. He lacks, precisely, the other two moments. No one can address a prayer to the one unmoved mover, at least unless you add a few other things. It is necessary to take these three characteristics of ultimateness, possibilitation, and imposition at one and the same time in order that they may precisely define that attitude we call “religation”. Religation is the ligature to reality qua reality in order to be. It is neither a physical bond nor a social pressure, since physical bonds and social pressures refer to that, which things and persons are. Here it is a question, simply and purely, of facing the characteristic of reality of everything. It is also not an obligation because an obligation is something internal to the person, and presupposes it already constituted: obligation always gravitates on a form of being, but is not what constitutes it. Reality as ultimate, possibilitating, and imposing is that which constitutes religation. In religation, therefore, the fundamentality that occurs purely and simply, is not that of the substantive reality of man, but of his substantive being⁹.

{41} Of course, after indicating what religation is not, it will be necessary to face the third question: the structure of religation, and the terminus to which man is religated.

__________________
¹ In the two seminars of 1965 (Madrid and Barcelona) Zubiri explained religation in very similar terms. Here we follow the version of the Barcelona seminar on “The problem of God in the history of religions”, which by being posterior, includes the corrections Zubiri made on the typed text of the Madrid seminar on “The philosophical problem of the history of religions”. Of course, the most complete exposition of religation is the one found in Xavier Zubiri’s, El hombre y Dios, Madrid, 1984, especially pp. 75-112.
² In the Madrid seminar of 1965, Zubiri had said “is not implanted in reality quiescently”.
³ (Tr. note: Zubiri here introduces something new in the Spanish language, a Spanish Yo capitalized; in this case with cursive letters for emphasis, to distinguish it from the ordinary yo he has just written. Since English already capitalizes the “I” we shall use the cursive I for this Yo, and leave “I” for the usual yo, to keep the distinction alive in the English text, with or without emphasis. With the Spanish (Yo)-(yo) distinction Zubiri points to the difference between the I as its posterior act of being and the “I” of the substantive reality)
⁴ This refers to the distinction Zubiri had established in Sobre la esencia [“On Essence”] (Madrid, 1962, pp. 403-412, 434-435). Later Zubiri will clarify that substantive being “would be an incorrect denomination, because it is not the case for being to be the substantive, or for substantivity to be being, but that the substantivity of the real “is”. It is not a substantive being, but rather the being of the substantive. This is the radical form of “being”, not because substantive reality may be a mode of being, but rather because the being of the substantive is the being of that which is the most radical in a real thing, the being of its own substantivity. Therefore, let us not confuse “being of the substantive” with “substantive being”. If I sometimes say “substantive being” let it be understood that I am always referring to the “being of the substantive” (Inteligencia y logos [“Intelligence and Logos“], Madrid, 1982, p. 352; cf. also Inteligencia sentiente. Inteligencia y realidad [“Sentient Intelligence. Intelligence and Reality“], Madrid, 1984, 3rd ed., p. 222, and El hombre y Dios [“Man and God“], op. cit., p. 54).
⁵ Confessionum, bk. X, ch. XXXIII, n. 50, in Patrologiæ cursus completus, series latina, vol. 32, ed. J.-P. Migne, Paris, 1845, c. 800.
⁶ This sentence comes from the 1965 Madrid seminar.
⁷ In the 1965 Madrid seminar Zubiri had said: “This attitude is determined precisely by that which is most radical in man and in the person, such as the moment of reality of himself and things”.
⁸ In the 1968 seminary Zubiri already refers to impellence and not to imposition; cf. the texts in this book originating in later seminars; also in El hombre y Dios ["Man and God"], op. cit., pp. 83-84, 108-109.
⁹ In the 1965 Madrid seminar Zubiri added: “It is religio or religion in its primary sense”.