{41} (cont'd)

C) The moments of this substantive system co-determine themselves, but not as potency and act (as the Aristotelians would say) of a hylomorphic substantial unity; rather they do so as real moments in act and ex æquo, whose {42} co-determination consists in each being “of” all the rest. The “of” is a unity of a higher metaphysical type, to my way of thinking, than the unity of potency and act. And in this “of” consists not only the radical unity of human substantivity, but also its selfness throughout life, a selfness essentially distinct from a numerical persistence of all its notes —something which does not exist anyway. Man is, then, a psycho-organic substantivity.

Due to this, the characteristics which I expounded with respect to the body strictly speaking belong to the entire psycho-organic system. The functional position encompasses the complete psycho-organic system. Sensing has a very precise position in the human system, for example with respect to intelligence, which is an intellective sensing. We shall soon see the enormous importance of this unity. It is a very different position from that which it has in a mere animal. And the same is true with respect to solidarity and interdependence. The psychic moment transfuses itself into each corporeal note and conversely, corporeity, as principle of the being present (estar presente), as principle of actuality, is a moment which concerns psychism itself. This can be seen in such phenomena as “expression”, “physiognomy”, etc.

In order to understand this psycho-organic systematic unity, it will be sufficient to take a brief look at human activity. Each note of this substantivity acts systematically, that is, no note acts alone and by itself, so to speak; and even though it acts through its own properties, it also acts always as a “note of”; that is, its actuation is only a moment of the “activity-of” the rest of them. Just as all the notes, by being “notes-of”, constitute {43} only one substantive system, so this, what we call activity of each note, is “activity-of”. All its activities constitute one activity only: the activity of substantivity. This is what I express by saying that human activity is “at one and the same time” organic and psychic, because this would suppose there are two activities, one psychic and another organic. What I affirm is exactly the opposite, to wit, that there is but a single, and self-same activity of the entire system in each and every one of its notes. The activity always has the character of system. To be sure, such activity is complex on account of this fact, and in it some characteristics are more dominant than others. But always, even in the act which appears to be most physico-chemical, in reality, they are always an activity of the entire system with all its physico-chemical and psychic notes. And, I repeat, it is not the point that the subject of all of these activities is one thing, be they organic or psychic; but that the activity is formally one. It is a systematic activity in itself by virtue of being proper to the entire system, which in every one of its acts is in activity at all its points, but with variable dominance of some points over others. The situation is analogous to the different levels and ondulations of an entire liquid surface. Everything organic is psychic and everything psychic is organic, because everything psychic takes place organically, and everything organic takes place psychically. On account of this, there is never actuation of a psychic note on an organic note or viceversa, for there is nothing other than the actuation of one psycho-organic state on another. The substantive reality of man {44} is thus a system in which each note is always a “note-of” all the rest, in which each note is but one moment of the primary coherential unity in which the substantivity consists.

This granted, what is, formally, the substantive reality of man?
We have already seen that man lives and senses, and that he is, like any other animal, an animated living being. The animal does not exhaust itself in sensing stimuli through the formality of pure stimulus. This formality, in fact, is not limited to being the formality of an impressive apprehension, but constitutes an ambit, the ambit of pure stimulus in which the diverse animal acts unfold themselves. It is the proper role of formality to constitute an ambit, the ambit of everything animal. Each act of sensing, in fact, has three moments: a receptor moment, a tonic moment, and a motor impulse moment. I leave aside more complex aspects of animal life, because all such are found to be not merely based upon the act of sensing, but constituted according to its three moments: receptor, tonic and motor impulse. Reception is a reception of stimuli; all reception is formally stimulation and only stimulation. What is stimulated? Each stimulus modifies the vital tone of the state of the animal; the tone becomes affected stimulusly. The stimulation is at this point mere affection (I use this term here, not in the general sense of something that affects the whole animal organism, but in the narrow sense of affections, of sensing states like anger, like hunger, etc.). This modification sets in motion in the animal the tendency or impulse to affection, which is nothing but the reply directed to a new situation, stimulusly {45} constituted. The intrinsic unity of these three moments (stimulation, affection, tendency) is what formally constitutes sensing.

In man, the formality of what is impressively apprehended is not pure stimulus, but reality; that which is apprehended impressively, as we saw, is apprehended as something de suyo. It is an intellective sensing. And this formality is not limited to being formality of an act, but constitutes the ambit in which all human acts unfold. Above all, the character of the vital tone modification has changed. The animal vital tone, we said, is “affection”, it is the way of sensing oneself stimulusly affected by the stimulus. On the other hand, man senses the tonic modification in a different way: I feel not only contented or disgusted, but I sense myself one way or the other in reality. The tonic affection changes now into a way of sensing myself as a reality in reality; this is the sentiment. Affection is not the same as sentiment. There is only sentiment when the affection formally involves the moment of reality. Furthermore, the apprehension of this real thing, when it modifies my sentientness, impels me to respond. In what way? Now it is no longer the case of tending stimulusly to a new animal situation, but it is to tend to place oneself really in reality, though in a different way. To do this, one has to choose. Tendency and appetite give way to volition. Volition has essentially one moment of reality: a way of being now in reality is desired. With this, the animal processual unity, that is, the merely stimulic unity of stimulation, tonic affection and tendency, turns into a “human” processual unity; that is, into a process of realization (apprehension of the real, sentiment of the real, volition of the real).

{46} Now, these two unities, the unity of sensing and the unity properly human, are not two unities juxtaposed as if the second were added to what is animal, or as if human unity were merely based upon animal unity. Rather, animal unity is an intrinsic and formally “constitutive” moment of the human unity; intelligence is in itself formally and constitutively sentient; sentiment is in itself formally and constitutively affectant; the will is in itself formally and constitutively tending. Now, the biological unity of sensing is the essence of animality. Whence it follows that the human as such is in itself formally and constitutively animal. Consequently, man is an animal which confronts reality animally: he is an animal of realities. Here is the essence of the human reality, the essence of human substantivity. The constitutive ambit of man is “reality”: we are located in reality. From the point of view of his notes, that is, from the point of view of suchness, man is an animal of realities.

But man, thanks to being precisely an animal of realities, has his own proper form and his own proper mode of reality. In virtue of this we have to consider man, not only from the point of view of his notes, but as a form and mode of reality.


II

Form and mode of human reality

Human reality does not exhaust itself just in its system of notes, that is, in being an animal of realities. Indeed, {47} precisely in virtue of these notes it has a more radical structure. In the first place, these notes make of the animal of realities a form of reality and a way of being implanted in it. And in second place, this human reality, according to its form and mode of reality, is actual in the world, in the respective unity of reality as such; i.e., man has his own proper being. We must then examine the problem of human reality in accordance with these two moments: in the first place, the form and mode of human reality in itself; and in second place, the actuality, i.e., the being of human reality in the world. Finally, we must confront the unity of being and human reality.

1) Form and mode of reality. The system of notes of the animal of realities is not identical to the form and mode of reality, which, in virtue of them, the human animal has. So, let us see what is the form of reality of human substantivity, and what is its mode of reality.

A) The set of physico-chemical properties of a molecular edifice is one thing, and the fact that this edifice may have, because of its molecular structure, the form of reality we call life, i.e., possession of oneself, is quite another. Now, man has those talitative corporal and psychic notes which constitute his substantivity as animal of realities. Precisely because man perceives things as realities, he behaves with respect to them and himself; and he does so, not only from the point of view of the properties which he really possesses, but also, and above all, from the point of view of their character of reality. A stone falls due to the law of gravitation, due to the gravitational properties which it really has. But among those properties there is none {48} which denotes “to be reality”; that is, we presuppose that it already is real, and gravitation acts as one of the properties which constitute the real stone. In none of the equations is there a parameter or a variable “reality”. But in the case of man it is not that way. A man who falls does so in conformity with the law of gravitation, exactly like the stone. But there is a difference, viz., that it is necessary that we be told the form of reality of the man’s fall: Has he committed suicide? Has he fallen by chance? Has he been murdered?, etc. In his fall man behaves and acts, not only from the point of view of the physico-chemical and psycho-organic qualities which he possesses, but he does so with respect to his own character of reality. Here, reality is not just a presupposition, but something in view of which the actions are carried out. And the case is that, indeed, human reality is for me not just a simple system of notes which constitute me de suyo, but above and beyond all else, is the reality which is proper to me qua reality, that is to say, is my reality, my own reality. And in virtue of that I am a reality which, as form of reality, not only is de suyo (in this I coincide with all other realities), but in addition I am “mine”. I have a reality which is mine, a thing that does not happen to a stone. Man has, as a form of reality, this which I have called “his-ownness”, being “his-own”. This does not occur in the case of other realities. All other realities have de suyo the properties they have; but their reality is not formally and explicitly “their own”. On the other hand, man is formally his own self, is his-ownness. His-ownness is neither an act nor a note or system of notes, but the form of human reality qua reality; whether carrying out its own {49} actions or not, human reality is, as reality, something formally anterior to such carrying out.

Therefore, his-ownness constitutes, to my way of thinking, the formal explanation of personhood (personeidad). Let us not confuse personhood with personality. I use the word “personhood”, and not ”personality” as used in classical terminology, for reasons I will discuss later. Morphologically the situation is not so unusual. Just as in the case of being per se it has been usual to speak of perseity, or in that of being a se of aseity; so also, to be a person as form of reality, I call personhood (tr.- Sp. personeidad which can also be rendered as personeity in English).

Personhood is formally constituted, to my way of thinking, by “his-ownness”. To be a person, clearly, is not simply to be a free, intelligent reality. Neither does it consist in being a subject of its acts. The person can be such a subject, but is so because he already is a person, and not the other way around. It is also commonly said that the formal explanation of the person is subsistence. But I do not think so: a person is certainly subsistent, but is so because he is his own. His-ownness is the root and formal character of personhood as such. The his-ownness is inexorably the character of a subsistent reality in the measure in which this reality is his own. And if its structure as reality is subjectual, then the person is a subject and will be able to have characteristics of will and liberty. This is the case of man.

If we call this characteristic which human reality has qua being his own, “personhood”, then the concrete modulations that this personhood continues to undergo is what we call personality. Personhood is the form of reality; personality is the figure in accordance with which the form of reality models itself in its acts {50} insofar as it is modeling itself in them. I add this last precision because personality is not constituted by a sense of psychic characteristics (foolish, smart, slow-witted, irascible, introverted, etc.). All these characteristicss belong indubitably to personality, but they are personality, not as psychic and organic characteristics, but as determining and modulating the form of reality, the personhood. Personality as such is a question not of psychology or of empirical anthropology, but of metaphysics. That is the reason for the profound nature of personality. One is a person, in the sense of personhood, by the mere fact of being a human reality, that is, by having intelligence. To be sure, the human embryo acquires intelligence and thus personhood at a moment almost impossible to define; but once that moment arrives, that embryo has personhood. The entire genetic process prior to this moment is, for that reason, only a process of hominization. When the moment has arrived and it has this form of reality, the embryo certainly does not yet perform personal acts; and one might think that the personhood still lacks personality. But such is not the case because personhood does not configure itself only by performing acts, but also by passively receiving the figure which the genetic processes pour into that personhood, and which are exercised in the human living being in his process of hominization. When the embryo acquires intelligence, it develops personality passively.

In summary, from the time the human embryo has that form of reality which is personhood, that personhood is always modeling itself throughout its entire human life. The personhood is itself and is always the same; the personality is formed {51} throughout all of the psycho-organic processes from the time the human embryo possesses intelligence until the moment of death. That is why a man is always the same, but never the same: by reason of his personhood he is always himself, by reason of his personality he is never the same.

These two moments of personhood and personality are not like two layers or strata of a man; rather, personality is the moment of concretion of personhood. Therefore, we are not dealing with two strata, but two moments of a single reality, viz., the concrete human person. From the point of view of his form of reality, man is a person, a personal animal.

B) Now, in order to be even more precise about the character of this form of reality, let us recall what was said with respect to man as a living being. Such a being is characterized by an independence and control with respect to his sorroundings; this is his mode of implantation in the cosmos. Such independence from the surroundings varies according to the degree of life involved and the form of the living being. In the case of man there is something more than mere independence when he faces the sorroundings of his life. A living being is implanted in reality in a very precise way: namely, as forming part of it. But man is his own, his “own” reality with respect to all reality, whether real or possible, including, if we chose to admit it, divine reality. And in this sense, his reality, insofar as it is his own, has a unique mode of independence: to be set apart from real things qua real. His mode of implantation in reality is not to form part of it, but to be himself as a reality confronting all of reality. It is not to form part of reality but something else: it is an absolute mode of reality: it is an ab-solute mode of reality. In the case of man, his mode of reality, his {52} mode of implantation in it, is to be a relative absolute. It is absolute because he is himself confronting all possible reality; but is relative because this mode of absolute implantation is an acquired character. In his life, and in the most modest of his actions, man not only realizes a series of personal acts, according to the properties he has and the situations in which he finds himself; but in each one of them the human person defines, in a precise and concrete way, the mode according to which his reality is relatively absolute. Whence comes the seriousness of each act. A real thing apprehended as such imposes upon us that we determine, upon confronting it, a concrete way of being absolutely. This seriousness, as a trait of my person, is what I have usually called the restlessness of life. It is not just the uncertainty proper to life as an adventure; rather, this restlessness consists in not knowing well the concrete mode of being absolute. Man not only realizes a series of acts through the properties he personally has; but he defines in each of his acts that precise and concrete mode, according to which, in each instant of his life, he is a relative absolute. Restlessness is the problematism of the absolute.

In virtue of this, man, as a mode and form of reality, is in the world, i.e., is actually in the world as person and absolute reality. And man, according to this actually being there, has in the world his own being. The question now becomes, In what does this being of relatively absolute reality consist?