Human Being: As Interpreted by Aristotle and Kierkegaard
As Interpreted by Aristotle and Kierkegaard Beginning with Aristotle, human being is a rational animal. In order to comprehend this idea we must understand its factors. First, potency (a new word Aristotle introduces to philosophy) is the capability for some kind of activity. Second, act is the fulfillment of a capability. Aristotle claims that a changeable being is a composite of act (principle of difference) and potency (principle of sameness). "A being is a potential as far as its potency," meaning when the potential is fulfilled, change has completed. Digging deeper into the understanding of these factors, we reach a key term, substance. Substance is the combination of matter and form. Again, breaking down each term, we see its significance to potency, act, and finally erring. Matter (talking about the makeup of a changeable being), is what a thing is made up of. As previously stated, for a thing to change it must have potential, matter is this potential. A changeable being has the ability to change at a substantial level. The other half to substance is form. Form is the principal of act (fulfillment of potency) at the substantial level. Again, this brings us back to our first two terms, potenc
A synthesis is a relation of two factors. What is being real for Aristotle? Being real is not an accident, it is a substance. Human being is a rational animal which is made up of intellectual and sense potentials. When potency is fulfilled, change has occurred. To Kierkegaard, a Lutheran Minister with Christian beliefs, human being is a relation ("in between"). His philosophy stems from a combination of Plato (justice) and Hegel (three fold dialectic principle of change). Despair can be split into two sections: not willing to be ones own self (giving up), and despairing to be one's self (you cannot really get rid of yourself). But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation (which accounts for it) that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but (consists in the fact) that the relation relates itself to its own self. The self that you are now is not the self you are going to be. The problem now being, because we are in a constant struggle to know who we are, and there is a higher power (the only one who must have constructed this relationship), who began this sickness we cannot cure. Existentialists do not like to divide up self like Aristotle (mind, body, etc. The first form is passive, and second, active. Given the fact that self is a relation, we now come to two new terms, sickness and despair. There are two forms of what Aristotle describes as intellect.
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