The person as a type of reality: the man beyond individual

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleThe person as a type of reality: the man beyond individual
3. lemma author Tampakis, Kostas
4. lemma category Orthodox Anthropology - Key thinkers - Philosophy of science/epistemology
5. Publication date 2015
6. lemma work Chiţoiu, Dan Mihai [Author]. The person as a type of reality: the man beyond individual
7. lemma manifestations The Scientific Annals of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi (New Series). PHILOSOPHY
8. Keywords Early Christian Cappadocian Fathers - Staniloae, Dumitru - Prosopon - Hypostasis - Byzantine Fathers
9. Url Click Here
10. Lemma body

    1. This article was also written under the aegis of The Knowledge Based Society Project. It is a continuation and an expansion of the 2013 “Person and Personal Reality” article. It proposes that the notion of person acquired a specialized use in modern times, under the impact of the constitution of humanist sciences. It also exhibits many different and, sometimes, confusing usages. The paper contents that the origin of the notion comes from patristic times, and a careful investigation into how it was constituted and shaped within this horizon can provide the opportunity to establish a different understanding of man. This paper aims to discuss the type of understanding that has characterized the Eastern Christian approach in describing the individual as a person. It argues that a person should be understood as a type of reality, and considers the implications. The paper begins by recounting how the modern paradigm of talking about man emerged. It discusses the rise of experimental knowledge and measurement in relation to studying man. The author then moves on to the notion of person as discussed by the early Christian Cappadocian Fathers. He focuses on the concepts of hypostasis and prosopon, and describes how they were identified by the Cappadocian Fathers, in order to confer an ontological dimension to prosopon, and a personal modality to the existence of God. The author then moves to the resignification of the understanding of prosopon by the Byzantine fathers. Following Yannaras, the author describes personhood as something unique and non-repeatable, a report and a relation whose dominant characteristic is its apophatism. The paper then moves on to the suggestions of Father Dumitru Stăniloae, who the author takes to have recovered the essential character of Eatsern Christianity’s patristic tradition on personhood. As opposed to western conceptions of free will and of a static nature, Eastern Christianity offers a study of man in stages. Man is not, but rather, he becomes, and his freedom of will also grows in stages. The author then moves on to a discussion of determinism and of rationality. The author sees in discussing the natural world a way to encounter the limits of Creation and thus engender communion. He also draws on current results from quantum mechanics. Drawing on current findings of quantum mechanics, the paper ends by noting that the current moment is one for the mutual opening between, on the one hand, theology in general, and Eastern-Christian spirituality in special, and science, on the other hand.