The Human Person As
An Embodied Spirit
(Recognize Own
Limitations and
Possibilities)
1. Describe the taste of water.
2. Describe the color blue to a blind person.
3. How will you describe how wonderful the
world is to a blind person?
4. Ask students if the tip of their elbow can
reach their chin.
According to Plato reality
is made up of two worlds
namely, the world of
Forms and the world of
Sense where human
beings participate in both
of these different worlds.
Human beings is a body and soul,
according to Plato, body is evil for it is
inclined to temporal things; objected to
temporal satisfaction and happiness.
The world of Sense which is proposed and
believed by Heraclitus, is the world we see,
experience, the world of objects; a world of
change, it is made up of matter and is bound to
decomposition.
Heraclitus proves this through the statements
“Cold things grow hot, the hot cools, the wet
dries, the parched moistens.” and “We both step
and do not step into the same rivers. We are and
we are not.”
The world of Forms which is proposed by
Parmenides who influenced Plato in this type of
world is a world that is eternal, perfect and
unchanging.
.
For Plato, reality is eternal and unchanging, it is
the real world, the world of forms. Everything in
the world of senses is but an imitation or a mere
shadow of the ideal.
Transcendence means that: “I am
my body but at the same time I am more than my
body. The things that I do, all those physical
activities and attributes which are made real
through my body, reveals the person that I am”.