1^st Year, Semester B, 1^st Module

Summary:Man is alive, I am alive, is this not surely one’s own undeniable experience?  How though can one better understand this fascinating experience of being alive? Has that which religious traditions call “soul” a place in the search for truth starting from human experience?

As we mature in age, we acknowledge how that which is most fundamental in human life, that which is most rooted in the body, has important repercussions upon that which is most elevated, the development of the human person in their capacities to know and to love.  We need therefore to delve into this complexity, entering into the analysis of man in so far as he is alive and moves himself.

Various themes to be looked at:

• Practical philosophy and philosophy of the living being
• Human life most rooted in the organic body: vegetative life
• Sensitive life and the discovery of intentionality
• Intelligence and will: discovering the human spirit, at the origin of man’s most immanent life

Bibliography:

Aristotle, On The Soul: Soul, experience of the senses, the different levels of the soul