Affirmation denotes the fundamental assent to the being of a person for their own sake. It is the core of love and belongs to the third dimension of personhood: the qualitatively perfected being of the human person (Bexten 2017, pp. 271 ff.).
Affirmation and Love
Affirmation is more than a feeling: it is an act of the will that recognizes the other person as someone — not as a means, but as an end in themselves. Karol Wojtyła formulates this in the personalistic norm: the person may never be used as a mere means, but is always to be affirmed for their own sake.
Affirmation and Self-Transcendence
In affirmation the person transcends themselves (self-transcendence). They step out of self-centeredness and turn toward the other. Its opposite — the curvatio in se ipsum — is the curving in upon oneself, the inability to affirm the other.
Affirmation and Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a particular form of affirmation: the person affirms the other even when the other has become guilty. Forgiveness presupposes freedom, reason, and self-consciousness, and thereby manifests the full unfolding of person-behavior.
Ontological Foundation
The capacity for affirmation is grounded in the very being of the person. Because the person is a spiritual substance endowed with interiority and intentionality, they can open themselves to the other. Hans Eduard Hengstenberg describes the human being as the being called to love.
Ontological classification: Affirmation is a subclass of interpersonal relation and archphenomenon; it presupposes the free will.
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Wojtyła, Karol: Love and Responsibility, transl. H. T. Willetts (on the personalistic norm and the affirmation of the person for their own sake).
- Hengstenberg, Hans Eduard (1957): Philosophische Anthropologie. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer (German) (on the human being as the being called to love).