An archphenomenon1 is an irreducible basic given that serves as the starting point of philosophical cognition. It is an ultimate, self-evident given that cannot be traced back to anything else (Bexten 2017, pp. 27 ff.).
Method and the Archphenomenon
The dissertation draws methodologically on the phenomenological tradition founded by Edmund Husserl: “Back to the things themselves!” The archphenomenon is that which shows itself when one sets aside prejudices and lets the matter itself speak. Adolf Reinach developed this method further and shows that there are essential laws grounded in archphenomena.
Personhood as an Archphenomenon
Personhood itself can be understood as an archphenomenon: it is an irreducible basic given that shows itself in the encounter with persons. One cannot “prove” that someone is a person — one can only grasp it by insight. Josef Seifert emphasizes the role of philosophical insight in apprehending such archphenomena.
Archphenomenon and Metaphysics
Archphenomena are not merely empirical findings but possess a metaphysical dimension: they reveal something about the essence of reality. Hedwig Conrad-Martius joins the phenomenological method to a real-ontology and shows that phenomena point to real being.
Demarcation from Empiricism
The empirical-functionalist concept of person recognizes no archphenomena in this sense: it reduces everything to measurable, observable properties. Robert Spaemann shows that without the acknowledgment of archphenomena the dignity of the human person cannot be grounded.
Awakening of Consciousness
The awakening of consciousness is the gradual transition from the First to the Second Dimension of personhood. It is not a sharp moment in time but a developmental process of the actualization of the active potency for person-behavior.
What is decisive is this: the awakening of consciousness does not change personhood (prote energeia), but only the level of deutera energeia, the actual exercise of personal acts such as cognizing, willing, and loving. The person who awakens to consciousness does not thereby first become a person. She always already was one. The awakening of consciousness typically falls within childhood and is a dimensional transition.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: developmental process, dimensional transition
Original Solitude
Original Solitude is the primordial experience of the human being recognizing himself as ontologically irreducible with respect to all other living beings. The human being discovers that no other living being “corresponds” to him — he is the only bodily substance that is at the same time spiritual. Original Solitude is the phenomenological correlate of the self, or of the I.
In Original Solitude the person experiences her unique standing within being: she is neither a mere natural being nor a pure spirit, but a body-soul unity. This experience of irreducibility is at the same time the precondition for the discovery of the Original Unity with the personal “Thou.” Wojtyła unfolds Original Solitude in the catecheses on the Theology of the Body (Catecheses 5—7).
See also: Original Unity, Original Nakedness, Person, Body-Soul Unity, Substance, Spousal Love
Original Unity
Original Unity is the primordial experience of the constitutive ordering of the person toward the personal “Thou,” which shows itself primarily in sexual difference: “two ways of being a body.” Original Unity is the ontological foundation of the Communio Personarum — the personal communion of man and woman.
Out of Original Solitude arises the discovery of the other as an equal personal “Thou.” Original Unity means that the person is not destined for isolation but is essentially ordered toward community. In spousal love this ordering finds its highest personal realization. Wojtyła unfolds Original Unity in the catecheses on the Theology of the Body (Catecheses 8—10).
See also: Original Solitude, Original Nakedness, Spousal Love, Person, Body, Love
Original Nakedness
Original Nakedness designates the state of the unimperiled self-showing of the person in her bodiliness: the body is perceived immediately as an expression of the person, not as an object to be consumed. In this state there is no shame, because the person knows she is seen as a person.
The loss of Original Nakedness consists in the experience of shame — the awareness that one’s own body might be perceived by the other as an object of desire rather than as an expression of the person. In spousal love shame is not destroyed but “sublated” (absorbed): the person shows herself to the other because she knows she is seen as a person. Wojtyła unfolds Original Nakedness in the catecheses on the Theology of the Body (Catecheses 11—13).
See also: Original Solitude, Original Unity, Spousal Love, Body, Person, Dignity
See also
- Chapter 2: Method
- Reason
- Intentionality
- Affirmation
- Self-Transcendence
- Freedom
- Someone
- Personalist Norm
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Husserl, Edmund. Logical Investigations. Transl. J. N. Findlay. London/New York: Routledge, 2001 (orig. 1900/01). (Phenomenological method: “Back to the things themselves!“)
- Reinach, Adolf (1913): Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (German). (Essential laws in archphenomena)
- Seifert, Josef (1987): Back to ‘Things in Themselves’. A Phenomenological Foundation for Classical Realism. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Philosophical insight and the apprehension of archphenomena)
- Conrad-Martius, Hedwig (1957): Das Sein. Munich: Kösel (German). (Phenomenological method and real-ontology)
- Spaemann, Robert. Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’. Transl. Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 (orig. 1996). (Acknowledgment of archphenomena as the basis for grounding dignity)
- Wojtyła, Karol (1969): Osoba i czyn. Kraków (German: Person und Tat, Freiburg: Herder, 1981) (German). (Original Solitude, Original Unity, Original Nakedness)
Fußnoten
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Archphenomenon is a coined loan-translation of the German Urphänomen, rendering the prefix Ur- with the Greek arch- (“first, original”). It corresponds to what the phenomenological tradition (Goethe, Husserl) renders as primordial phenomenon; the coinage here is deliberate, marking the term as a distinct concept of this ontology. ↩