This week we have the partnership of Marcelo Gutiérrez Ancira, 3rd year student of Degree at Philosophy. With this article he reflects on one of the great issues that cross human existence: who is man.

If one does not find something worthy of being called God, one must play at being the master of the world. What other alternative is there in trying to situate oneself in existence? It is impossible for man to be indifferent to what happens to him in life. This can be seen from the most vital activities. Eating once does not mean that one will never be hungry again. In the face of indifference, one has no criterion for movement. Without movement, one dies. Faced with the impossibility of indifference, the criterion of good and bad is either given to us by an external force, or is invented by each one. If the meaning of life is given to us, why do we want to feel free? Man seeks to assert himself free as a subordinate being. He wants to be a player and a piece on a board simultaneously. On the other hand, if man gives meaning to himself, how should he face his weariness, boredom, and suffering in view of an arbitrary meaning? By playing at being the master of the world, man lacks a transcendental meaning that justifies his existence in the long run. In both ways, one discovers an internal tension between wanting to be something with transcendental justification, and someone who is self-determined. Something and someone.

It can be said, without much need for justification, that man is a thinking thing. It is a rational thing. He is a living thing with experience of himself. But can it be said that he is someone? To be a thinking thing is one way of being among many others. Inert things are moved by other moving things. Plants are things with a way of being that makes them grow, nourish, and reproduce. Animals are things with a way of being that, in addition, allows them to have sensitive experiences. Man is another thing with another way of being. He has another nature. Each thing has its own nature. No man decided to be born, so his way of being is given to him. Man is something with a nature outside of one's choice. He is a something among other things with other ways of being. It can be said that it is his lot to be something that thinks. Neither the fact of being something, nor its nature, was a choice. How can a man justify that he is not only something that thinks, but that he is also someone? If one is given his nature, can he consider himself free? 

To be someone necessarily means to be someone for someone else. How can one become someone for oneself? One for oneself is a thing among things. Seeing the world, he considers himself distinct from the things he observes. Among them, he discovers that there are other people. It is only in relation to others that it makes sense to speak of identity. Perhaps no one decides to be born, but as soon as one is born, he is already someone for his mother. Man is not reduced to being something that thinks, but from the moment he begins to exist, he is already a son. He already has a relationship with someone. It is true that one does not choose where one is born, but throughout life one chooses with whom one wants to surround oneself. If being someone is understood in reference letter to others, then who one can become is developed in relation to them. Perhaps freedom is always limited by the temporal context in which one finds oneself, but the way one lives one's relationships with the people around one is voluntary. One does not choose one's parents, but one chooses the subject child one wants to be. One does not choose one's companions, but one chooses the subject companion one wants to be. Freedom is not obtained by acting, but by accepting the world in which one finds oneself. Only when you recognize where you are, can you think about where you want to go and how to get there. 

Man can become someone for others in a temporary framework by the relationships he forms, but he still lacks a transcendental meaning. To find it, it is necessary to overcome temporality itself. In a first written request, one can overcome individual temporality by recognizing oneself as a member of a family, which is a chain with ancestors and possible descendants. By extending this logic to a social scale, one can identify oneself with one's community or nation, allowing one to be someone within something larger. Still, nations and life itself are understood within a temporal framework . One needs to believe in a timeless basis that sustains the possibility of temporality itself. That timeless basis must be thought of as something true and existent. There will be those who work for such things as "truth," "happiness," "pleasure," "power," "justice," etc., and they work as if seeking that were a sufficient basis for life itself. That which is sought is the foundation that moves man to continue living. That is -in a broad sense- the god of each one that makes us live for something outside ourselves. It is not a demonstration of the existence of God, but sample that without a God life lacks a transcendental meaning.

In this way, we discover that we act as something that participates in some greater thing and that we are somebody to the people around us.

If you want to continue philosophizing, you can contact me at the following email: agutierreza.1@alumni.unav.es

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