Understanding Desire, Passion, and the Concept of Person
Desire: A Driving Force in Human Experience
Wish: Movement of our psychic activity drives us to achieve an object that we consider a source of satisfaction. Features:
- First Foul: The desire to want something involves not the presence, but the absence of something.
- Living in the World of Excess: It is beyond the need to always address a world of possibilities in a world of excess.
- Based on Conflict: It dies when it gets its goal, but new desires emerge.
Acceptance of Desire: Essential Reality
Desire is an essential reality that must be taken into account despite the problems it poses.
- Spinoza: States that desire is to keep the momentum of one’s own being. To want is a real need for all humans, and who want always judge something as good because they desire it.
- Hegel: Desire is a fundamental component of society. Each individual and their desire are fulfilled by annihilating the object. Society compares a set of individuals who are such because they have overcome the struggle and death, meaning that one desires the annihilation of each other.
- Deleuze: Extending the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Deleuze believes that desire is born of what is forbidden and produces reality. Analyzing the universe of desires is critical, allowing us to understand some features of capitalist society.
Rejection of Desire: Path to Knowledge and Happiness
We must fight desire to obtain knowledge and happiness. This is the prospect of Epicurean and Stoic traditions, also indicated by mental philosophy and classical Buddhism.
- Stoicism: You need to put desire right. True wisdom consists in dominating nature and subjecting desire. This acceptance brings tranquility and peace.
- Epicureanism: The most important thing is to achieve pleasure based on serenity. To achieve this, one must only admit desires to eliminate the need for natural and artificial desires. One must have the desire to unite with nature to achieve serenity.
Passion: An Uncontrollable Inclination
Passion is an inclination or tendency that cannot be dominated. All meanings become a passion: feeling dominated by something in an uncontrolled way so that we cannot see beyond the object of our passion.
The Problem of the Relationship Between Reason and Passion
- Reason should dominate passion; otherwise, this becomes a reason why we are dominated.
- Without passion, there is no real knowledge: one knows when something needs to be passionately felt, motivated, and dominated by what we have known.
The Concept of Person: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives
Person: A Latin term that corresponds to the Greek term “Prosopon.” It was the name given to the mask that the actor brought to identify the character and avoid representing or confusing it with others. So, the person was what gave unity to the character mask.
Personality = The unique way of being of each individual.
- Socrates: Thought that the essential human trait was to learn about oneself.
- Plato: Believed that the human being had an immortal soul and put value on it.
However, it was Roman law and Christianity that gave an extraordinary impetus to the concept of person:
- Roman Law: In ancient Rome, citizens were recognized as specific individuals, resulting in the possession of a series of rights. Slaves had no rights and were not considered people. Roman law is the root of the legal concept of a person as a subject of rights and duties.
- Christianity: Believes that every human being is a child of God and possesses a soul capable of receiving rewards or punishment depending on their actions. Moreover, they believe that life is prolonged beyond death. All this underlines the value of the person as an autonomous entity.
Key Elements of the Concept of Person
The person is the subject of moral rights and responsibilities:
- Identifying the Roman law concept of “persona” with the possession of a series of rights made it clear that only Roman citizens were persons.
- Expansion of Christianity: Also meant progressive recognition of the value of human beings.
- The French Revolution: Involved a fundamental change, ending the privileges of the old regime and proclaiming the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
- The person is not only subject to rights. A person is able to act freely and answer for their actions in front of other human beings. That is, they are responsible for their actions. This also means they have homework. The concepts of rights and responsibilities have come together in the concept of person. Kant, unlike things, believed that people can act freely and, therefore, account for their actions. The person is the source of duty and morality and is based on the concept of citizenship.
Philosophical Schools Emphasizing the Value of the Person
In the 20th century, two philosophical schools have stressed the value of the person:
- Existentialism: Inspired by the thoughts of Heidegger and Sartre. The most important task of philosophy is thinking about the meaning of human existence and particularly warning that the human subject is so because they have to face a world of possibilities and choose among these needs and build their lives as a project.
- Personalism: Mounier believed that the person is the only source of true values. A person is a principle of efforts and projects that can never be mastered. The source is freedom and creativity. The real concept of a person must also keep in mind that the individual lives in society, so that feedback societal values.