Understanding Human Existence: Thought, Language, and Being
Understanding Human Existence
1. On Human Beings:
A) Human beings exist alongside other objects, but their existence is unique because they are self-aware. They relate to themselves, defining their being.
B) To be yourself is essential. It’s a practical, continuous choice between existing and ceasing to exist. Every decision implies a choice to continue existing and defines how we want to exist.
C) Only a self-aware being truly exists in the world. The world isn’t just the sum of the universe’s parts. Being in the world means inhabiting and being familiar with it. A person’s world is defined by their existence, their love, thoughts, feelings, and their care for their own being, whether they embrace it or not.
2. Modes of Being in the World: Understanding and Encountering
I) Understanding:
a) Human beings are thrown into existence and must assume and embrace it. They project possibilities through which they realize their existence.
b) To be human is to be a possibility, something not yet fully realized. We anticipate our future selves based on the possibilities we envision.
II) Encountering:
a) Being thrown into existence means having to be as one desires, or it implies human intimacy with oneself within a particular emotional tone about yourself and how to appear in the world.
b) In states of mind or vital temper, man is with himself, his life or his existence forever in a certain way. In the vital nerve suffer the repercussions of failure exist or we have to pursue the meaning of this existence and simultaneously hardening open vital that existence always as good or as bad as meaningful or meaningless.
Thought and Language
1. Thought:
a) Thought is an activity or process characterized by the following properties:
I) Intentionality: This is the capacity of mental states and events to be about objects or states of affairs in the world. Beliefs typically have this property. When one believes, desires, hopes, or fears, one necessarily wants to believe, hope, or fear something. Intentions are also intentional states. When someone has an intention, the intention is about something.
– Intentionality refers to the laying or address or point of mind toward an object. Intentional states generally relate to objects or states of affairs that deal through representation that is linguistically articulated.
– There are intentional states in which we distinguish between the content of the intentional act and the means or the psychological attitude. For example, I believe, desire, or hate that John smokes. In all these cases, the representative content is the same (John smokes), but the psychological modes are different: belief, desire, and hatred, respectively.
II) Consciousness: A mental state characterized by being aware, learning about oneself through self-attributions of mental states.
– Self-attributions are expressions of a subject’s knowledge of their mental states, but not of the mental states themselves. Similarly, trying to achieve something is a serious expression of the desire to achieve it. Such a desire broadcasts the expression in this verbal case.