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2. Man as Being-in-the-world
As embodied subject, man is a being-in-the-world. The human body is the link of man with the world. The
phenomenologist speaks of world or worlds for man, rather than environment. Environment refers to animals,
but the things around man are not simply objects lying; they form a network of meanings, in and on and around
which man organizes his life. Thus we speak of the world of a student, of a teacher,of a farmer, a politician. Man
is “in” the world not in the same sense as the carabao is “in’ the field. Both may be in the field but it is man who
gives meaning to the field, the carabao, the sky, the plough. The world connotes the a dialect of meaning and
structures. The things around man are structures that articulate a meaning proceeding from the subjectivity of
man. Some given structures reinforce a meaning , others run counter to it. In any case, to speak o man is to
speak if his world., and vice versa. The phenomenologist call this the intentionality of consciousness. In visayan,
it means “walay kalibutan(world) kung walay kalibutan (consiuosness).”
Rather than define man as “rational animal” to which one of my students quipped, “so what”? let us
emphasize man’s situatedness. This point is important when we speak of social change. No genuine social
change is effected without an internal change in meaning, and no internal meaning can last without an external
4. Man as Persons and his crowning activity is Love which presupposes Justice
For the phenomenologist, the inal aim of education, formal or informal is becoming a persons, “ Madaling
maging tao, mahirap magpakatao” . “Person” is the task of becoming oneself. Th individuality of man is one that
he has to become freely and consciously in time, in the world. In what does thistask consist? It consist in
intergration, in becoming whole , in unifying his diverse activities of speaking, thinking, willing and feeling. How
can he achieve this self-possesion? By directing all these activities towards an objective value or realm of
objective values, objective because they are valuable in themselves. Mere relative values cannot intergrate man
because they are derive their worth fro man himself. What beings posses inherent worth? Man in his
uniqueness and irreducibility is an objective value. Thus, the phenomenologist sees the meaning to the Christian