man as embodied subjectivity, man as being-in-the-world, man as

being-with, and man as person. Man as embodied subjectivity brings

into conglomeration two very different entities: the body and the soul.
There is difficulty in trying to understand how two diverse units can
interact with one another. It seems impossible for these elements to
exist in one being. Seeing man as embodied subjectivity makes it
possible to comprehend how these two constituents exist together.
Man creates meaning in everything through language which, in turn is
manifested through embodiments of structures or gestures. He always
seeks to epitomize the meaning he gives to objects by his gestures
and actions. As embodied subjectivity, man subsists in a world where
he creates meaning. The world is not a world if there is no man who
gives meaning to it. Man has his own world where he gives meaning to
those that are of importance to him and to speak of man is to speak of
this world of his. Consequently, to speak of the world of one man is
also to speak of this certain man. It is impossible to separate these two
entities for to speak of one is to speak of the other.
A mans world is not comprised solely of things and objects. To address
man as he exists in his world comes hand in hand with his interactions
with other human beings. A man then interacts with other human
beings in two ways: interhuman and social. A man gives meaning to
the existence of another person in this world if this other person is
important to him. In other words, man interacts and creates a dialogue
between those who influence him and his life directly. He gives
importance to the people he meets and communicates with on a
constant basis. Accordingly, the people that pass by and affect him
ambiguously are of no importance to him. He does not give great
meaning to them nor does he recognize the true meaning of their
existence. This relationship brings about a monologue, wherein there
is no actual interaction between the two persons. Language is the best
proof of man as a social being. Man has created language in order to
socialize with his fellowmen. In this case, man lives within a society,
and society lives within man. Man as embodied subjectivity demands
that he interact with his fellowmen. He seeks to make himself and his
world known to others through communication with others.
No man is an island and a man cannot call himself a man if there is
no one else to affirm his claim. Man becomes man only if there is

another one to establish his humanity. Man as person then signifies his
ability to embody the meaning he gives to others through love. Man
then bases his interaction with others on love. Man was born in his
human form. As he ages, matures, and lives, he becomes human. This
humanity is gained by giving oneself to others in order to become
complete. Man lives in order to find himself by finding meaning in his
relationship with his comrades. It is only then that man can truly call
himself human: when he realizes that the people around him make
him whole. Man as embodied subjectivity exists in a world, his
meaningful world, where he interacts with people by manifesting his
love to them.
On Meaning of Human Being in the World
Kazhimurat Abishev

It is not enough and impossible for man to lead only organic life, e.g. to
remain in limits of supplying just organic needs. It was said that only
existence of certain meaning could be justification for human being.
However, someone can say that it is not rare to meet people for whom
meaning of life is just support and supply of physical existence. All
their efforts and thoughts are aimed at it. Certainly, it seems that
difficulties of our life provide solid basis for such conclusion.

However, if someone will start from the idea that only existence of
certain organic needs is justification for all his actions and deeds then
many specific only for man features would be impossible to explain.
First of all, for performance of pure organic needs man does not need
to unite with other people into society. It might be said that union
exactly makes easier their organic existence. For this, herds
organizational forms would be enough. If such organizational forms
sufficiently supply organic needs of animals even the most developed
ones then for their further improvement there are no any incentives.

The whole specificity of man, his way of being in the world can be
characterized by understanding that he is a social creature. In
philosophy such definition exists from Aristotles times. This definition
will not change if you will explain origin of human being as a result of
biological evolution or as a divine creation or as any other way. Society
assumes that every individual who is a part of this society although he
was born and raised in it does not genetically or organically inherit all
rights and responsibilities established by this society but learn them in
process of his formation as a human being. He learns the whole way of
human existence only after birth and during his upraising but he does
not already come into world with this knowledge and it is not originally
and organically present in him. Consequently, people themselves
establish public relations between people in their nature and it does
not matter how these relations are necessary in certain conditions and
they are not given people from the origin. That is why public relations
in principle can be chosen. And that is why people historically change
these relations although in their biological nature they remain almost
the same.

Organization (union) of people into society is rather answer to needs of

establishment and rooting of certain necessary for people values and
not just for survival needs even if organic needs cultivated in any
cultural environment as the primary values. It is one way when people
simply satisfy their organic needs without making it a way and
indicator of self-establishment and another when consumption
becomes self-value. Relations between people that create and make
possible to function human society mean mutual penetration by
meaning and logic of their unity. Also it means understanding and coliving through specifics of essence of each others lives and not by selfsufficing location of bodies in space and time. Co-living through each
others lives is possible not only where people penetrated by some
common value but also when they are opposite in values. In the end,
social commonality is aimed at limiting self-sufficing organic needs as
the relatively completed whole and at establishment of more universal
aims. According to logic of social commonality, man should not exist
only for his organic needs but for values that are dominate over

individual life. Already communal organization stated that kin and tribe
are higher and more valuable than life of individual kin member and
demand unconditional sacrifice of individual life in the name of
commonality preservation. Individual unconditionally accepts this aim,
e.g. makes it his personal aim. At the same time it is not possible to
say that individual life does not have any value for archaic community.
Every life is self-valuable because any value starts from it. But
preservation of life of the whole is more valuable than preservation of
individual life. Consequently, social organization of people is possible
only where behavior of individuals comprising this organization is not
forever pre-determined by genetic and biological structure that
automatically works in stimulating conditions. Man correlates his being
with being of the rest of the world and tries to identify his place in it,
and to find the meaning of the surrounding world as well as his
meaning in this world exactly because it was not defined before him
and for him by previous conditions and this circumstance presumes
that people must and would be compelled to define themselves.
Organization of individuals into society although it happens a priori
and unconsciously and as if semi-automatically but it is their decision
and their definition of mutual being based on recognition commonality
as the highest value that gives meaning to existence of every
individual. From the situation of mans self-identification in the world
there is a need for defining of value of nature and the whole organic
life as well as its independence from people. All these are not only
acceptance as a fact the worlds existence beyond man but it is its
assessment and selection of the attitude that would correlate with
such assessment. This assessment can be various and depending on
its content becomes a certain way of peoples attitude towards the
world and way of peoples being in the world. The fact that human
commonalities not only in different regions but in relatively similar
geographical conditions are often substantially differs in culture
perhaps can be explained by difference in ways of their relation to
world. In particular, originality of the East and the West not as
geographic parts of the world but as cultural paradigms is exactly in
differences of their way of relation to the world and to man himself.

Due to fact that man does not directly belong to the world as its
internal part but he exists in external to the world relation with his own
special position as a witness and observer, in principle he can become
on position of external world towards himself, the man, and from this
position to make assessment. He also can be witness and observer of
everything that he presents and what is happening in the mans world.

That is why it is possible to talk about relation of man to world and that
relation he can establish or change himself. It happens because
without position of beyondness man cannot relate to himself as some
external reality and to watch himself as a stranger.

That is why values are not given to man but chosen by him.
Consequently, human commonalities have same values as well as
various ones. Values change for people, commonalities and whole
mankind historically. Values are the essence (core) in which individuals
see the meaning of their existence; this is at what people consciously
and more often unconsciously aimed. Values if present are something
that determines the general trend of actions and deeds and what
indirectly make clearer peoples affairs thus giving every individual his
own special light. Therefore, in the end people themselves create
values even if something accepted by them, as a value existed before
and a priori. It is because establishment of mans relation to this
something is valuable by its content (substance) even recognizing
worlds existence as a fact. Man cannot be absolutely neutral to world
because in opposite case, world simply would not exist for him. He
would be inside the world as for instance, animals and would not be in
his some special relation to the world with his special position as some
other reality that is equal to the world. But the fact that people create
values themselves does not mean that values are unreal or nonobjective. Man, human commonality is ontological power as nature and
this is seen from the increasing positive and especially negative
impact of people on nature. For every individual member of society
demands that follow from logic of mutual cooperation and social
commonality are objective because commonality in most general form

presents same for everybody value. Such objective value exists

independently from its recognition by one or another individual.

In everyday life we witness that people have different value aims. This
is especially obvious in complex, divided inside society. Even accepting
common values, they can be different and quite often simply opposite
for every individual. This is result of autonomy of every individual as a
subject. Man consequently is subject of his values. Thus one or another
individual sometimes becomes center of different and contradictory
aims.

Even individuals who think that they live just taking care of supplying
of primary vital needs in limits of organic survival however find
motives beyond interests of survival. Moreover, to be live and make
efforts for this is only tool and not the final goal. In this case they have
demands for themselves and others that go farer of organic needs
limits. They also consider some actions as just or unjust, good or bad,
good or evil and these assessments in limits of just organic needs
supplying are unnecessary if take into account behavior at animals
level. It can be seen for instance, when deep-rooted egoist often tries
to hide actions for his own benefit under pseudo-noble cover and he
operates with the same categories. As a result of this, individuals quite
often choose as value and meaning of their existence very
questionable and even anti-human, destructive aims, targeted against
human commonality and harmony. Such values and ominous aims are
not so rare among individuals but even among ethnos and peoples.

Aspiration for unlimited wealth, power, violence and expansion can be

examples of such value aims. In history of humankind there are a lot of
examples of this. History is full of violence, destruction of one people,
ethnos by another exactly because of clash of their value aims and
worldview paradigms. To make something as a meaning of existence
does not mean objectively positive fact but as a rule it is perceived as

something high, noble sometimes simply as a mission prescribed from

heaven to man, ethnos, and so on. That is why it is possible to speak of
true or false value. As in cognitive sphere, truth or falseness of chosen
value is not seen directly; sometimes many centuries pass by on way
of following certain values before revealing their falseness.

Value accepted as a foundation for relation to world by one or another

commonality sets internal core meaning of their specific culture. Many
facts support this. For instance, researchers of American, Australian
and other tribes that preserved the most archaic forms of organization
and culture, for long time could not understand logic of their
thinking. They thought that this thinking is still pre-logical (L. LeviBrule) because their judgments and ideas often did not fit into
framework of norms and rules of cause-effect logic of thinking of
Western man who got used to see meaning of thinking only in
revealing internal laws of objects with aim to use and apply them. But
later it was found that thinking of the earlier communal man follows
some different and specific logic essentially different from thinking and
intention of European man. L. Levi-Brule later admitted his mistake.
Individuals from earlier cultures usually do not look at nature through
the point of view of simple usefulness and applicability and they do not
see nature as a tool for satisfaction of their needs. For them nature is
full of its own meaning and they usually try to merge with it, to copy it
and to personify it.

Activity of man in transforming nature can be made in two main

meanings: firstly, for establishment and strengthening of harmonious
relation between man and nature, for mutual enrichment, revival, and
secondly, for only use of nature and perception of it just from the
position of so-called need-use motive. Such relation started in late
antiquity in Europe and then greater strengthened in New Times.
Based on this foundation, the culture and spiritual atmosphere change
and its leading intention become vision of everything as useful or
useless; something that can or cannot bring any benefit, etc. From
this position nature and man for people themselves gradually start to

loose self-sufficing value and independent, unrelated to anything

meaning. It is naturally that man preoccupied by only this desire does
not want to preserve, save nature by itself moreover, to revive it where
it is necessary, precisely if he would do all this then only because it is
useful for him. The same relation established to people themselves, to
social aims and norms and institutes, etc. There is a characteristic of
need-use relation in the most general type and in its so to say
unadulterated purity that happens in life quite rarely. Unfortunately,
such relation received the most crude and naked form of development
in the world where we live, e.g. in the former Soviet Union and
especially in Kazakhstan. Environmental catastrophes in our country
are result of this relation for many years in the past.
Of course, the said before does not mean that in the world where such
values and relations established other relations and values do not
exist. We talk just about leading statement of such aims. Sometime
back they were seemed as noble and high and consequently it had its
heroes and many victims. But if such aim becomes all absorbing and
all-overcoming in its unrestrained movement then it would become
(and already became) destructive way leading only to catastrophe.
And now there are not doubts in this. 20th century was very significant
in this: two World wars, fascism and totalitarianism, many regional
wars, arms race, economic, environmental catastrophes, etc.

Relations aimed at preserving harmony with nature at some although

one-sided form was established in past in East. These relations have
various forms in different eastern cultures. Currently, we witness
expansion of western way of relation to world to East too. If specific
feature of human being in the world is his aspiration for certain
meaning that he chooses and formulates himself then primary
objective basis for this is freedom.

MAN AND DEATH:

A PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY

ANTONI SIEMIANOWSKI

Human attitudes toward death, as well as our behavior in the face of

death, have changed in the last quarter of the century: death and
dying stopped being an unmentionable question and became the topic
of numerous discussions. Now death is being interpreted in various
aspects (medical, psychological, legal or sociological) by thanatologists
who treat this fact in a scientific manner and propose rational attitudes
on death.
Whereas nuclear arms imply the possibility of total destruction of life,
while contemporary medicine creates an opportunity to prolong life.
On the other hand, terrorism courts death, while some people demand
the right to so-called death with dignity and promote mercy-killing or
suicide. There is then a rising interest in death.
One can ask, however, if it is possible to explain death in a scientific
way. May one demand his or her right to die in the same way as
human beings demand their right to live?
What is death: is it a phenomenon of life, its natural end? What is the
ultimate sense of death in the total existence of man? If Thanatologists
do not answer these questions clearly, can philosophy give proper
answers? Certainly, it should search for them. From the philosophical
point of view we should recognize first that we can experience death,
because we ought to know the cognitive value of our conceptions and
judgments about death and its relation to with the whole of human
existence.
Only human beings experience death as an ultimate and shocking
event. In the world of nature we deal only with the phenomenon of
passing, which is something natural for animate creatures other than
human beings. Why does man experience death as something
unnatural; what does he see in it? One cannot totally experience its
essence for when he dies he experiences it personally but cannot
transmit the content of his experience to the others after his death. He

falls absolutely silent; the dead ones tell us nothing about death and
about the life that follows.
We can experience death only in others' dying and only until they
actually die. So it is given to us as an ultimate personal event in the
life of another human being, never as an event of mine. This is the
principal limitation of the possibility of our experience of death. We
know that it must happen, but it is always far away from us. Thus, it is
given to us in a one-sided manner; exclusively on that side of life.
Death itself designates the limits of the possibility of its experience.
This should be considered in philosophy. All the conceptions of death
and of its connection with the whole of our existence are based on
one-sided incomplete experience, which is had in the life time before
death, never after it. Our understanding of death is given to us
exclusively on the basis of the self-understanding of a living-man, who
is inevitably approaching death as the ultimate event of his life. Thus,
we come to an understanding of death by analyzing our actual
existence in the light of the one-side experience of death and dying by
the others.
What can we say of death itself. We are absolutely sure that it will
come into our lives: each of us certainly will die. What can it be then:
the law of life and destination of our existence; the entrance into a
new life, or a total destruction of our being?
Death comes into our lives without any rules, inconsiderately and
irrationally, as a thief, a dark power that we cannot control or
understand. Let us try to analyze these various ways. 1. The death of
an old man or woman as a quiet end and passing away of life. 2. A
sudden death of a man dying in his prime as a tragic breaking of life.
3. Death as a result of an incurable disease taken as a liberation by the
neighborhood of the dying man and sometimes also by himself. 4. A
death that breaks the bond of love as an inexpiable enemy of life. 5.
Death experienced consciously in the unity with God as passing to a
new life.
The analysis of the above-mentioned manners in which death comes
into someone's life allows us to make the following statements.

1. In each case death annihilates the visual presence of man among

the living; it takes him away from the community of life. This negative
element of death is aggressively evident to us because we have to
remove the corpse as soon as possible. Therefore we experience death
as a dark, damaging force, inimical to life.
2. This negative element makes us treat death as an unnatural and
odious phenomenon, even in the case where someone dies quietly in
the old age. It is difficult to understand death as a natural end of life or
liberation, because the visual existence of man is absolutely
annihilated, so that we do not know what happens to him.
3. Death as negative and inimical to life is hardly considered as a
natural and normal law of human personal life, even when it is
assumed to be something natural for the human system. A human
being as a person is intrinsically directed toward life; he transcends the
world of the values created by himself and therefore experiences
death especially as something unnatural and shocking for his desires
and creative actions.
4. Death comes into human life in an irrational way and is itself an
irrational event as the end of life, because it explains nothing and does
not solve anything in a positive way. So it is difficult to consider the
phenomenon in question as a wise law of nature for human beings.
5. Death cannot be given any exact definition or conceptions: it is
something basically negative and absurd. Its "eidos," its own "What" is
best expressed with the image of a skeleton with scythe. Anything that
could positively be said of death, e.g., that it introduces seriousness in
human life or makes us spiritually mature, can be derived from the fact
that human beings discover some sense for the experience of death in
themselves as a religious act of sacrifice for some other higher values
or as an act of resignation.
In view of such experiences of death it is remarkable that human
beings have been opposing the idea of personal immortality to the
phenomenon of death throughout the history of mankind. What is the
reason of this fact: is it only the fear of death, or, is it perhaps some
experience of the immortality of our own selves?

It should be remembered that the conception of soul itself and of its

immortality is posterior to the idea of personal immortality. The
conception of an immortal soul is connected with the attempts to find
some rational arguments that have been being made since the birth of
philosophy. The primary source of the idea of immortality and the hope
of lasting after death is the consciousness of the sense and value of
being a personal "I". Such an interpretation is made evident by the
historically common facts of burying human corpses and worshipping
the dead ones. Since the very beginning of history humans have
experienced the fact of being a personal "I" as something high and
precious, regarding themselves as transcendent entities in the world of
nature. Thus, they have been worshipping the bodies of the dead and
burying them with the hope of a future meeting and continuation of
life, understanding that the destination of a human being as a person
is to be, rather than falling into oblivion as a nonentity.
All later ontological arguments for the immortality of man were derived
from the above-mentioned preunderstanding of the sense and value of
being a person. It is remarkable, however, that in all cultures known to
us human beings connected their primary consciousness of the sense
and value of being a person with some religious experience, referring
their own existence to the absolute "Thou" of God. The religious
understanding of human existence in the world always made them
experience death in their lives in terms of awaiting hopefully the new
life that would be given to them by God (or the gods).
Human beings always tend to interpret the fact of their inevitable
death and to give some sense to it. Their freedom is expressed in
taking various attitudes. However, we do it always in a manner
depending on our understanding of ourselves and of our existence in
the world, because it is only our consciousness of the sense and value
of life (whether it be spontaneous or philosophical) that allows us to
perceive immortality as our eternal significance and destination. Man
knows that as a person he deserves the eternal life.
A philosopher is not able to give a "stronger" argument for immortality.
However, if he believes in Jesus Christ and His promise that a person
will live even when he dies (cf. J 11:26), this argument will satisfy him.