What Really is a Human Person?

As a human being have you ever asked yourself "What really is a human person?" Well if
you're curious about it, there are two famous philosophers who have contradicting doctrines
regarding to a human person, namely, Aristotle and Plato.

For Plato, he believes that soul exist prior to the body and they are separable to each
other. He stated that a human person is just a soul using a body. According to him, soul has
three parts; rational, spiritual and appetitive. Rational, located in the head that enables human
person to think, reflect, analyze, comprehend, draw conclusions, and the like. Appetitive,
located in the abdomen which enables human person to experience thirst, hunger and other
physical wants. Lastly the Spiritual, located at the chest which drives human person to
experience emotional feelings. To sum it up, the spiritual and appetitive souls focuses on the
emotion and physical activity of a person, while the rational soul which is the highest level
among the three parts, guides the other two parts. It's noted in his doctrine that there two
kinds of worlds, namely, The World of Forms and the World of Matter. He mentioned that
everything comes from the World of Forms and everything from the World of Matter will go
back to the world of form after it dies or perishes. 

On the other hand, Aristotle disagrees with Plato's theory. He believes that the body
and soul are inseparable and are in the state of unity. He described a human person as an
embodied spirit where he believes that we can't talk about the soul apart from the body and
vice versa. He noted that anything that has life has a soul and that includes humans, plants and
animals. According to Aristotle there are three levels of soul, namely, Vegetative (found in
plants), Sensitive (found in animals), and Rational (found in human). He stated that plants have
soul (Vegetative) because it has the capacity to grow, reproduce and feed itself but they are not
capable of feeling and thinking. Sensitive souls are also able to reproduce, grow and feed
themselves but unlike the vegetative, they are capable of sensation. The last one which is the
Rational souls also grow, reproduce, feed themselves and feel but unlike the others, they are
capable of thinking thus, Rational soul is the highest level of soul according to Aristotle.  He
concluded that “Man is a rational animal” which also means that a human person is just an
animal that thinks.