I-Man: An Outline of Philosophical Anthropology by Mieczylaw A. Krapiec, O.P. (review)

474 BOOK REVIEWS I-Man: An Outline of Philosophical Anthropology. By MIECZYLAW A. KRAPIEC, O.P. Translated by Marie Lescoe, Andrew Woznicki, Theresa Sandok, et al. New Britain, Conn. : Mariel Publieations, 1983. Pp. 502. Cloth. This translation of Krapiec's Ja-Czlowiek affords Catholic intellectuals in the Free World a rare look at Thomistic philosophy as it is being taught in Eastern Europe. Being of Lithuanian extraction, I know the plight of religious believers and free thinkers behind the Iron Curtain. It is somewhat intimidating and incongruous to critically review from the security and comfort of the West this courageous witness both to the Catholic faith and to the pursuit of truth. As Fr. Francis J. Lescoe explains in the foreword, the translation's purpose is to provide a Philosophy of Man text for American and Canadian seminaries. The text comes from a fifteen-volume series highly successful in Polish seminaries. The series is the fruit of " Lublin Thomism ." Lescoe (p. v) characterizes this Thomism as a striking synthesis of two disparate components: (1) Thomistic realist metaphysics, as interpreted by Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain, and (2) the best insights of contemporary phenomenological existentialism and hermeneutics . Besides Krapiec, authors include: Tadeusz Styczen, Zofia Zdybicka, and the present Pope. Other translations from this series are planned. Acquaintance with the series stems from a summer 1978 visit to Poland of various officers of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (Vd. Lescoe's, Philosophy Serving Contemporary Needs of the Church, Mariel Publications). The translators hope that these works will remove the disarray in seminary theological education. The root of this disarray is the dismantlement of the philosophical curriculum. I-Man begins with an historical survey of theories about man. The span of the survey is from Biblical notions, through the Greeks and medievals, and to contemporary existentialistic perspectives. Noteworthy is Krapiec's clear demarcation between Aquinas, who is the flowering of classical philosophy, and Descartes, who is the initiator of the great current of thP philosophy of the subject (pp. 20-1). In Aquinas man is approached in the light of being; in Descartes being is approached, if at all, in the light of man. Krapiec explicitly eschews the Cartesian approach for the Thomistic. Chapter 2 presents the pre-scientific knowledge of "the human fact." This viewpoint cannot be gainsaid. It shows man to be a highly developed vertebrate animal who, thanks to his intellect, transcends the whole of BOOK REVIEWS 475 nature. This transcendence is exemplified in tools and technology, community , culture, language, science, art, religion, and reflection on death. Drawing mainly upon continental thinkers, Chapter 3 presents various deficient interpretations of "the human fact." These interpretations are two-fold. The first reduces the human to the biological. Exponents cited include Huxley, de Chardin, Marx, Freud, and Levi-Strauss. The second reduces the human to spirit. Proponents considered are Descartes, Hegel, the existentialists, and Scheler. Chapter 4 begins Krapiec's own interpretation of "the human fact." Through an increasingly penetrative analysis of what is "mine" and "I," Krapiec presents the self as grasped in immediate inner experience (pp. 89-94). Since some instances of "mine," e.g., physiological and psychical functions, are inseparable from " me," these will indicate not only my existence but my nature (p. 91). Krapiec further defends the reality of the self (pp. 94-8). Points include : the " I " is given in every experience, hence no experience can disprove it; self-consciousness is considered part of normal psychic life; as accidents psychic functions presuppose a subject; J aspers's reflections refute Hume's denial of the self; categorization of the self as a substance is not reification as Heidegger claims. The remainder of Chapter 4 neatly integrates the self with Aristotelian talk of soul. Aquinas's position on how the soul is the form of the body and yet subsistent is clearly described and its novelty duly noted (p. 102). After a clarification of "immateriality," the immateriality of the human soul is argued (pp. 111-16). Arguments include: identity of the self over time; intellection-both conceptual and judgmental; volition, especially in acts of love; and self-mastery. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the soul's immortality. Chapter...