Human Being: Subject or hypostasis International Conference on Human Beings, October 2-5, 2008, Gorizia Castle Prof. DDr. Alexei Chernyakov I do not think that the philosophical and/or theological contemplations concerning the essence of being human must be imprisoned within the framework of the Aristotelian/Cartesian dilemma so clearly formulated by Sir Anthony Kenny. Incidentally, the both ways to answer the question “what it is to be human?” – the Aristotelian as well as the Cartesian – coincide in one point, which seems to be rather technical at first glance, but reveal its importance in the course of an attentive analysis: the human being is a substance (prôtê ousia, in Aristotle). Thomas Aquinas speaks about substantia prima, reproducing and explaining Boethius’s classical definition of the human being as person: persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia (individual substance of rational nature). In Descartes human being is characterized as substantia cogitans “a substance (the individual substance, of course, the substantial ego) whose whole essence or nature is to think”. In spite of all fundamental differences the two solutions coincide in understanding the human being as a substance. In my paper I would like to present another approach: in its alternative conceptual presupposition it begins to plough its pass earlier than the split between Aristotelian and Cartesian solution emerges. This perspective one can find in the heritage of the Eastern Christianity and Russian philosophy of the 20th century. The latter was, I daresay, obssessed with the theme of person. Even a special expression was coined, in which each word is of interest: “the mystery of personal being”. Noteworthy this expression is to be applicable both to man and to God. The main thesis which I will try to clarify in my presentation sounds as follows: to be a human being, more precisely – a person, is to possess a certain hypostatic being, to be a hypostasis. According to the ancient point of view, developed by Eastern Church Fathers, human being is not a “first substance” or an ultimate subject (a bearer) of properties, but a centre of a sheaf of energies. In order to explain the meaning of this thesis and to inscribe it in the modern philosophical context I use (partly as an analogous perspective, partly as a contrasting position) Heidegger’s existential analytics of Dasein. Key words: human being, person, Eastern Christianity, Russian philosophy, substance, hypostasis, energy, existential analytics of Dasein. Personal. Prof. Alexei G. Chernyakov: Ph.D. in Mathematics (St. Petersburg State University), Doctor of Philosophy (Free University of Amsterdam), Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. Hab., Russian State Humanities University, Moscow). Chairperson of the Metanexus/LSI program: “The St. Petersburg Educational Center for Religion and Science” (SPECRS); Head of the Department of Philosophy at the St. Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy. Focus of interests: ancient philosophy, phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas, etc.), Greek patristic, science and religion. Author of two books and a number of articles dedicated to the problems of mathematics, philosophy and the Russian Orthodox tradition, published in leading Russian and international journals. Among them: - The Ontology of Time. Being and Time in the Philosophies of Aristotle, Husserl and Heidegger. (Phaenomenologica 163). – Dordrecht - Boston - London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. – 234 p. - Heidegger and “Russian Questions”// Phenomenology 2005 (ed. H.R. Sepp & I. Copoeru). Vol. 4. Part I. – Zeta Books Publishers, 2005. – P. 175–196. (this article is directly connected with the subject of my presentation).
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