THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE PERSON AND THE REACTIVITY OF THE BODY

The Dynamism of the Body and the Total Dynamism of Man

The external experience does not, however, account fully for the relation that exists between the body and the person, in particular insofar as his acting, or the action, is concerned. The experience has to take us, so to speak, to the interior of the body, so

as to allow us to feel its own inwardness. It is only then that the relation is seen more completely and its image becomes more mature. Our earlier analyses have prepared us to make a clear distinction between an insight into the person, who is man, and an insight into the interior of the human body; for the body, as we have already noted, has its own, purely somatic inwardness. But it is not this inwardness that we have in mind when we refer to the human body (and also that of animals) as an organism. The human body in its inwardness has a purely somatic dynamism of its own, on which the external dynamism of the body, its purely natural mobility depends; the two dynamisms in nowise prevent the human body from serving as means for the person's expressing himself in his actions. Now we have only to look into the purely somatic inner dynamism in order to grasp and understand more precisely the integration of the person in the action. This integration depends in the first place on the somatic organization of man, in which the somatic dynamism is an important if not the decisive element; we may say that it is the dynamism of the body as such.

Is it at all possible to distinguish this dynamism? It seems that in view of the generally accepted distinction between the body and the soul, or even more so between the somatic and the psychical, such a distinction is possible. But the discrimination of the somatic dynamism in the whole of the human dynamism presents a task that demands a high level of cognitive precision. These high standards are required from those who investigate the body itself as well as from those who with the methods of the particular sciences study the human psyche or at still another level of abstraction endeavor to define more accurately the nature of the soul and of its proper relation to the body. Our investigations into the human person cannot avoid dealing with this last problem, which has always been one of the most difficult in the history of human thought. Admittedly, it is not the aim of this study to involve itself in questions concerning the nature of the soul and its relation to the body; but in the course of an analysis of the acting person these questions arise and have to be considered.

The Reactivity of the Somatic Dynamism

At this stage of our considerations we are not concerned with that kind of knowledge of the human body which is the subject of investigation of the particular sciences but with certain characteristic aspects of the body. The starting point in this approach is the assertion that, because of his body, the man-person genuinely belongs to nature.

This implies, on the one hand, his similarity to the rest of nature and, on the other, his partaking in the whole of the external conditions of existence that we also refer to as "nature." Man's position in nature comes closest to animals, in particular the so-called higher animals. The previously mentioned classic definition of man as rational animal contains a fundamental assertion about human nature, it is

constantly being confirmed in the field of natural sciences and lies at the origin of the well-known evolutionary theory of the origin of man. These questions, however, have but a secondary bearing on our argument and there is no need to examine them here.

However, the close connection existing between the human organism and nature, so far as nature constitutes the set of conditions of existence and life, helps us to define the somatic dynamism of man. It seems that this dynamism may be contained and expressed in the concept of "reactivity" and also by the attribute reactive.

"Reactivity" would refer to the human body as such. The purely somatic dynamism of

man can be viewed as being "reactive," and we may also speak of the potentiality lying at its roots as reactive.

Why Can the Somatic Dynamism Be Called Reactive?

The human body has the ability to react like other bodies in nature. The notion of

"reaction" is often used with reference to the whole pattern of human behavior; it is what we have in mind when we say someone reacted in such-and-such a manner to a piece of news, though in so saying we are not referring to the somatic reaction but to the psychical reaction that expresses itself in a definite emotion and is thus an

"emotive reaction." But the colloquial "to react" often implies something more than just an emotive response; it may often denote a choice or decision and hence a definite response of the will to a presented value. There is no doubt that the term

"reaction" can be adequately applied to various obviously differentiated components of human behavior and modes of acting. This indicates that the somato-reactive element is very deeply rooted in all human acting.

The reason why we are here restricting the use of the term "reactivity" to the soma, that is, to the dynamism of the body alone, lies in the direct connections of the body itself with nature; the psychical and emotive factors are only indirectly connected with nature by means of the soma and its somatic dynamism. In the notion of

"reaction" there is of course presupposed the notion of some action or acting that has its source and its cause in nature viewed as the set of factors conditioning the existence and the activity (i.e., reactivity) of the human body. The ability to react is apparent already in inanimate bodies (e.g., the ability to expand under the influence of heat or contract in the cold). A comparable ability is observed in animate

creatures, but their reactivity is manifested at the level of life. While the study of the reactivity at the level of inanimate beings is the task of physics or chemistry, at the level of animate creatures it belongs to biology. We find that reactivity is at that level a manifestation of life and to some extent even its principle, that is to say, the

principle of formation, subsistence, and development. It is also the distinctive feature expressing man's somatic virtualities and consequently his bodily vitality. Hence, within its frame we have to attempt to trace the manifestations of the somatic dynamism, that is, the reactions of the body that constitute the body's own vitality.

The Relation between Reactivity and Vitality of the Human Body

The vitality of the human body is of an essentially vegetative nature; the life of the body itself is vegetative. In fact, the vegetation of a human being begins with

conception and ends with death. The external conditions of the body's vegetation are similar to those of the vegetation of other bodies; they are determined by the natural environment - the climate, the atmosphere - and the food and drink as the means of vegetative process and regeneration. The body as an organism is by nature, that is to say, by the power of its innate endowment, adapted to vegetation and

reproduction. Reproduction is made possible by the sexual differentiation of the human body, by those of its organs which physically enable the conception of man, his development until the moment of his entrance into the world, and finally his birth to a biologically autonomous life. The dynamic fabric of all the vegetative vitality of the human body consists of a sequence of purely instinctive reactions, that is, reactions that follow the way of nature itself. These reactions take place, that is to say, they happen, in the person without any special influence of the will, without participation in the person's self-determination. Consequently, they happen in the

person but they are not the acting of the person, they do not constitute his action.

The body activates itself according to the inner design and purpose of vegetation and reproduction; the character of this activation of the human body is reactive.

In this case "reactivity" denotes an instinctive and dynamic relation to nature conceived as a definite biological "environment," as a system conditioning both vegetation and reproduction. The relation is purposeful inasmuch as the particular, instinctive somatic reactions have as their object either vegetation or reproduction.

At this point we are already entering upon the question of the so-called instincts, which we consider below. The ability to react to stimuli is a particular feature of man's somatic system. This ability deserves special attention inasmuch as it imparts a specifically active character to the reactivity of the human body. The active nature of the body's reactivity in response to stimuli is clearly apparent when contrasted with the passive submissiveness of the body to the influence of external conditions insofar as its physico-chemical functioning is concerned. In the human organism the ability to react to stimuli is directly related to the nervous system, which serves the whole body and determines the particular directions of its reactive dynamism as well as of the somatic virtualities lying at its roots.