THE SYNTHESIS OF EFFICACY AND SUBJECTIVENESS. THE PERSON AS A BASIC ONTOLOGICAL STRUCTURE

The Differentiation between Acting and Happening Contrasts Efficacy with Subjectiveness in Man

An analysis of the dynamic entity "man-acts" must account for both "man" and

"acting" as the two constitutive elements of a whole. What is the man who acts, and what is he when he acts? That is the question which we must now consider. Man is the subject of his actions - this assertion is often made and as a rule is accepted without reservations. But what does "subject" really mean?

Following the line of our argument we reach the conclusion that within the integral experience of man, especially with reference to its inner aspect, we can trace a differentiation and even something like a contrast of subjectiveness and efficacy.

Man has the experience of himself as the subject when something is happening in him; when, on the other hand, he is acting, he has the experience of himself as the

"actor," this difference having been already emphasized in our discussion. To the experiences thus had corresponds a fully experiential reality. Subjectiveness is seen as structurally related to what happens in man, and efficacy as structurally related to his acting. When I act, the ego is the cause that dynamizes the subject. It is the attitude of the ego that is then dominant, whereas subjectiveness seems to be indicating something opposite - it shows the ego as if it were subjacent in the fact of its own dynamization. Such is the case when something happens within the ego.

Efficacy and subjectiveness seem to split the field of human experiences into two mutually irreducible factors. Experiences are associated with structures. The structure of "man acts" and the structure of "something-happens-in-man" seem to divide the human being as if they were two separate levels. The two levels will turn up on various occasions in the course of our further analyses.

For all the sharpness and distinctness - especially in the inner aspects of experience - of the differentiation and the contrast, it is impossible to deny that he who acts is simultaneously the one in whom something or other happens. Similarly, it is impossible to question the unity and the identity of man at the roots of acting and happening. Neither is it possible to question his unity and identity at the roots of the efficacy and the subjectiveness structurally contained in the acting and the

happening that occur in man. For the human being is, as already stated, a dynamic unity, so much so that in our earlier analyses we called him outright the dynamic subject. This designation is here regarded as valid. Man's acting and that human efficacy which constitutes it experientially, as well as all that happens in him, combine together as if they issued from a common root. For it is the human being, as the dynamic subject, who is their origin. Speaking of the subject we

simultaneously refer to subjectiveness. Subjectiveness has here a different sense from the subjectiveness we discovered in the experience of something happening in man when we contrasted the experience (and its corresponding structure) with acting and the efficacy contained in it. On that plane subjectiveness and efficacy appeared to be mutually irreducible, while now they can both be comprised by subjectiveness in its distinctive aspects. For, as is shown time and again by experience, they both spring from it.

How the Subject is an Ontological Basis of Action

However we analyze the structure, conditions, and source of action we cannot bypass its ultimate ontological foundation. The subjectiveness present both in man's acting and in what happens in him, implies or refers to an ontologically subsequent factor as its necessary condition. Of course, in principle, man "underlies" all his actions and everything that happens in him insofar as they are but his

manifestations. And yet we still need to differentiate in man a structural ontological nucleus that would account for the fact itself of man being the subject or the fact that the subject is a being. It is in the subject as a being that every dynamic structure is rooted, every acting and happening. It is given as a real, actually existing, being, the man-being that actually exists and hence also "really" acts.

There is, indeed, between existence and acting a strict relationship. This relationship seems to be the basic datum of man's cognition upon which evidence his most

elementary vital existence relies. Philosophically we may interpret this state of affairs by an assessment that "for something to act, it must first exist." However, let us not forget that action is an enactment of existence or actual being. And yet it seems that in the perspective of our investigations existence lies at the origin itself of acting just as it lies at the origin itself of everything that happens in man - it lies at the origin of all the dynamism proper to man.

Existence (or actual being) has to be differentiated, however, from its structural (ontological) foundation. It is only its derived constitutive aspect, and yet it is of immense importance. For if the "something" did not exist, then it could not be the origin and the subject of the dynamism which proceeds from its being, of the acting and the happening. If man were not to exist, then he would not actually act nor would anything actually happen in him. Considered as such a fundamental condition of the actual existence of every existing being, it may be said that this

structural/ontological basis is itself a being insofar as it is the subject of existing and acting. Coming into existence may, indeed, be seen as the first act of every being, that is, the first and fundamental factor establishing its dynamism.~ The entire dynamism of man's functioning which consists in the acting of, and happening in, the dynamic subject simultaneously proceeds from (1,ut also enacts) the initial

dynamism due to which a being exists at all.

Man's Ontological Foundation of Action

In the first and fundamental approach the man-person has to be somewhat identified with its basic ontological structure. The person is a concrete man, the individua substantia of the classical Boethian definition. The concrete is in a way tantamount to the unique, or at any rate, to the individualized. The concept of the "person" is broader and more comprehensive than the concept of the "individual," just as the person is more than individualized nature. The person would be an individual whose nature is rational - according to Boethius' full definition persona est rationalis naturae individua sub -stantia.³¹ Nevertheless, in our perspective it seems clear that neither the concept of the "rational nature" nor that of its individualization seems to express fully the specific completeness expressed by the concept of the person. The completeness we are speaking of here seems to be something that is unique in a very special sense rather than concrete. In everyday use we may substitute for a person the straightforward "somebody." It serves as a perfect semantic epitome because of the immediate connotations it brings to mind - and with them the

juxtaposition and contrast to "something." If the person were identified with its basic ontological structure, then it would at once become necessary to take account of the difference that distinguishes "somebody" and "something."

The person as such possesses, however, its own ontological structure, though one very different from all the others that surround the human being in the visible world.

This difference, the proportion or rather the disproportion that is indicated in the words "somebody" and "something," reaches to the very roots of the being that is the subject. The fundamental dynamization of the being by existence and

consequently also all the subsequent dynamizations, which are reflected by acting, operating, and the happening, also manifest the same difference, the same

proportion with its inherent disproportion. The person, the human being as the person - seen in its ontological basic structure - is the subject of both existence and

acting, though it is important to note that the existence proper to him is personal and not merely individual - unlike that of an ontologic ally founded merely individual type of being. Consequently, the action - whereby is meant all the dynamism of man including his acting as well as what happens in him - is also personal. The person is identifiable with an ontological basic structure in which a provision is to be made: the ontological structure of "somebody" manifests not only its similarities to but also its differences and detachment from the ontological structure of "something."

Differences between Efficacy and Subjectiveness and Their Synthesis

Once we reach the insight into the man-person as the ontological basis for existence, we can see in him a synthesis of those experiences and those dynamic structures which we have distinguished in this chapter. The two structures, that in which man acts and that in which something happens in man, cut across the phenomenological field of experience, but they join and unite together in the metaphysical field. Their synthesis is the man-person, and we discover the ultimate subject of the synthesis in its ontological groundwork. Not only does this groundwork underlie the whole

dynamism of the man-person, but it itself is also the dynamic source of the

dynamism. The dynamism derived from the actual existence has as its consequence the dynamism pertaining to activity.

The synthesis of acting and happening, which takes place on the ground of the human basic structure, is indirectly also a synthesis of the efficacy proper to acting with the subjectiveness pertaining to all that takes place in man. Ultimately, the synthesis not only has its foundation but also occurs actually through the mechanism of the basic ontological structure, that is to say, in the ontic subject. This is the reason why the human being, even while he is the agent in acting, still remains its subject. He is both the actor and the subject, and he has the experience of himself both as actor and as subject, though the experience had of his efficacy is

overshadowed by the experience of his subjectiveness. On the other hand, if something only happens in man, then we have the experience of subjectiveness alone; in this case efficacy is not experienced, for then the human being as the person is not the agent.

The difference in these experiences and structures is in no way diminished by the fact of the synthesis of efficacy with subjectiveness, which reduces them to the structural support alone. Indeed, the dynamism proper to man cannot be adequately interpreted and fully understood without this difference, and thus it will have to turn up time and again in the course of our considerations. The structural nucleus

functions as the subject, which means that it is simultaneously both the basis and the source of the two different forms of dynamism. It is in this that is rooted and from this that springs forth not only the dynamism of what happens in man, but also the total dynamism of acting with that conscious efficacy which is constitutive of it.

The unity of the human structural nucleus can in no way obscure the deep differences that make the actual wealth of the human dynamism.

4 THE PERSON AND NATURE: THEIR OPPOSITION OR