Karol Wojtyla The Acting Person Analysis

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The uniqueness of Karol Wojtyla’s main philosophical work The acting Person is his investigation of the interrelationship and the unity of the physical, psychic and transcendental aspects of the human person in action and their implication for his finality (auto teleology). In taking this approach, Wojtyla attempted to understand the human person for the sake of the person himself with regard to the challenges he is exposed to in the contemporary world. The Acting Person was composed partly during Vatican II when Bishop Wojtyla was keenly engaged in the elaboration of Gaudium et spes which had that very same aim. Wojtyla viewed the person as a suppositum and compositum who due to his free will is responsible for his action and thereby determines his transcendence. For this reason, he asserted, each human act is a personal action leaving an imprint on the person by becoming either better or worse. The essence of the human person according to Wojtyla is most adequately revealed through the correlation of action (acting ego) and actor (being ego) based on the gnosiological interdependence expressed in the principl operari sequitar esse. For Wojtyla this adage can lead to knowledge of who the person is and what the action can reveal about him. In his research Wojtyla employed the method of induction and reduction. In Part One of The Acting person, Wojtyla discussed the relation of consciousness and efficacy on the person in action. Through consciousness the person (ego or I)