Karol Wojtyla
The Acting Person

CHAPTER SIX: PERSONAL INTEGRATION AND THE PSYCHE

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

Chapter 7

END NOTES

THE PSYCHE AND THE SOMA

The Fundamentals of the Psychical Component

At the beginning of the preceding chapter we presented an interpretation of the fundamental significance of integration, which in the analysis of the personal dynamism of man plays the complementary aspect to transcendence. The person's transcendence in the action manifests itself and is brought into prominence by self-determination and efficacy. Both of them are in turn the distinguishing trait and the consequence of the structure of self-possession and self-governance. Considering the characteristic complexity of the structure, we have been trying to bring into relief its second feature by introducing the notion of the "person's integration in the action." This feature is indispensable inasmuch as every human action is due not only to the transcendence of the person acquired in self-determination and efficacy but also to the control exercised over the dynamic subjective ego by self-determination and efficacy. We understand here the dynamism of both the human soma and the human psyche. They may happen to be activated automatically; however, in action they surrender to the direction and control of the will. The person's integration in the action depends on this surrender to the will, and thus by complementing transcendence it plays its own role in shaping the structure of self-possession and self-governance.

When approached along these lines the analysis of human action allows and even compels us to investigate the psychosomatic dynamism of man. We saw in the preceding chapter that this dynamism constituted a specific kind of unity, a complex manifold unity. The psyche and the soma are distinctive with respect to each other even though they form a mutually conditioned unity in man. It is the notion of integration that provides the key to the interpretation and the understanding of their unity, and our aim in the preceding chapter was to demonstrate this with regard to the soma; for man's complexity in this respect allows us to isolate to some extent the somatic element from the psychical and to define more precisely their respective dynamisms. They appear to have a crucial significance in revealing what integration actually is. For this reason we tried to demonstrate, in the preceding chapter, how reactivity, a characteristic trait of the human soma related to the external mobility of the body, is constituted from the specific raw material of the action. Our aim at present is to undertake a similar analysis with regard to the psyche. It is only natural that though our analysis relates to the research of particular sciences, which with their own methods study the body and the psyche of man, we proceed by our own method and approach. We restrict our present analysis, as already noted, to the general description of the relevant dynamism.

The Meaning of the Term "Psyche"

It seems necessary, however, to stop for a moment in order to consider first the notion of the "psyche," which is to be distinguished from the notion of the "soul." In every day use we contrast the notion of the "soul" with that of the "body." But in this juxtaposition the correct significance of these notions is metaphysical and requires a metaphysical analysis of human reality. Since this study tends to keep within the limits of metaphysical analysis we shall return to the notion of the "soul" at the end of this chapter. Even though the Greek term "psyche" means the soul, the two terms are not synonymous. "Psyche" refers to that which makes man an integral being, indeed, to that which determines the integrity of his components without itself being of a bodily or somatic nature. And yet, precisely for this reason, the notion of the "psyche" is correlated with the notion of the "soma."

Approached in its distinctive features, the concept of the "psyche" and the adjective "psychical" apply to those elements of the concrete human being that in the experience of man we discern as in a way cohesive or integrated with the body but that in themselves diffet from it. Subsequent analyses will help us in defining more precisely these elements as well as their relation to the somatic. Our above differentiation indicates the experientially intuitive basis of our conception of the "psyche" and the adjective "psychical." It draws upon intuitive insights close to a phenomenological approach in which we may distinguish clearly, on the one hand, their separateness from what is usually called "somatic" and, on the other, their specific unity with it. The disclosure of what is distinctively psychical but simultaneously related to what is somatic in man provides the groundwork for conclusions to be drawn first, about the relation between soul and body and second, on a still more distant plane between spirit and matter. For the moment, we will consider in some detail man's psyche from the point of view of the integration of the person in the action; for the modalities of integration are the key to grasping and understanding the human psyche, just as the psyche itself was the key to grasping and understanding the human soma.

It has been already pointed out that integration presupposes a certain integrity of the somatic and makes use of it. The presentation of this fact was perhaps the most adequate in the analysis of the relation existing between action and motion: it is in this relation that the integrating will not only generates the motion but also utilizes the resources of the natural somatic dynamism, the natural reactivity and mobility of the body. Thus the integration of the body is a notion that includes not only the, so to speak, static total of the mutually coordinated limbs and organs but also the ability to react correctly, "normally," and, insofar as it is necessary, efficiently. All this is contained in the notion of somatic integration. As is to be seen this integration manifests that most obviously exteriorized element of the bodily constitution which we are inclined to associate with the whole statics and dynamics of the human body.

Man's Psychical Functioning and His Somatic Constitution

Man's entire psychical functioning is the basis of the integration of the person in the action; it does not, however, exteriorize itself in the same way as does somatic functioning. There is no such thing as the "psychical constitution" of man, at any rate not in a sense comparable to his somatic constitution. In this assertion we have at once the simplest confirmation of the established belief that the psyche' is essentially different from the body. It has not the "external" attributes of the body, it is neither "matter" nor "material" in the sense the body is "material." Likewise the whole inwardness of the human body - what we call the "organism" - cannot be seen as interchangeable with the psyche. The functions of the psyche are "internal" and "immaterial" and while internally they are conditioned by the soma with its own proper functions, they can in no way be reduced to what is somatic. When we speak of the inwardness of man as of his "inner life," we have in mind not only his spirituality but also his psyche, the whole of his psychical functions. These functions as such are deprived of that external manifestation which together with the somatic constitution are the attributes of the body, though the body, as stated previously, serves in some measure indirectly to exteriorize them and to express them. This is why there is a justifiable tendency to deal with man's psychical function as a whole in its relation to the somatic constitution, a tendency that has for long been reflected in different treatments of the so-called "temperaments." It seems that the notion itself of "temperament" and the attempts to classify men from this point of view have had as their objective a more accurate definition of man's psychical integrity - indeed, his psychical integrity as the basis of the integration of the person in the action.

2. A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PSYCHE - EMOTIVITY

Etymological Interpretation of Emotivity and Emotion

What we are actually looking for, however, is a more general and at the same time a more fundamental characteristic of the psychical dynamism than a study of temperaments would entail - a characteristic that would take into account the relation between the psychical dynamism and the soma with its appropriate dynamism. Such a characteristic of the psychical dynamism also allows us to grasp man's psychical capacities, which lie at the source of this dynamism. In the preceding chapter we adopted an analogous approach with regard to the soma when we submitted that its appropriate dynamism had a reactive nature, by which we meant the body's ability to have reactions, which within the limits of the human body determine inwardly its vegetative vitality as well as its outwardly visible mobility.

Let us examine emotivity as the most significant trait of this dynamism as well as of man's psychic resource. The term "emotive" is usually associated with the rather common noun "emotion," very much like reactivity is associated with reaction. The association is perfectly adequate, though "emotion" is usually used with reference to only a certain group of manifestations of psychical emotivity. It seems that an "emotional experience" has more or less the same meaning as an "affective experience."

Neither the term "emotivity" nor its corresponding adjective "emotive" refers to feelings alone: they do not apply only to the affective side in man. Their meaning is broader and is connected with the whole wealth of the differentiated domain of human emotions, feelings, and sensations as well as with the related behaviors and attitudes. It would be beside the point to quote the different kinds of feelings and the long list of words and expressions denoting them, but the abundance of expressions reflecting the inexhaustible wealth and differentiation of all that in man is related to his feelings provides a cue to a better and broader understanding of emotivity. We may also add that the different emotions or feelings are often defined by an attributive, for instance, we may speak of "artistic emotions" or "moral feelings." It is noteworthy, moreover, that "sense" may in some uses have almost the same meaning, for instance, when we say, "somebody has a sense of art" or "a moral sense."⁶⁶

Etymologically the words "emotive" and "emotivity" point to a movement or motion (from the Latin movere, to move) whose external origin is indicated by the prefix ex. It may be argued that in the etymology of the term there is nothing that cannot be asserted of the purely somatic dynamism, which also involves some kind of "motion," a change that originates from "outside." When we want to visualize the essential difference between the somatic and the psychical dynamisms we may find it useful to compare reaction with emotion and reactivity with emotivity. While the somatic impulse taking place in the case of reaction and reactivity in no way exceeds the capacity of the body, in the case of emotion and emotivity that capacity is definitely transcended both in quality and essence. This seems to be indicated by the prefix ex, for though the psychical impulse depends to some extent on the body and is in various ways conditioned by the somatic, it does not belong to the body, and differs from it and its somatic dynamism. Thus even before we go into the detail of human emotivity, we have to stress the irreducible nature of emotions to reactions and of emotivity to reactivity. An emotion is not a somatic reaction but a psychical event that is distinctive in its nature and qualitatively different from the reaction itself of the body.

Emotivity and Reactivity

We have so far pointed out the intrinsic relation between the somatic and the psychical aspects in man. The psychical is conditioned by the somatic. Emotivity, which appears to be the characteristic trait of man's psychical dynamism, is conditioned by reactivity, which is a characteristic of his somatic dynamism. It seems that at this point we come across an important trail of the traditional as well as the more contemporary anthropological and psychological explorations. The connection between the psyche and the soma in their dynamic aspect is an important element in practically all discussions of temperaments. Moreover, since emotivity is so deeply rooted in and conditioned by reactivity we often speak of "psychical reactions"; not only do we frequently refer to such reaction but we speak of someone "reacting in such and such a way," by which we mean not only his somatic reaction but his comportment as a whole in an action that includes also his conscious response to a definite value. Indeed, even such a response that is a choice or a decision comprises some elements of somatic reactivity; man constitutes the complicated unity underlying that integration of the action in the person which in one way or another always contains in itself all the elements of the psychosomatic complexity. We are then perfectly justified when we say "someone reacted in such and such a way," though it may be that thereby we stress one aspect of this complex whole more than others.

Emotivity and the Conscious Response of Will

Any adequate image of the person's integration in the action has to include the principle of complementarity; integration complements the transcendence of the person, which is realized through self-determination and efficacy. In this dimension human action is a conscious response through choice or decision to a value. But also this response has always to make use in one way or another of somatic and psychical dynamlsms. The integration of the person in the action indicates a very concrete and, each time, a unique and unrepeatable introduction of somatic reactivity and psychical emotivity into the unity of the action - into the unity with the transcendence of the person expressed by efficacious self-determination that is simultaneously a conscious response to values. But the inclusion of the conscious response to values in the human action takes place in a specific way, that is, through the integration of the whole psychoemotivity of man which is, moreover, indicative of a specific sensibility to values. Man's sensitivity to values based on emotive grounds has a spontaneous character; in this respect it manifests the same traits as emotivity itself, which always reflects what in the person takes place in a "psychical way" - similarly as reactivity reflects what in the person takes place in a "somatic way." Because of this spontaneous sensitivity to values the emotive potentiality supplies the will with, so to speak, a special kind of raw material; for in choice and decision an act of will is always a cognitively defined, intellectual response to values. Against this background we can see more clearly the special need of the person's integration in the action as well as the special significance of this integration, a significance that in some respects is not to be compared to somatic integration. Thus, in order to reach an independent interpretation of psychical integration we have to embark upon a comprehensive analysis of human emotivity.

If we establish the significance of the person's integration in the action from the point of view of emotivity - and this is what we aim at in the successive analyses in this chapter - we ought to gain a better insight into the person's transcendence in the action; for it is in the transcendence and not in the integration of the human emotivity itself that the deepest meanings of the spirituality of the person are manlfested, and it is there that we find the most adequate basis for asserting the spirituality of the human soul. The psychical is by contrast also emotive and sensuous.

3. FEELINGS AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF THE BODY

Emotive Dynamism as a Concentrator of Experiences

Psychology and anthropology usually discriminate between the corporality, the sensuousness, and the spirituality of man. Without disclaiming in any way the profound validity of this discrimination, indeed with direct reference to it, we intend to stress here the significance of emotivity, inasmuch as our chief objective is to draw an integrated image of human dynamism, insofar as it is possible. In this image emotivity defines both a specific form of and a specific current in a dynamism that in a special manner forms part of the personal dynamism of human actions. The psychical strand in emotivity may be seen as running between corporality and spirituality, but far from dividing them it interweaves with the one and the other, bringing them together. Apparently the function performed by the emotive dynamism consists in concentrating human experiences, a fact that will come out more clearly later in our discussion. In spite of the distinct difference between the emotive dynamism and the reactive dynamism of the body, they are closely interrelated and condition each other. All that determines and constitutes the spiritual transcendence of the person - his attitude toward truth, good, and beauty with the accompanying faculty of self-determination - stimulates a very deep emotive resonance in the human being. The resonance - its quality and intensity - is thoroughly individual and in its own way also determines the quality and intensity of the personal transcendence itself, or at any rate provides a special basis for the personal transcendence in man. Emotions are also the source of the expressiveness of man's actions. It follows, therefore, that an insight gained along these lines into the innermost recesses of specifically human nature can lead us very far on the way to an understanding of the person and the action; it would be impossible to reach a sound understanding of the person's integration in the action without an analysis of the emotivity.

The Affective and the Motor Stimulus

We may begin our analysis at the point where the somatic dynamism, so to speak, stops and where simultaneously emotivity comes closest to the reactivity of the body. Emotivity, like reactivity, is strictly connected with the operation of stimuli. We know that somatic reactivity consists in the ability to react to stimuli and in the preceding chapter we were primarily concerned with motor stimuli. Alongside this ability and very close to it there seems to be another one, namely, the ability to feel. This ability at the somatic level also consists in the reception of stimuli coming from material objects, from various bodies; but their effect is not somatic and does not consist in a reaction or a movement of the body; their effect is psychical and is expressed in feelings. Although conditioned by a reaction at the somatic level, it itself transcends through and through the somatic reaction.

Feeling Places Psychical above Somatic Subjectivity

Feeling or sensation stimuli differ essentially from the motor stimuli, though they very often come together (e.g., the hand is instinctively jerked away from a hot object). Feeling or sensation itself is not a somatic motion or impulse; its relation to the body is similar to that of the subject to an object and though in a feeling as such there is no awareness of this relation, the body - even one's own body - becomes ln it an objective sense element that also penetrates into the field of consciousness. Thus feeling and sensation allow man to emerge from and above what in the preceding chapter we called the "subjectivity of the body." While such "subjectivity" is in itself closely related to the somatic reactivity and to a large extent remains unrecorded in consciousness, the psychical subjectivity, which emerges together with feeling on the basis of the body, is already included in consciousness.⁶⁷ For feeling as such constitutes a cognitive sensuous reflection of the body, which thus becomes accessible to consciousness - because of feeling the body becomes an objective content of consciousness and is reflected in it.

Feeling Underlies the Consciousness of the Body

Since the relation of feeling and sensation to consciousness is of fundamental significance for personal dynamism, we must examine it here as carefully as possible. First, there is the feeling of one's own body; the body, its different states and movements are the source of sensation stimuli which play a decisive role in enabling man to have an experience of his body. In this experience feeling is included in consciousness and combines with it to form a single common basis of the experience, though sensuous feeling differs from mental awareness. Attention has been drawn on various occasions to the fact that the range of consciousness of the body is, so to speak, currently determined by the field of feeling. For instance, the whole inner dynamism of the body, of the organism, which is connected with the body's vegetative vitality, remains, as long as nothing of it penetrates into the field of feeling, beyond, as it were, the reach of consciousness. The clause "as it were" is important, because in being conscious of the body man also has a kind of general awareness of its inwardness and its inner dynamism. This consciousness is substantiated by means of the corresponding sensations and feelings, for instance, the feeling of a bodily pain makes the inward workings of one's own body come within the scope of consciousness. Such a concretization of consciousness in feeling is entirely sufficient as a basis for experiencing one's own body.

Self-Feeling

In the habitual experience of one's body there are sensations and feelings and thus sensory stimuli expressing the body and its reactive-motor dynamisms. These sensations reveal to every man not a separate "subjectivity" of the body but the somatic structure of the whole subject that he is, of the whole ego. They reveal to what extent he is a body, to what extent his soma participates in his existence and his acting. We may even say that a bodily sensation - a direct reflex of the body, a reflex that in a way is being continually formed and shaped - has in this respect a fundamental significance in one's own bodily ego. This habitual experience results, as noted above, from many sensations or feelings and manifests itself as a general self-feeling. Physically and psychically we always feel more or less "well" or more or less "bad"; man always has present in him some kind of feeling or self-feeling, which forms a sort of psychic fabric or undercurrent of his existence of acting. The direct and proper object of self-feeling is the whole somatic ego, which is not isolated from the personal ego but is, on the contrary, intrinsically cohesive with it.

It is important to stress that man's self-feeling manifests a distinctly qualitative trait and value element; we all know that we may feel either well or unwell and that within the limits of these essential distinctions there are various grades and subtle differences of tone. It is this that we want to express when saying "I feel well" or "I do not feel well," or in many other similar expressions such as weary, exhausted, ill, fine, fresh, and so on. Man can also feel that he is efficient or inefficient in his doings and this, because of psychical reflection, brings into prominence the significance of efficiency in the motor-reactive dynamism of the body. Time and again we have opportunity to see how this dynamism as well as its efficiency conditions the so-called "higher psychical functions"; for instance, we know all too well that physical weariness adversely affects the mental processes of thinking and that a good rest "clears" the mind and brings precision to our thoughts. In this way we also realize how intrinsically cohesive is our somatic ego with the whole of the personal ego, how strict is their mutual union.

"Precedence" of Consciousness over Feelings in Personal Dynamism

The feeling of one's body is a necessary condition for experiencing the integral subjectivity of man. In this experience the body and consciousness are, as it were, bound together by feeling, which is the most elementary manifestation of the human psyche as well as the nearest reflection in it of what is somatic in man. This sensory reflection in the psyche differs essentially from the reflexive function of consciousness, whose fundamental significance in having the personal experience of a concrete human ego we discussed at the beginning of this study. The interpenetration in this experience of feeling with consciousness brings into prominence the general relation that in the domain of human cognition exists between senses and mind. The relation is bilateral because a feeling we have of our own body allows us to establish an objective contact with it and at the same time reveals the psychical subjectivity integrated with the somatic body-subject. Does not a feeling "happen" in a psychic way within the human ego and does not this "happening" reveal subjectivity? Subjectivity is thus, so to speak, revealed to consciousness, which - with the exception of extreme cases when emotions overcome consciousness - retains a sort of "precedence" over feelings. In fact, we have the awareness (among other things) also of our feelings, which means that in the normal course of events they are "subordinate" to consciousness. On the other hand, we cannot assert the opposite, namely, that we have a "feeling of consciousness," that we feel our consciousness. It is this precedence of consciousness, which brings with it a certain order and "subordination" of feelings, in particular the feeling of one's own body, that is the condition of self-determination and thus also of self-governance and self-possession; it is the condition of the realization of the action, of the really personal dynamism.

The feeling of one's own body reveals the psychosomatic subjectivity of man. Since this occurs in relation to consciousness, which performs both the reflective and reflexive function, the awareness of that subjectivity brings with it the "subjectification" and interiorization of the ego in consciousness which also extends to and contains the body as something belonging only to myself and different from all other bodies. To have a feeling of his body allows man as much insight into his own soma as he needs for self-determination in the action. In the same way the person's integration in the action is established; the integration is equivalent to a normal experience of one's body, an experience that is conditioned by feeling and consciousness. Any defects or insufficiency of feeling that would obstruct it becomes a factor of disintegration.

4. SENSITIVITY AND TRUTHFULNESS

The Consciousness of Feelings and Man's Individual Sensitivity

Experience of one's body is not the only instance in which feelings attain the status of consciousness, just as bodily sensations are not the only form of feeling. Man not only feels his body but he also has a more integral feeling of himself, he feels what determines his own ego and his dynamism. Moreover, he has a feeling of the world as a complex and differentiated set of beings, among which his own ego exists and with which it has different relations. The attainment by feelings and sensations of the conscious state shapes the experience of his own ego as being-in-the-world and also forms in one way or another his experience of the world. This of course refers primarily to the sphere that remains within the range of sense but not to the whole of reality, not to the universe as a whole which is encompassed by the human mind in its own manner. Having its own specificity and being an emotive occurrence, feeling is directly linked with what lies within the reach of sense; it is not divided from higher mental activities and their contents. Careful observation supplies ample evidence against any simplified compartmentalization in man (e.g., against any tendency to identify emotivity with sensuality). If we ascertain in man not only a feeling of his body or of bodies in general - to which he has cognitive access through sense - but also some aesthetic, religious, or moral feelings, then we also have evidence that the emotive element in him somehow corresponds to what is spiritual and not merely sensual.

At this point we touch upon some crucial problems of psychology, anthropology, and epistemology. The question of emotivity, and more directly the question of the cognitive function performed by feelings, comes into our considerations, however, only in general and insofar as it concerns the integration of the person in the action. The individual sensitivity of every human being is formed by the occurrence of feelings as well as by their intensity and their accessibility to conscious reflection.

Sensitivity and the Personal Experience of Values

When we mention sensitivity we are obviously not referring solely to the sensibility, to sense stimuli in the strict sense; we are not thinking of the acuity of vision and of hearing or of the sensibility of touch; we refer also to the different intentional directions of human feeling that are deeply rooted in man's spiritual life. But sensitivity itself does not suffice to reach the evidence of the transcendence of the person, of his self-determination and efficacy. It seems to be rather an indication only of what happens in the person as a subject endowed with emotive capacities and of what in this respect demands to be integrated. Sensitivity is indeed related to sensation. They have the same origin. Sensation refers in turn to sense-perception. Sensitivity also in a way is present in the exercise of the sensory faculties of man, though its character is primarily receptive rather than active, and this is precisely the reason why it demands integration.

Integration, however, is not limited only to that for which consciousness is responsible, that is, to the attainment by the particular feelings and the intentional content they carry with them of the level of consciousness leading to the emergence of an authentic experience of values. For it is to values that all feelings or sensations are intentionally directed, a circumstance already explained in the analysis of bodily sensations. Every feeling or sensation is directed to some fact within or without the subject to whom it belongs, but it always has that "bent for" a value, that qualitative trait which is so clearly marked in the feelings one has of one's own body. This is why a feeling or a sensation becomes in man, so to speak, the nucleus for the crystallization of an experience of value. Emotionalists - such as, for instance, M. Scheler - go so far as to maintain that feelings are the only source of man's cognitive relations to values and that apart from them there are no other authentic means of knowing values.~

We will not discuss these problems here. We may note, however, that experience of values based on the integration of feelings through consciousness is not in itself sufficient; in view of the person's transcendence in the action still another integration is necessary -namely, the integration through "truthfulness." Indeed, integration of the person in the action refers essentially to truth which makes possible an authentic freedom of self-determination. Therefore, experience of values, which is a function of man's sensitivity itself (and hence also a function of feelings) has within the dimension of the acting person to be subordinated to the reference to truth. The fusion of sensitivity with truthfulness is the necessary condition of the experience of values. It is only on the basis of such an experience that authentic choices and decisions can be formed. In this case authenticity is indicative of the fulfillment of freedom which depends on the certainty of truth, that is to say, on the reference to an authentic value and thus the validity of the judgment about the positive value of the object, concerning which a choice or a decision is being made.

Such an understanding of the notion of "authenticity" - based on truthfulness - may sometimes be contrary to its understanding based on sensitivity alone. The latter approach would make of sensitivity the ultimate criterion of values and the sole basis for experience of values; just as if integration in consciousness of feelings and values felt were to prevent integration by truthfulness as well as reflection or mental appreciation and judgment of values. But this is not so. Actually it is the latter integration, the integration by truthfulness, that has a decisive significance for the acting person and is also the measure of the authentic transcendence of the person in the action. The man who in his attitude to values would rely solely on the way his feelings develop is confined to the orbit of what only happens in him and becomes incapable of self-determination. Indeed, selfdetermination and the closely related self-governance often require that action be taken in the name of bare truth about good, in the name of values that are not felt. It even may require that action be taken against one's actual feelings.

Sensitivity as a Source of Enrichment of the Psyche

The immediately preceding remarks do not, however, depreciate in any way the significance of sensitivity. This latter is itself a valuable endowment that greatly enriches human nature. The ability to sense, the spontaneous ability to feel, values is the basis for many human talents. Emotionalists are right when they contend that this ability in man is unique and irreplaceable. No intellectual approval of values leading to their objectively correct appreciation will ever by itself result in so expressive an experience as when it is guided by feeling. Neither can the intellect impart to man that closeness to a value and concentration on it as feeling does. Whether he remains blind to values when deprived of the necessary feeling, as claimed by emotionalists, is a matter for discussion, but there seems to be no doubt that he would then be incapable of having the right, the properly dynamic experience of them. In this sense sensitivity is indubitably an especially valuable asset of the human psyche, but in order to appreciate its real worth we have to take into account the degree to which it is pervaded by truthfulness. The same standards apply also to the integration of the person: the more there is truthfulness in his awareness of all values and in the way the actual relations and order among them are reflected in the experience he has of them, the more complete is his self-governance and mature his self-possession.

5. DESIRE AND EXCITEMENT

Concupiscent Appetite and Irascible Appetite

In Aristotelian philosophy a very definite line is drawn between man's sensuousness and his rationality, but at the same time the strict relation between them is clearly established. This relation occurs in the field of cognition where the senses are meant to establish a direct contact with objective reality and at the same time supply, so to speak, the raw material for the mind; this conception is justified inasmuch as man cognizes the external world, the world accessible to sense, and simultaneously constitutes the objects of that world by means of intellectual structuration. It is why man's knowledge of what is "accessible" to sense is not the same as the manner in which it is presented by sense. Moreover, intellectual cognition extends far beyond the givenness received in sensory experience. The relation between sensuousness and rationality occurs also in the realm of what in classic thought has been conceived of as appetite. A sensory experience is the foundation of cognition, so the appetite of volition, sensitive appetite, supplies material or objectives for volition. In certain respects it may function as "rational appetite," though in other respects man's sensuousness is a source of specific difficulties for the rational exercise of his will. Let us recall that already in the discussion on self-determination we saw the term "appetite" covered such meanings as striving and concupiscence though it was broader than either of them.

Concerning the will itself, we may ask whether we can attribute to it a concupiscent character; certainly there seems to be no difficulty in this respect in the case of sense; sensuous desire is a fact well known from actual experience. In order to describe precisely this experiential reality St. Thomas discriminated between "concupiscence" or the "concupiscent appetite" and "irascibility" or the "irascible appetite," each representing a specific, one may even say a typical, version of the sensitive appetite.⁶⁹ This distinction allows us to see in it, though in germinal form, an outline of a sort of typology. It rests on an axiological rather than psychological basis inasmuch as the difference between the concupiscent and the irascible appetites lies primarily in the differences between the types of objective, that is, their end, in the value accessible to sense; in the former case this is but an object of desire and in the latter an objective to be attained only by overcoming obstacles or opposition. According to Thomas Aquinas the two forms of conctipiscence are simultaneously the basis for the differentiation of human sentiments and passions. In this form we find in his writings an integrated interpretation of the human psyche and the psychical dynamism on the side of sense; we also find there, as already noted, elements for a sort of typology of the human individual. This typology seems even to be confirmed to some extent by actual observation, for we know concupiscence is a dominant trait in some people and irascibility in others.

Excitement as a Distinct Emotive Fact

The discussion in this study stresses and brings to the forefront the emotive nature of the human psyche. The point where our approach meets again the traditional anthropology is the stress we put upon a definite experience of an emotive nature which is the experience of excitement. Excitement "happens" in the subject and thereby reveals his psychical potentiality; it is an emotive instance that differs from feeling, to which we have rightly attributed a certain cognitive intentionality. No such cognitive tendency of the psyche is present in excitement, whose character is never cognitive. But does it not show a desirous nature? "Desiring" consists, however, in pointing toward an object whereas excitement is essentially self-sufficient; it consists in the exercise of its process with which it is totally absorbed. Thus it seems that its nature is primarily and essentially emotive though its emotivity may show differences in quality and tone. Excitements occurring in man may be of an irascible or a concupiscent type. That is, indirectly excitement has an appetitive bent but what we have in view and put stress directly upon is the essential nature of the excitement as such. It does also entail an intentional bent "toward" or "against" something. As such, it is a manifestation of emotivity, a typical emotive activation of the human psyche.

Such activation is usually very distinctly set in the framework of somatic reactivity. Excitement is always manifested in a definite reaction of the body, indeed in a whole complex chain of reactions of the organism (1)lood circulation, breathing, a quickened heartbeat, etc.), which are very distinctly felt. It is a specific sensation of the body contained in the feeling of excitement itself; we feel and have the experience of the emotive and the reactive moment as one dynamic fact, and this circumstance allows us in a way to call the fact a "reaction." The somatic element accompanying excitement may then be seen as an extension to the body of a dynamism that is itself psychical. We have, however, to distinguish here between it and the "excitement" of the body as such, which itself is but a reactive fact producing but an emotive resonance. This near and readily felt relation to the body leads to the conclusion that excitement is something sensuous, a dynamic manifestation of sensuousness. It is usually accompanied by sensations of special intensity, by a rich sensational reflex, which adds to the vividness of the experience of excitement.

The Difference between Excitement and Elation

Nevertheless, to reduce excitements to sensuousness alone would be an oversimplification. The source of excitement, the stimulus that provokes it, does not necessarily affect the senses. The stimulation may come from the experience of a value that is entirely inaccessible to sense or from wholehearted acceptance of ideals; then, however, we tend to speak of "elation" rather than of excitement. "Excitement" as such remains indicative of the sphere of sensuous stimuli or stimulations; elation, being spiritual in nature, may be accompanied in the subject by sensuous or even bodily excitement of greater or lesser intensity. It seems, moreover, that such excitement may to a certain point help the elation of the spirit but if too strong it becomes an obstacle. This assertion supplies additional evidence for the need for integration.

Excitability

In this case integration must comprise not only the particular excitements but the whole of human excitability, which is the term we apply to this particular emotive element of the psyche. "Excitability" is the capacity for excitement; its direction and its tone can differ as can the excitements themselves. It designates also a certain sphere of human capacities that seems to be rather closely correlated with man's sensitivity. Though the two are interrelated there is also a clear-cut difference between them; excitability relates to other emotive facts than does sensitivity, with which, however, they are usually associated; for excitability itself, as well as excitement, which is its dynamic catalyst and nucleus, constitutes in man what may be called the "explosive sphere" of emotions. It seems, however, that this refers also to the quality of these emotions and to their subjective intensity. We thus see that there are reasons to distinguish between excitability and emotionality, which will be discussed separately. Excitability, in fact, tends to refer to an awakening of emotions, and because this is often rather sudden we have characterized it as explosive. The source of emotions is then seen as irrational and their experience is in itself "blind" - these are the same features that, apart from emotive intensity, we attribute to passions. Excitement establishes certain forms of human emotions and feelings, but obviously it does not exhaust their enormous wealth of tone and variation.

Excitability as a Constituent of Instincts

Sensuous-emotive excitability appears to be particularly well rooted in the soil of human instincts. In the preceding chapter we uncovered the somato-reactive layer in the instincts of self-preservation and reproduction; we also noted that an instinct could not be reduced to the dynamism of this one layer alone. It also has its own appropriate psychosomatic center, which apparently inheres in a particular excitability, it may be the sexual excitability or any of the different forms of excitability associated with self-preservation. In either case this consists in a special capacity for stimuli or, in other words, the aptitude for excitement. Nevertheless, this aptitude is insufficient to exhaust the notion of "instinct," just as the notion cannot be fully accounted for by the more or less determined reactivity of the body, the body's definite sexual reactions, or the reactions associated with self-preservation. A much more convincing understanding seems to be that both reactivity and excitability remain at the disposal of the powerful forces of nature that steer them in the direction of the most elemental and fundamental value that is existence itself.

"Stirring Emotions" Differ from Excitement

Our analysis of human emotivity brings us now to a sphere that demands separate treatment, because if the reductive method were to be applied to it, its distinctness could easily be lost. The sphere is that of the experience of deep, stirring emotion, which differs from excitement. Such stirring emotions represent an entirely different kind of experience, a different subjective event, than does excitement. Although in either case we are dealing with essentially emotive and psychical events, the nature of a stirring of emotions is distinctly separate. The specific character of the experience involved seems best described as a deep emotional stirring, which differs from other emotions and feelings not only in its intensity, but in "depth," in "moving" and bringing to the surface man's psychic dimension otherwise remaining unnoticed. An emotional stirring, like excitement, "happens" in the man-subject, but these two psychical states are easily distinguished from each other and from among the various passions of the soul. (It is worth recalling here that the term "passion" derives etymologically from the Latin word for "to happen.")

Excitement, far more than deep emotion, appears as we have pointed out to be closely related to the sensuousness of man. While both are accompanied by some kind of somatic reaction, excitement is seen as more embedded in this reaction than even very deep emotions. We experience emotions as manifestations of a pure emotivity, as that activation of the psyche itself in which somatic under-layers are less clearly pronounced. This is the reason why in the experience of several types of deep emotions bodily feelings may appear to give priority to spiritual feelings; moreover, the content of such emotions is strictly related to the spiritual life of man. We may for instance experience an aesthetic emotion generated by the perception of something beautiful, a cognitive emotion that arises from the discovery of a truth, or various kinds of deep emotions connected with the sphere of good, in particular, moral good or evil. The last of these experiences, which Scheler sees as the deepest manifestations of man's emotivity, develops in strict relation to the processes of the conscience; remorse at a committed wrong is not only a judgment of oneself, but this experience of truth entails, as we well know from actual life, an unusually stirring emotional component. The same applies to the processes of repentance, justification, or conversion, when man's actual departure from evil and acceptance of good, at any rate in the initial stage of his acceptance, are also accompanied by deeply felt emotions. The content of all these emotions, and with it also their emotive tone, differs diametrically; man passes from the gnawing remorse of his conscience and the sometimes deep distress almost bordering on despair arising from his sense of guilt to a state of mental peace and equally deep joy, to a state of spiritual bliss.

The "Stir of Emotion" as the Core of Human Affectivity

We have been speaking of different emotions and feelings, of different manifestations of man's affectivity. At their root there is always a stirring of emotion; this emotive core may be said to be

radiating internally and thus to produce every time a different emotional experience. It is this experience that we call "emotion." Each emotional experience is different, unique, and irreproducible, even though among them there are those that in respect of their emotive content are similar or indeed almost identical; they often differ in some detail of tone or intensity but their essential content is nevertheless the same. The sameness of content always has its experiential origin in a stirring of emotion, which is simultaneously colored by this content and subsequently, because of its internal radiation, spreads it to the whole of man's psychical sphere.

In this way an emotion springs forth and develops in man and fades away. Occasionally it may be fixed in what we may call an "affective state." While every emotion, a transitory one, represents an emotional state of the man-subject, an "affective state" is spoken of most appropriately only when an emotion has become fixed, though to what extent an emotion once fixed still remains but a stirring is another matter. What we call an "affective state," however, seems very often to have already departed from its original emotive core, which was a definite stirring of emotion, and has since been taken over by the will. The question of the penetration of emotions to the realm of will and thus also of the transition from emotional states to affective attitudes is of great significance in any discussion on the integration of the psyche, which is precisely the theme of this chapter.

The Multifarious Richness of Emotions

We must here return to the specific nature of emotions. We have just seen that it is also the specific nature itself of that emotional stirring or movement which spreads and infuses the psyche. When we try to characterize emotions and call them by different names, we in fact distinguish between the different ways emotions are stirred. For instance, different emotional stirrings mark the feelings of sorrow and of joy, of anger and of tenderness, of love and of hatred. The woTld of human emotions is rich and diversified, in many respects like the colors, tones, and shades on the palette of a painter. Time and again psychologists and to some extent also moralists have attempted to describe and discriminate the principal emotions, according to which the great wealth of man's emotional life could then be classed. It cannot be denied that they have had some success in their efforts, though the domain of human emotions, somewhat like the painter's palette, manifests an infinite spectrum of individual colors, tones, and shades. Moreover, emotions, like colors, can be mixed, they overlap and interpenetrate, they also enhance or complete and destroy each other. They constitute a separate and powerful realm within man, a separate sphere of the human subjectivity. Since emotions happen "in" man, subjectivity is here understood in the particular sense that has been distinguished earlier in this study. Their happening in man comprises their emergence, their growth, and their passing away. Emotional dynamism is at least to a large extent independent of the efficacy of the person. Already the Greek philosophers noticed that emotions did not depend on the mind and in their essence were "irrational."

Some Criteria of Differentiation

This alleged "irrationality" of human affectivity has perhaps been the cause of the one-sided and oversimplified tendency to identify it with sensuousness. Our views on this matter were propounded earlier and here we only have to stress once again the specific difference between the stirring of emotion and excitement. On the one hand, the difference lies in their distinctive natures, and not just in the degree or intensity of experience. (Even the strongest stirring of emotion is not excitement.) The components of the accompanying somatic reactions of the two seem also to be different. On the other hand, excitement is presumably necessary to initiate an emotional experience when an emotional stirring alone is insufficient: but then it is not so much the question of the intensity itself of an emotion as of the level at which man's emotive capacity is operative. Apparently it is this difference of level that we have in mind when we speak of an "emotional stirring" as of something different from excitement and when we discriminate between man's excitability and his affectiveness. But if we can refer to different levels, it means that in the emotional life itself there are inherent possibilities of its transformation, that is, of a transition from one level to another, for instance, from the level of excitement to that of emotion;⁷⁰ in this respect, the functioning of the human being is capable of "sublimation." Psychologists commonly agree to the distinction between the "lower" and the "higher" emotions. They also take note of the different "depth" of emotions as well as of their more "peripheral" or more "central" positional features. These distinctions presuppose an innerness of the man-person, something like an immaterial space, where on the ground of the role of feelings we may differentiate between the "central" and the "peripheral," where it is also possible to establish different levels of "depth" (though these levels are not to be confused with the levels of emotions, which, as we saw, may be either "lower" or "higher"). From another point of view, the different "levels of depth" point to a certain integration in the man-subject of his emotional stirrings (with the ensuing emotions) and project on the efficacy of the person.

This seems to show that the dynamism of emotions is specifically interrelated with the whole system of sensations and feelings, which penetrate to consciousness to determine in every particular case the form and the actual character of an emotional experience.

7. THE EMOTIVITY OF THE SUBJECT AND THE EFFICACY OF THE PERSON

Emotions Differentiate According to Their Emotive Content

The preceding analyses do not exhaust the immense wealth of the reality that is the emotional life of man; they only give some insight and help to draw its characteristic outlines. Every emotion has its own emotive core in the form of an emotional stirring from which it radiates in its own specific manner; according to its proper stirring, every emotion establishes itself as an original and unique psychical event. If it is vested with a content - and we know both emotional stirrings and emotions are - then this takes place also in an emotive way. The content, let us stress, is neither cognitive nor appetitive but solely emotive. Moreover, every emotion is itself a content directly and simply present in man; anger, love, hatred, yearning, sorrow, or joy are all different contents and each can be authentically realized only as a stirring emotion. Each is also a manifestation and actualization of man's psychical capacities and each reveals in a special manner his subjectivity. It is in the sphere of emotions (within the confines of human emotivity) that a certain tension between the efficacy and the subjectivity of man is most clearly marked. Because of this tension the synthesis of efficacy with subjectivity as well as the concrete significance of the integration in this domain deserve an especially attentive analysis.

Spontaneity and Self-Determination

Emotional experiences - stirring emotions or excitements and in their wake also the particular emotions and even passions - only happen in man as subject. Their happening is spontaneous, and this means they are not a product of personal efficacy and self-determination. We have thus to assume that at the root of the emotive dynamism there must be a special psychical efficacy, as otherwise it would be impossible to explain all that in an emotive way happens in the man-subject. In a sense emotivity itself signifies that spontaneous efficacy of the human psyche. When we say "it is spontaneous," we want to stress thereby its dynamic independence from the proper efficacy of the person, that is, from his self-determination. While experiencing feelings or passions man has the most vivid awareness that it is not he who is acting but that something is happening in him, indeed that something is happening with him, just as if he lost control of himself, as if he could not bring himself under control. In this connection we see that, because man as the person has the power of self-governance and self-possession, situations of deeply stirring emotions and passion present a special task for him to cope with.

Affectivity is not the Source of Disintegration

The fact that with the emergence of an emotion or passion man is prompted to seek soille sort of integration and this becomes a special task for him, does not signify in any way that they are in themselves a cause of disintegration. The view about their disintegrating role appeared in the philosophy of the Stoic school and in modern times was to some extent revived by Kant. If the position advocating in various ways a rejection of emotions so as to allow man to act solely according to reason (Kant's idea of the Categorical Imperative) were to be maintained, then it would be necessary to accept the whole emotive capacity as being itself a source of disintegration in the acting person. The broadly conceived experience of man, with due attention paid to morality, prevents us, however, from accepting this view - just as it was rejected, for instance, by Aristotle in his anthropology and ethics or in his critique of the Stoics, and in Scheler's critique of Kant. The view that conceived of human emotivity - and in particular human emotionality - as a source of disintegration is a manifestation of a special sort of ethical and anthropological apriorism, and the essence of any apriorism is to disregard the evidence of experience. When we treat man's emotivity and emotionality solely as a source of disintegration in the acting person, we assume to some extent that he is a priori and inevitably doomed to disintegration. In this respect the Stoic position has to be seen as pessimistic. The pessimism in this question is derived, especially in Kant, from a specific sort of idealism.

The Creative Role of Tensions between Emotivity and Efficacy

The realism that we are trying to adhere to in our argumentation demands that no emotion or even passion be regarded as in itself the source of disintegration in the acting person. It is impossible to deny, however, that emotions and passions present man with special problems that he has to cope with. Inasmuch as self-governance and self-possession are elements in the structure of the person, these problems consist in the need for integration in human emotivity and emotionality, a need fully justified by the person's self-determination; for there is a clearly marked tension between the spontaneous efficacy of the human psyche and the efficacy of the person. The tension, which has manifold aspects, represents in a way the crucial moment of human personality and morality. In traditional anthropology it is seen primarily as existing between the faculties of the human soul, between the rational appetite (will) and the sensitive appetite. In the context of this study, however, we shall attempt to examine it first of all as a tension existing between the subjectivity and the efficacy of the person. We already know that the synthesis of efficacy with subjectivity in the person's action cannot be realized without a specific kind of effort that may be seen as the most appropriate effort of man's inwardness. It is this effort, this toil, that allowed us to compare the efficacy of the person in the action to creativity. We have also been to some extent prepared to deal with the problem by the analysis in this chapter of the relation existing between sensitivity and truthfulness in cognition. We can thus assert that the tension between the emotivity of the human subject and the personal efficacy in actions is specifically creative.

Emotions Tend to Be Rooted in the Subjective Ego

The tension between self-determination, or the proper efficacy of the person, and emotivity, or the spontaneous efficacy of the human psyche, can of course be reduced to the relation between will and emotion. When this relation is seen as the tension between the subjectivity and the efficacy of man, then it is obviously with reference not to the subject as the ontic basis but to subjectivity as the experiential correlate of what only happens in man but is not his acting, in which efficacy plays a decisive role. On the other hand, we know emotions occur only in man. This emotive happening may be but transitory, like a light touch on the surface of the soul, though it also manifests a specific tendency to be rooted in the subjective ego. Then, if an emotion turns into a permanent psychical state, correlatively to it an inner attitude develops in man. For instance, a sudden momentary fit of anger is one thing, but a lasting resentment is quite another - the anger that has turned into an inner attitude. Likewise a short-lasting affection or hatred differs entirely from love or hatred that has become fixed as an inner attitude. Such attitudes become an intrinsic factor of human life and an especially important product of man's emotive capacity and dynamism. It is here that we come to the point where "what happens in man" is nearest to his self-determination.

As we know, emotional attitudes develop spontaneously. Their fixation and rooting in the subject arises from the same emotive dynamism that was at the origin of the initial emotional stirring or excitement. The fixation and the rooting of emotion in the subjective ego is an indication of the range of emotive energy and at the same time constitutes a specific accumulation of subjectivity and immanence. Efficacy and the related transcendence of the personal ego are, so to speak, drawn in and included in the subject. The influence of emotions on the will may be such that instead of determining man's attitudes, the will tends to adopt the attitude presented by emotion thus leading to what we call "the emotional attitude." Such attitudes are subjectivistic. We now see why emotion may be rightly regarded as a special source of subjectivism. Structurally subjectivism signifies that efficacy is dominated by subjectivity - to some extent it signifies the preponderance of the psychical immanence over personal transcendence in acting.

The Role of Emotion with Respect to the Will Stresses Personal Efficacy

All these considerations do not, however, justify the conclusion that emotion is leading to disintegration. In spite of the emotionalization of consciousness, which we have already discussed, and the generally recognized limitations of responsibility in actions performed under emotional strain, there are no sufficient reasons to attribute a disintegrating role to emotions. Emotivity may tend to diminish the distance between the subjective ego and efficacy and it may to some extent thrust upon the will its own system of values, but by any standards it is no more than an obstacle to the integration of the person in the action. Indeed, integration remains possible and then emotion adds special vividness to efficacy and with it to the whole personal structure of self-governance and self-possession.

8. THE EMOTIVITY OF THE SUBJECT AND THE EXPERIENCE OF VALUE

Emotivity and Conscious Efficacy

Since in our analysis not all the elements of the relation between the emotivity and efficacy of man have been sufficiently attended to we will now examine them in some detail. We know that emotivity in man is a source of spontaneous subjectifications and interiorizations different from the subjectification and interiorization performed by consciousness. In a way the emotionalization of consciousness is a limiting phenomenon when excessive emotion damages consciousness and the ability to have a normal experience. Man then lives engrossed in his emotion, his excitement, or his passion, and though the condition is undoubtedly subjective, his "subjectivity" brings only negative results so far as efficacy, self-determination, and the transcendence of the acting person are concerned. Thus the limiting case of spontaneous subjectification by emotion may be said to be the

separation of human subjectivity from conscious efficacy. Such are the situations when man loses his ability to act consciously and hence also to be responsible, the situations when in his acting there is no real acting but only a special sort of happening - something happens in and with him, ;something that he neither determines nor fulfills. Neither can he be fully responsible for what is taking place, though we may well ask what is his responsibility for the development of the situation in which he can no longer have responsibilities.

Apart from these extreme cases, when emotivity may be said to have destroyed the efficacy of the person, there are still many situations in which efficacy is only partly limited. The degree of these limitations differs and depends on the intensity of the emotion involved. To speak of the "intensity of emotions" is a simplification that in itself appears permissible but does not express the whole complexity of the actual facts; if we say the degree of the limitation of conscious efficacy - also of responsibility - depends on the intensity of emotion, then we appear to be opposing emotivity to efficacy, as if they were but two contrary forces. The actual difference between them is, however, far more complex so that even the idea of psychical force cannot be understood in a way similar to a physical force; for the force of emotion mainly derives from the experience of value. Thus, it is in this domain that there are special opportunities and possibilities for creative integration.

The Expressiveness of Human Experience is Emotional

Asserting that the intensity of emotion "mainly derives from the experience of value" we touch on what appears to be the most remarkable in human emotivity and what distinguishes it from the purely somatic reactivity. Admittedly, the somatic ability to react to stimuli, in particular when they relate to human instincts, has from an objective point of view the traits of reference to values, but in this sphere there can be no actual experience of value; perhaps the reason is that somatic dynamisms as such are not directly connected with consciousness, while the link - and in its turn the experience of the body - is established by means of sensations. The same is not the case with emotions, which are intrinsically accessible to consciousness and indeed have a specific ability, as it were, to attract consciousness. Thus we not only become aware of our emotions but also our consciousness and in particular our experience derive from them a special vividness. The vividness of human experience seems to have an emotional rather than a conscious nature. We may even say it is to emotion in the normal course of experience - that is, apart from extreme or nearly extreme situations - that man owes that special "value" of his experiences which consists in their subjective vividness; this circumstance retains its significance also with regard to the cognitive aspects of these experiences.

The Content of Emotions Refers to Values

Our interest, however, is concentrated on the experience of value rather than on the value of experience. The present considerations have been prepared by earlier analyses, in particular the analysis of sensitivity. Both the emotional stirring and the emotions of the human being always relate to a value and are born out of this relation. This is true when we are angry and it is equally true when we love, mourn, rejoice, or hate. The reference in all these cases is to a value, and the whole emotion may be said to consist of this reference. Nevertheless, it is neither cognitive nor appetitive; the emotional stirring as well as emotions themselves point to values, but as such they have no cognition or desire of values. We may only say emotions are an indication - but only in the special experiential way - of values that exist apart from emotions, outside the subject having that emotional experience. If parallel to this indication or demonstration of values there is some cognition of them, then it results from sensations and feelings, which constitute what is like an "emotive condition" or "emotive reflex." The more thoroughly consciousness is penetrated by this reflex, the fuller and more complete becomes the experience of value. The emotionalization of consciousness, however, hinders this experience and sometimes may even prevent it. Furthermore, any emotion - also excitements and passions - directs its emotive content beyond itself to a definite value and thereby it provides an opportunity for the experience of value, and for the experiential cogniti6n of value.⁷¹

The Source of the Spontaneous Experience of Value

An emotion, when stirred, spreads out and, becoming rooted in the subject, spontaneously sets off reference to value. The very spontaneity of this reference appears to be in its own way valuable; it represents a specific "psychical value" or something "valuable for the psyche," because the psyche on the basis of its own proper emotive dynamism manifests a natural inclination. Spontaneity - and also the spontaneous experience of value - are well suited to the needs of the human psyche, not so much perhaps because they would be easy to come by or the value would be, so to speak, given and ready-made, but because of the specific emotional fulfillment that is brought by such an experience. Emotional fulfillment is simultaneously a special kind of fulfillment of the subjectivity itself of the human ego; it generates a feeling of being entirely contained within oneself and at the same time in an intimate nearness to the object, that is, to the value with which the contact is spontaneously established.

Relieving of Tensions between Spontaneity and Self-Determination

A tension between emotivity and efficacy - mentioned previously -that engages two of man's forces or powers develops because of a twofold reference to value. Efficacy and with it also personal self-determination are formed through choice and decision, and these presuppose a dynamic relation to truth in the will itself. In this way, however, a new transcendent factor is introduced into the spontaneous experience of value and to the related experience of striving to attain the emotional fulfillment of one's own subjectivity. This factor directs the person toward his fulfillment in the action not through emotional spontaneity alone but by means of the transcendent relation to truth and the related obligation and responsibility. In the traditional approach this dynamic factor in personal life was defined as the intellect, a definition often reflected in everyday speech and opinions, which oppose emotion to reason, the latter being then' used in a broader sense than to denote the ability of intellectual cognition..

The intellect has precedence over emotion, over the emotive spontaneity of the human being, and denotes the power and the ability to be guided in choice and decision by the truth itself about good. This ability is decisive for that authentic spiritual power which determines the guidelines of human acting. The power itself, even if among its properties there is a demand for a certain detachment - the distance that lends truth - from spontaneously experienced values, is never manifested by a denial of these values, by their rejection in the name of some sort of "pure transcendence," a rejection that was apparently postulated by the Stoics and by Kant. On the contrary, the authentic subordination to truth as the principle controlling the choices and decisions made by the free human will demands an intimate interrelation between transcendence and integration in the domain of emotions. Indeed, we know from what was said before that transcendence and integration are two complementary aspects that explain the complexity of man's acting. Especially in what concerns the emotivity of the human being it seems that only such an interpretation of the existing complexity and not a simplifying reduction is important and may become relevant to theoretical and practical issues concerning the human being.

9. ACTION AND EMOTION - THE INTEGRATING FUNCTION OF SKILL

Attraction and Repulsion in the Spontaneous Reference to Values

It is at this point that we have to examine the integrating function of skill or proficiency. We referred to the notion of "skills" in the preceding chapter while examining the integration of the acting person on the basis of the somatic dynamism. We then saw how much every synthesis of action with motion owed to the skills acquired by man from earliest childhood long before his coming to the age of reason. Our analyses of the human psyche and emotivity have disclosed with sufficient clarity the tension that exists between the spontaneous dynamism of emotions and the efficacy of the person. Finally, we explained in what sense the tension between emotion ahd the intellectual reference to truth developed in connection with their relation to values. The appropriate integration in this field thus presupposes some reliance on the intellect and that relation to the objects of acting which is based on the truth about the good presented in these objects.

The tension between the person's efficacy and emotivity results from the fact that emotional dynamism introduces a spontaneous turn toward certain values. The turn may have an attractive or a repulsive character; in the former case its direction is "toward" while in the latter it is directed "away." While the emotive turn "toward" indicates a positive value, the repulsion, the turn "away," indicates a countervalue, something negative. Thus the whole emotive dynamism brings with it a spontaneous orientation, it introduces man into the profoundly antagonistic system of positivity and negativity. The fact that man is emotionally dynamized or oriented to the good and against the evil is not so much a function of any emotional stir or of emotions but reaches to the deeper roots of his nature. In this respect emotions follow the orientation of nature, which, as we already noted, is expressed by instincts. At present it is not a question of the instincts of reproduction or self-preservation, which were considered in the preceding chapter (though undoubtedly also on the ground of these instincts a split between attraction and repulsion occurs in the emotions of the relevant spheres). For the moment, however, we are interested in the urge, appertaining to human nature, "toward" the positive and "against" the negative. In this connection it is important to note that attraction and repulsion, of which we have spoken in only the most general terms, are not at first defined as to their object. To define them in this respect is the task and the function of the person and thus of the intellect, which cognitively forms man's attitude to truth, in this case the truth about "good" and "evil."

Moral Decision and Spontaneous Attraction or Repulsion

Different emotions introduce into man's attitude to truth their own spontaneous reference of an emotional and emotive character. Emotion is accompanied by a sense of value or countervalue. It is thus that a more or less distinct and vivid psychical fact is formed, a fact whose distinctness and vividness comprises also the intensity of the experience had consciously. For instance, the orientation of love~ joy, or desire is attractive and to a good, while that of fear, dislike, or - ln a different situation - sorrow is repulsive. St. Thomas rightly calls attention to another specific trait of emotions, which manifests itself in the element of irascibility, the most typical of these emotions being that of anger, an emotion essentially repulsive though in a special sense. In a different way this trait also appears in the emotional experience of courage. Earlier we noted the twofold character of human emotions, which are dominated either by the appetitive or the irascible element. The distinction according to the predominance in an emotional experience of attraction or repulsion seems, however, to have a special significance for the spontaneous orientation of the psychical subjectivity of man to the good and against the evil. It is this orientation, rooted deep in the urge of nature itself, that is the ground on which the main tension between the spontaneous emotivity of nature and the efficacy or self-determination of the person comes into play.

At this point we see the integrating function of proficiency. The significance of this function was expounded by the great masters of classical philosophy, and especially of ethics, in their comprehensive teaching on virtues or moral proficiency. Throughout this study we have stressed that morality intrinsically determines the humanity and the personal nature of man. The experience of morality is thus an integral component in the experience of man. Without it no adequate theory of the acting person - of the person and the action - would indeed be possible. The integration of the person and the action on the basis of emotivity (emotionality and emotivity) of the human psyche is accomplished through proficiency, which from the point of view of ethics deserves to be called "virtues." An essential element in the idea of "virtue" is that of moral value and this entails a reference to a norm. But even when in our analysis we put aside this relation pertaining to morality (at the beginning of this book we called the procedure "placing outside brackets") by leaving its examination to students of ethics, we still have facing us the purely and strictly personalistic problem of integration, that is, the need for finding the best ways for effectively relieving the tension between spontaneous emotivity and personal efficacy or self-determination. It is quite correct to speak in this connection of the "problem of integration" inasmuch as it consists in the realization of the personal structure of self-governance and self-possession on the basis of that psychical subjectivity which is spontaneously molded by the numerous and multifarious emotive events with their appropriate spontaneity of attraction and repulsion.

The Function of Moral Proficiency or Virtue

The personal structure of self-governance and self-possession is realized by means of different proficiencies and skills. Indeed, it lies in the nature of proficiencies to aim at subordinating the spontaneous emotivity of the subjective ego to its self-determination. They thus tend to subordinate subjectivity to the transcendent efficacy of the person. Their way to achieve this end, however, is to make the best use of emotive energy and not to suppress it.⁷² We may say that the will to some extent restrains the spontaneous explosion of emotive energy and even assimilates some of it. When properly assimilated this energy adds considerably to the energy of the will itself, and that is precisely the task of proficiency. But in the process there is still another purpose to be achieved gradually. The proficiencies or skills acquired in different domains allow the will to secure - and without any risk for itself to adopt as its own - the spontaneity of emotions and generally of emotivity. In a way spontaneity is also a trait of proficiency, though not in its primitive state but after transformation in the course of a steadfast process of character formation. So far as the reference to truth is concerned, the integrating process of developing and improving the psyche gradually produces the result that the will - guided by the light of reason - learns how by spontaneous reference to emotio~, by a spontaneous move of attraction or repulsion, to choose and to adopt the real good; it also learns how to reject the real bad.

In this sphere the integration of the acting person is a task that lasts until the end of a man's life. In some respects, however, it begins at a somewhat later phase than the somato-reactive integration, which is on the whole already completed when the psycho-emotive integration begins. A human child learns quickly the necessary movements and acquires the skills pertaining to this domain before he develops the particular virtues. Thus we may to a certain degree identify the latter of the two integrations with the task of character formation or molding one's psycho-moral personality. In either there is the moment of "bringing together," though as we noted at the beginning of the discussion on integration, it is not a question of bringing together in the literal sense - that is, to join parts to form a whole - but rather of the realization, and simultaneously outward manifestation, of a unity based on the specific complexity of the personal subject.

10. CONDUCT AND BEHAVIOR

The Meaning of the Terms

When attentively observing other people and ourselves we can draw a subtle distinction between what we are going to call "conduct" and something that in the same man we are inclined to identify as his "behavior." There will be no digressing from the main theme of these considerations if we devote some remarks to this distinction, all the more so as it brings into focus many questions mentioned in our analysis of the integration of the acting person both in the psychical and the somatic spheres.

The word "conduct" seems to denote the acting of the human being so far as it is an outcome or a resultant of his efficacy. In a sense this significance is metaphorical. Etymologically its meaning is associated with leading or guiding together or jointly, indeed, it seems to suggest a certain continuity of the guidance. Guidance, moreover, implies a knowledge of the road to be followed and thus, metaphorically speaking, it also has a certain normative significance: so "conduct" may be understood as "to keep to the marked-out course." There is nothing passive in this keeping to a course, it is not a result of what happens in or with man, but, on the contrary, it is something thoroughly active, based on efficacy and self-determination. Thus "conduct" points essentially to the actions that the man-person performs and that he fulfills himself in.

On the other hand, on careful examination "behavior" is found to contain different meanings. We use "behavior" to describe that way of acting or comportment of a person which is easily noticeable to an observer. Behavior is only connected but not identical with acting and does not refer to the same reality, or at least not to the same aspects of reality we have in mind when speaking of somebody's conduct. One's behavior, one's special way of acting that accompanies one's conduct, is composed of a number of elements, which are not necessarily, or at least not entirely, controlled by man and of which he is not, or at least is not the sole agent. These elements define the outward expression or simply the "appearance" of acting; it is through that aspect of outward expression or appearance that they determine how a man acts. But the "how" is to be referred neither to the essence itself of the action nor to the essential conjugation of the action and the person. The stress is on how a man behaves in his acting and not on how he actually acts.

Conduct and Behavior in the Person's Integration in Action

It is not difficult to notice how differently various people behave when performing similar actions; this applies to what may be said to be the phenomenal quality determined by somato-constitutive as well as psycho-emotive factors. These factors give an action performed by someone tall and of spare frame a different "appearance" than a similar action by someone square-built and stocky. Similarly, the speech, the gesture, and the pose of a spirited and vivacious speaker sound and look different from those of one who is slow and phlegmatic. Even when they do the same thing each does it somewhat differently, and this precisely means that he behaves differently.

The difference between conduct and behavior may throw some additional light on the problem of the integration of the person in the action, the problem that we have been investigating in this and the preceding chapter.

11. THE PERSON'S INTEGRATION IN ACTION AND THE SOUL-BODY RELATION

Human Complexity Revealed in Transcendence and Integration

So far "integration" has been understood as the manifestation, and simultaneously the realization, of unity on the basis of the multifarious complexity of man. In this sense integration is a complementary aspect of the dynamism of the person, an aspect that, as we saw, is complementary to transcendence. It is on this assumption that we have considered primarily the question how the unity of different dynamisms is manifested in the actions of the person. This unity itself is differentiated and diversified, which was also shown, if only indirectly, in the attempts to characterize the dynamisms of the soma and the psyche of man. So far, however, we have not investigated thoroughly the problem of the complexity of man. We may even assume that the dynamic approach to the acting person leads us to seek his unity rather than to dwell upon his complexity.⁷³

To conclude these considerations let us emphasize that man's complexity appears to be most clearly revealed by the reality of integration. Integration not only brings into view the unity of various dynamisms in the action of the person but also discloses the structures and layers of the complexity of the human being. The different layers of the psychosomatic complexity were mentioned on various occasions in the course of the analysis of integration, but obviously to show the psychosomatic complexity in man is by no means equivalent to disclosing also the proper relation of soul to body and inversely.

The Relation of Soul and Body to Integration and Transcendence

An insight into the relation between the soul and the body may be reached only through the total experience of man. The notion of the "integration," as of the "transcendence," of the "person in the action" serves to circumscribe - in various perspectives - the content of this experience. When speaking of the "integration of the acting person" we are scanning the complete territory of human experience in search of not merely a description but a thorough and deep understanding of it in the phenomenological sense, inasmuch as the sum total of the data from this experience is comprised by the notion of "integration," just as, from a different point of view, it is comprised by the notion of "transcendence." We have tried to show this in our previous analyses. We find a great wealth of various types of dynamisms at both the somatic and the psychical levels; and it is due to integration that these dynamisms become "personal" and related as well as subordinated to the transcendence of the person in the action. They thus find their place in the integral structure of the self-governance and self-possession of the person. Our analysis of the integration of the acting person on both the psychical and the somatic levels has, as we have already stated, revealed the complexity in man. We cannot pretend, however, that to assert the complexity is equivalent to an insight into the soul-body relation of the human being. Experience of transcendence and integration presumably c6r-responds approximately to what was often referred to as the "higher" and the "lower" man, an expression stressing the difference derived from the experience of man and his self-consciousness.⁷⁴

Here we have to recall our earlier remarks about the "experience of the soul." We have, in fact, submitted that man had no direct experience of his soul. Experience of the transcendence of the person in the action together with all the elements and aspects of this experience is in no way equivalent to a direct experience of the soul. Similarly, we have to assert that experience of integration (in connection with the transcendence of the person in the action) cannot be identified with the experience - the direct discovering and experiencing - of the soul-body relation. Both the reality itself of the soul and that of the soul's relation to the body are in this sense transphenomenal and extraexperiential. Nevertheless, the total and comprehensive experience of man shows the soul as real and as staying in relation to the body. They have been both discovered and are continuously being discovered in the philosophical reflection resulting from human experience.

We may add that the soul-body relation is also intuitively given - in an implicit way - in the experience of man as a real being. In this respect the subordination of the system of integration of the human person to the transcendence of the person in the action is revelatory.

The Current and Hylomorphic Meaning of the Soul-Body Relation

Intuition indeed appears to pave the way for, and lead us near to, an understanding of the soul-body relation, but as we have mentioned, it does not allow us to grasp this relation. We may approach it solely in terms of metaphysical categories. All the more so as the full meaning of this relation appears as a philosophical issue once the notions of soul and body receive a metaphysical interpretation. However they also have a current sense. This current sense of the "soul" and its relation to the "body" is a fruit of commonsense experience. It is this relation to experience in which is firmly grounded the essentially metaphysical significance of the notions of "soul" and "body," and only in which they acquire their complete meaning for metaphysics. For us the important things are thus, first, that on the evidence of experience and intuition we may exfoliate the complexity of man, and second, that we are able to define its limits.

The Soul as the Principle of Transcendence and Integration

An understanding of the soul-body relation is obviously promoted by a knowledge of the character of somatic and psychosomatic dynamisms and also of certain limits thereby disclosed within the total dynamic system of the man-person. It then becomes manifest that the total and also adequate dynamism of the person - resulting in action - transcends them. None of those other particularized dynamisms are identical with the action, though every one of them is in different ways contained in it. While the somatic dynamism and indirectly the psycho-emotive dynamism have their source in the body-matter, this source is neither sufficient nor adequate for the action in its essential feature of transcendence. This was one of the final conclusions in the analysis of the transcendence of the person in the action, where the relation between the transcendence and the spirituality of man was stressed.

Now, before we close the analysis of the person's integration in the action, it is necessary to go still farther in our conclusions. While the body itself is the source of the reactive dynamism, specific for the human soma, and indirectly also for the emotive dynamism of the human psyche, the integration of these two dynamisms has to have a common origin with the person's transcendence. Can we infer that it is the soul that is the ultimate source or, to put it differently, the transcending principle and also the principle of the integration of the person in the action? At any rate, it seems that this line of reasoning has brought us much closer to approaching the soul.

Our analyses indicate something like a boundary in man, which sets a limit to the scope of the dynamism and thus also of the reach of the body, or of what is also called "matter." They also reveal a capacity of a spiritual nature that seems to lie at the root of the person's transcendence, but also indirectly of the integration of the person in the action. It would, however, be a gross simplification if we were to regard this intuitively drawn limit of the body (matter) capacity as equivalent to the boundary between the body and the soul. Indeed, the experience of integration intervenes with such an oversimplification. Integration - precisely because it is the complementary aspect of the transcendence of the person in the action - tells us that the soul-body relation cuts across all the boundaries we find in experience and that it goes deeper and is more fundamental than they are. We thus have confirmed, even if indirectly, our earlier assertion that the complete reality of the soul itself and of the soul's relation to the body needs a more comprehensive metaphysical expression.