Approach to the Concept of Person in Antonio Millán-Puelles

Abstract:

Antonio Millán-Puelles (1921-2005) has done interesting contributions to the philosophic theory of the person. In the anthropologic level, Millán- Puelles develops a philosophy about the dignity of the human person, because, without forgetting what man and animal have in common, he emphasizes the man’s superiority. This dignity is double: innate and acquired. In the order of the innate dignity, Millán Puelles has underlined the condition of creature that man has, the reality of his nature, the subjectivity, the freedom and the immortality of the human soul. Respecting to the acquired dignity, I schematize in four points the most relevant contributions: 1º, the thesis that morality is the free affirmation of our being; 2º, the educability; 3º, the elevation to the common good as a moral necessity; and 4º, the affirmation that theoretic life is the superior human life. In regard to the metaphysic of the person, Millán- Puelles adds two elements to his acceptation of the boecian-tomistic idea of the person: personality as pure perfection and a proof of God’s existence as an Absolute Person

Key words:

Millán-Puelles, person, dignity, Anthropology, Metaphysics, freedom, nature, creature, subjectivity, Ethics, Education, perfection, God.