BOCZEK, MACON WEINNIG, M.A. DECEMBER 2012 PHILOSOPHY
THE METHODOLOGY OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL REALISM
IN THE ACTING PERSON BY KAROL WOJTYLA
Director of Thesis: Jeffrey Wattles
Karol Wojtyla ‘s methodological approach to the inquiry into the person is a synthesis. It
integrates a traditional philosophy of being with the realism afforded by metaphysical analysis
with a philosophy of consciousness. He employs the latter, a Husserlian philosophical
orientation that enlarges the realm of experience beyond sense experience to include the
intentional experiences of thought, to provide meaning to the theoretical explanations of the
person in Thomist metaphysics. Wojtyla performs an Husserlian turn to consciousness without
however ascribing intentionality to consciousness. His primary indebtedness is to Max Scheler’s depiction of the person as the concrete unity of the being of essentially different acts. Wojtyla employs a two-fold process: first of induction, which is an Aristotelian stablization of the subject. Secondly he uses reduction, which is an interpolation into the experiences of the acts of persons of all that can be articulated about the meaning of personhood revealed in these acts. By this approach Wojtyla elucidates a comprehensive understanding of the person. The readers of this book may bring their own experiential recognition to his study of the person, and a continued reflection on his conclusions that the person is the mode of existence of human nature.