In order for major changes to challenge and guide human efforts rather than be simple happenings in people’s lives, it is important that they be marked by awareness and decision that open the way for new and meaningful life. This must include a rich sense of the nature and dignity of the human person and some sense of the goal and purpose of the human endeavor.

But what survived the test of clear and distinct knowledge was but a skeleton of the human person. Indeed its parts could never be fully reassembled for Descartes had divided the person into two mutually distinct substances: the physical which was extension and quantity, and the spirit which was not extended but simple. Bacon, too, dismantled the rich pattern of life in community, smashing the idols which bore in symbols the accumulated body of human wisdom which constitutes the culture in which a person grows with others, past and present.

In assessing our situation centuries later, we wonder about the overall effects of such an approach and begin to speak of a "post modern" period. We benefit from the many technological and even social inventions in communication and human rights: they need to be protected. But we worry that the quality of human life seems seriously to be reduced, e.g., by criminality, social disintegration, communal violence–and imperial adventures.

Hence, rather than the Cartesian method of setting a single norm and proceeding to an arbitrage of human life, another method seems needed. This will need to reflect different goals, namely, not only that of the systematic control characteristic of the sciences, but of the openness and integration typical of wisdom. It will be marked by different attitudes as well, namely, not of exclusion and hegemony in the name of abstract univocal categories, but of a rich inclusiveness respectful of the uniqueness and differences of all peoples.

In order to prepare the search for ways of new life, we shall look first more to the negative side of modernity, enlightenment and liberalism. By identifying what they chose to leave out we hope to open avenues for later new and promising development. In Chapter III, for example, we shall return in more heuristic manner to Descartes to discover the positive richness and potential in his thought which for centuries has been largely ignored.

Further if there is no goal there is no good open to human reason. In this case, reason no longer rules the will, its passions and desires. Instead, by supreme irony reason, no matter how highly it be exalted, becomes in the end the tool or instrument of blind and unsatiable forces.

Thus far, however, one might think of the human will as basically benevolent and dedicated at least to progress. Upon further analysis this proves not to be so. This is not only because, having abandon teleology, scientific knowledge is not able to tell us about the good to be desired: Hobbes does not argue from science. To the contrary, standing astride the headwaters of this current of the Enlightenment he restricts his attention to ordinary human experience, which in turn manifests no sense of a highest good, but is concerned only with a changeable search for securing limited goods. In these terms human reason cannot claim to know the good for man; it can know only, as Hume would subsequently make clear, the various contraries which are manifest to the senses.

In sum then, as there can be no talk of ends, attention is focussed exclusively and insatiably upon the means, which basically is power that is acquired in violent competition with others. As a quantitative notion this has no standard within itself, but calls only and continuingly for increment–today reflected in what is called "consumerism". In the competition for means there can then be no peace; social, commercial and political life all become fields of war "by another name."

The history of the Enlightenment has been long and differentiated, replete with adjustments and adaptations. To a deductive system such adjustments would appear to be compromises, but in the enlightenment model they are a natural part of the learning process. A major step in this was the development of an epistemology by John Locke. This too was not a conclusion from scientific discovery, though Locke knew the new scientists at Oxford and took part in their discussions. What was more decisive for him, however, was his work for the Earl of Shaftsbury and the political milieu of London. The discussions there, organized by Locke, seemed always to come to the same impass: how can one be sure of the position one advances? The issue was not merely speculative. Society as a whole was moving from the period in which all decisions were made by the monarch, to one in which the people in their multiple groupings were beginning to assume responsibility for state decision-making. Their concerns, interpretations and proposals needed to be able to be examined by all concerned. This problem in Locke’s seminar at the Earl of Shaftsbury’s residence mirrored that of the country as a whole: A democratic parliamentary system requires the ability to communicate what is in one’s mind and heart and in public affairs this must be restricted to what can be evaluated together with others. It was the nominalist parallel to Descartes restriction of all to what was clear and distinct; it would appear later in John Rawls’ relegation of all else–all cosmic and religious vision–behind a veil of ignorance.

Here the supposition is that if this history of ideas can be made clear, then the value of each idea can be ascertained. Thus, one must hold rigorously to the origin of ideas through the senses, as these experiences can be replicated by others. Further, the process of manipulating ideas must add no new content. Hence, all thought will be open for inspection by all. The subsequent development of Lockes’ text elaborated the ways ideas could be variously combined and set the whole in the context of language. On this basis the final part of his Essay is able to delineate the extent and nature of knowledge.

In the 18th century this epistemology had great impact on the European continent–to such a degree, in fact, that historians have compared it to the spread of Roman Law in ancient times. The Encyclopedists were rather propagandists than original thinkers, but the political lead up to the French Revolution needed simple and clear positions which could provide strong and broad impetus for the replacement of all things old with a new vision and practice. This spirit of the times buoyed up the human commitment to "the rights of man" in the face of the regime and the corresponding commitment of the masses to shaping by reason not only the exercise of political power, but the sense of the human person itself.

Among the most salient–and presently the most critical–aspects of the Enlightenment is its central characteristic and strength, namely, its development of, and dependence upon, reason. Its goal is control of reality through control of ideas. However, the more it succeeds in this goal the more it isolates itself from the highly integrated and complex character of life as physical and spiritual, from truth as goal of intellect and from the good as goal of the will, and from reason and affectivity, individual and social.

In its rigorous Kantian form rationalism would eschew the concrete facts as too chaotic, the psychological aspects of utility as too unstable, and traditional ethical principles as too heteronomous to be worthy of human autonomy. Instead, it would look to reason itself for formal rules of action and political cooperation common to all persons. This would mitigate the radical individualism of those proceeding on the basis of empirical knowledge; indeed, the test and proof of the validity of the norm and the corresponding political practice would be precisely their degree of universality.

But there is the rub, for universality at the cost of separating reason from concrete actuality, is idealized out of time and space. It is forgotten that reason is part of man and undergoes change in the dynamic developmental humans process of interaction with other persons and things. Further, while will depends on knowledge, we have a perception of values which precedes clear concepts and deductions, takes us out of indifference and situates our reasoning processes within an ongoing process of taking interest, evaluating and, at its highest point, being in love.

The formalism inherent in liberalism derives from its conception of the social order as a set of external quid pro quo contracts between its members. In the positivist tradition this consists in a certain calculus of desires in which what counts is not persons and their values but the method of calculation, or "due process" in the legal order. Where individualism is strong, this becomes a tool used by atomic individuals in pursuit of their discrete ends at the expense of society and its welfare. Where the social is strong the balance shifts so that the formal pattern becomes supreme; persons, their freedom and creativity in the social order are ignored or even crushed so that the social goals can be more freely pursued.

Classically, Kant attempted to protect the person in this context by his formulas for treating the other as oneself and all persons as ends in themselves. But the very universality which assures that such formal factors apply equally and identically to all bespeaks their essential limitation. The "X" which is to be treated as an end in itself is applicable identically to all humankind; its meaning is identical in each case. But this means that what is particular about each–their proper identity and history, their hopes and concerns, their freedom and creativity–are not taken into account. The concrete person, along with his or her free and hence unique affirmation of meaning and importance is lost. There can be an affirmation of universal rights, and certainly no one would want less; but in this context, the culture created by a particular people through generations and even millennia of shared suffering and generous commitment comes to be looked upon as a remnant from the past to be at best tolerated, but progressively disparaged and discouraged as an impediment to the emergence of the new and supposedly more purely formal democratic order. Formalism becomes the enemy of the concrete, of the existential freedom of persons and peoples.

Liberalism fails adequately to explain its key notion of progress upon which it centers when it appeals to either need or utility. Need can be seen as a stimulus to actions undertaken to escape or lessen present evil, e.g., death for Hobbes or anarchy for Spinoza. Life is looked upon rather pessimistically and action is a process of ameliorating its deficiencies. But logically, because these needs develop in history they could not at the same time be principles for its explanation. As concrete needs arise spontaneously and randomly, the responses thereto are aimless and accidental; they could not explain positive progress over time. Rather, positive advance requires a surplus of time, of means and of vision free from the constraints of needs and necessities.

The other liberal approach to motivation is utility. But as individuals are particular, their utility does not take account of the commonweal. Hence it is unable to provide the motivation needed for social cohesion and true progress.

The new stress on the individual emerges in contrast to the prior state of affairs where interpersonal relations were duties and reflected one’s place in society. In contrast, for liberalism rights pertain to a person independently of society and prior to one’s participation therein. Relations to others are secondary and society is reduced to a fabric of individual interests woven according to patterns of similarity and dissimilarity, convergence and contrast, in the form of explicit contracts or traditional usage.

Scheler would recognize levels of sociality as parallel developmental stages in the growth of the person, as well as stages in historical social development. This begins in the tribe in which the individual is completely submerged as an appendix to the community. In liberalism the situation is quite reversed. Society and other persons become objects and means for the individual and his or her ends. The bitter fruit of this is that conversely the individual becomes but an object in the eyes of others. Both authentic personhood and true sociality are lacking.

Hence, liberalism bears three main errors regarding the individual. First, the individual is seen as prior to the society, whereas in fact the person emerges from society. Second, by so stressing the action of simply parallel autonomous individuals as constituting the community all subjectivity is denied to others and to the community, and in the end to the individual him- or herself. Finally, individualism itself becomes unworkable for it is in the community that one discovers oneself. To be isolated is in the end to lose real individuality and personhood and to be reduced to an abstraction.

Thus far we have reviewed the problems of the Enlightenment and of modern philosophy. It seems clear that with the Third Millennium we enter now upon a new age. This enables us to develop philosophical sensibilities and insights which are new and advance the understanding of the person. Indeed the present work attempts principally to elaborate in what this human subjectivity consists.

However, it would seen best to include among the critiques of the notion of person to which this chapter is devoted the recent radical critique even of philosophy itself, by what thusfar can be termed only "post-modernism".

The effect has been a radical affirmation of will without reason and of individual without society. This has finally come to its natural extreme in the rejection of the very notion of the individual substance, self or person. The affirmation of the power to do whatever is willed has finally become so radical as to reject the very identity of the agent as a subject in terms of which action might have some norms, guides and responsibility. In order to assure that one can do whatever one wants, the step is taken to saying that one can be whatever one wants. There is then no individual identity or person, but only a flow without cohesion or direction.

Liu Fangtong sees Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) as paradigmatic. This rejects philosophy as a general theory of representation in which the human mind is considered as a mirror reflecting external things, for that supposes an opposition between mind and matter, subject and object. This, of course, is just what Aristotle and his followers up through Aquinas were most anxious to reject in saying that the essence of knowledge consisted in the subject not mirroring, but becoming the object. Mind cannot be a mirror of reality for if it is only a representation then its truth could be secured only through another act of knowledge as a representation, and so forth ad infinitum. When Rorty came to see that this could not work he would seem to have drawn the wrong conclusion. Rather than seeing the need to go back to Aristotle’s original sense of knowledge as unity. His nominalist Anglo-Saxon culture rooted in multiplicity led him to a radical philosophical auto da fe, that is, to reject the very possibility of knowledge and hence of philosophy. Henceforth Rorty’s goal would become to destroy the reader’s trust in mind as something of which one could have a philosophical view, in knowledge as something with a certain theory and concrete foundation, and in philosophy as practiced since Kant.

Liu Fangtong cites five problems with these broad critiques of foundationalism in late modern and post-modern philosophy:

1. A new foundationalism. One paradox was that, in attempting to overcome what they saw as the foundationalism of modern philosophy, Nietzsche, Bergson and Bradley, as well as the analytic philosophy of Russell and the phenomenology of Husserl set up their own foundations. Such would seem to be Nietzsche’s "will", Bradley’s "mind," the analyst’s "language," the phenomenologists "consciousness" and Heidegger’s "being".

2. The death of man. Post-modern philosophy, in objecting to modern philosophy being too centered upon man, made the crisis of man more central. Thus Foucault responded to Nietzsche’s death of God with the death of man, which became the "noncenter" for Foucault or the "non presence" for Derrida. Man may still exist, but not as a self or subject contrasted to object, or even not as a center or essence with aims, ideals, duties to society, or political and ethical responsibilities. If wonder is the source of philosophy, then there is in man truly a center of wonderment.

3. A functional non rationalism of multiple truths. A tendency to the extreme appears also in the postmodern attempt to overcome modern rationalism not only by a contemporary substantive or foundational non-rationalism of Nietzsche’s will to power or Schopenhauer’s subconscious, but by a more radical functional non rationalism dissolving the reliability of any method of knowing so that all becomes unstable, indeterminable, incommensurable and even anarchistic. For Derrida truth as "for me" and "about me" becomes simply plural, thereby rendering communication and cooperation impossible.

4. Rules as games. To this end Lyotard employs Wittgenstein’s "language game theory" so that not only are the rules reduced to being mere pacts between the participants, but the participants need not even abide by them. Even science this becomes a mode of free thinking. Thus Derrida’s deconstruction so alters and reinterprets the original relation between concepts that the rules of the game themselves become the game. Arbitrariness is the new foundation of life.

5. The end of philosophy itself. In the end therefore the postmodern exits philosophy itself, turning to literature and other imaginative and aesthetic modes. As a result, for Rorty there is no criterion to tell when we are contacting reality or truth. Philosophers only compare the advantages and disadvantages of the great narratives; they can tell only how the ways in which things get to be related are themselves related. There is no philosophy; its great project since Socrates and Plato to enable humanity to direct and enable its life is abandoned. In the words of Dante etched on the Bridge of Sighs "abandon all hope ye who enter here".

It would be wrong to miss the positive elements involved in the post modern effort. Indeed the present work begins with a chapter on the limitations of modernity, to which post modernism adds related criticism, e.g., of the excessive rationalism and objectivism. In this sense it joins our project of opening the way for the appreciation and exercise of new dimensions of the human person. But as itself a radical fundamentalism postmodernism would seem to overshoot this mark and winds up in rejecting, rather than reconstructing or perfecting, philosophy itself.

It would be inadequate, however, to think of this vision of the person as simply abstract and inactive in practical and political life, for if the sense of the human person is inadequate then social interaction cannot but be impoverished. This is not all, however, for as we have seen this impoverishment of the modern project is methodological; it is intended and systemic. Hence, it can be expected to tailor human concerns, to set up walls of exclusion and to restrict human discourse and interaction between persons and peoples.

The impact of this can be seen by juxtaposing elements in the thought of Jurgen Habermas and John Rawls. After a long peregrination Habermas worked the implications of the replacement of metaphysics by method into his theory of communication ethics. If we could not know the nature of the human person or develop a categorical imperative, ethics could still be salvaged on a purely formal and methodological basis. This would be done by assuring that all persons could take part in practical discourse. No person, no view, would be excluded or disadvantaged. All could enter and play any role, from proponent to questioner: all hinges on complete openness.

All constitutional and legal structures are then to be so articulated and interpreted as to assure that the process of public debate and decision making exclude religion and become reductively secular. It is true that in this forum each person can draw upon any and all sources for their personal inspiration and guidance, but what emerges as public policy must be intentionally and assiduously areligious, both in articulation and in practice.

Though some would consider such an horizon to be neutral to all religions, as a process of exclusion of religion from public life and policy it is in reality neutering for it renders cosmic visions no longer cosmic. Indeed, Rawls recognizes that this should have the effect of diminishing religious fervor, and sociological research in the West would seem to confirm this. The more it is pursued the more it excludes religion and religious meaning in public symbolism, political practice and the educational formation of the next generation. It constitutes, in sum, an integrated and aggressive project of forgetfulness of God beyond question or discussion–a secular fundamentalism or black hole in public life.

1. The end of modernity is marked by, and even consists in, the end of an exclusive confidence in the competency of the scientific search for clear and distinct objective knowledge to provide the answers to human problems.

2. The end of this confidence entails, in turn, new attention to human subjectivity and to the creative freedom of each people by which they elaborate a set of values that over time coalesce as cultural traditions. These traditions, in turn, together constitute civilizations as the largest human affiliations, "the largest we".

3. Civilizations engage sets of cultures and, in turn, are founded in the major religions. Following this lead we find that cultures and cultural traditions are sets of values and virtues formed by the decisions of communities of people regarding how to cultivate their life in their geographical and historical circumstances. Thus where some people put a primacy on harmony and develop a pattern of virtues by which this can be realized, others might focus upon courage or initiative, whence distinct cultures result.

What is important for us is that this is an act of responsible freedom which, in turn, shapes the many more specific decisions in the life of a people. Over time this is adjusted and adapted as the culture is passed on, or tradita, as a cultural tradition. This is rightly identified as the cumulative freedom of a people.

4. Going higher to the principles from which this vision flows and in which it is embedded, each civilization is based on a great religion; conversely, each great religion founds a distinct civilization (with the exception of Buddhism, which Huntington takes pains to explain). And this religious commitment of non Western civilizations is emergent, rather than recessive. For the cultural traditions and the religions in which they are grounded and consecrated provide the grounding needed in unsettled and changing times.

5. These cultural traditions constitute the very purchase that peoples have on a properly human life, that is, one that is lived with dignity and self respect for themselves and their children. This sense of personal and social identity receives more, not less, attention at points of great change. When attacked it will be defended at all costs. In this it matches the liberal terror at the suggestion of any compromise separation of Church and State, the path to which had been opened in the Peace of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years of Religious War in 1648.

We find ourselves then in a clash of two civilizations, as massive, all-inclusive and inexorable as the shifting of tectonic plates. On the one hand, there is the liberal tradition which sees the removal of all cosmic, metaphysical and religious vision from the public square as the sole strategy which can enable peoples to live together in peace. On the other hand, there is the broad sense among the other world civilizations that such a mental lobotomy would be the destruction of human meaning and dignity – the mega threat. Nothing could be mere threatening to each civilization, more contradictory between two, or more strenuously resisted by all.

In this light the present transition beyond modernity finds itself at the intersection of two fundamentalisms: on the one hand, a secular fundamentalism that is a forgetfulness of God, which, in contradiction to Habermas, Rawls formulates into a principle of liberalism, and on the other hand, a reactive religious fundamentalism that consists in a forgetfulness of man. Huntington’s analysis of the latter’s reaction to the global assertion of secular liberal democracy is precisely his sense of an impending clash of civilizations, which he sees as an attack on Western liberalism. But what even he seems not to have envisaged–though it may be a consequence of his analysis–is the aggressive character of Western liberal free-market democracy, when inspired by its own fundamentalism. Rather than a defensive military posture with aggressive diplomacy, it has reversed the order to a preemptive military strategy to force conversion of the world to its secular ideology. That ideology is the more fundamental issue seems indicated by the unveiling of "regime change" and democratisation as the real goal once the issue of "weapons of mass destruction" evaporated and by the willingness to squander the worlds resources and the lives of tens of thousands of people in the vain attempt to fight ideas with guns. There must be a better way!

In sum, we have diagnosed the modern Enlightenment program in order not to repeat it and return to the past, and to see what it has not provided in order to go in search of what is needed. The identification of what has been left undeveloped or deliberately suppressed makes it possible to identify the work now needed.

We found:

means without goals

power without purpose

method without metaphysics

reason without life

person without personality

people without society

man without God.

As a result liberal democracy has fallen into a self-contradictory imperial attitude searching for hegemony after the pattern of the other failed ideological empires of the last century: colonialism, fascism and communism.

The missing elements in the above list cluster around the sense of person in its existence and commitments, personal, social and religious. Hence, we shall first look back to Greek philosophy to chart out the dimensions of knowledge required by the person and to medieval Christian and Islamic philosophy for the sense of existence it entails. Subsequent chapters will see how the notion of person can be rearticulated and enriched following the Hindu characteristics of existence, consciousness and bliss (which in the West have been articulated in less dynamically and more formally as unity, truth and goodness) and then add the more recent dimensions of culture and love.