School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS)

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The School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS) suceeds the Institute of Humanities, Education and Development Studies (IHEDS)

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Browsing School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS) by Author "Branya, John"

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    Anthropological foundation of the levels of happiness : Robert Spitzer, Abraham Maslow and Leonardo Polo
    (Miscelanea Poliana, ) Branya, John
    The purpose of this paper is to see how Leonardo Polo’s Transcendental Anthropology can give a foundation to the levels of happiness of Robert Spitzer, in his work: Healing the Culture and the hierarchy of basic needs of Abraham Maslow. Spitzer distinguishes four levels of happiness according to the inner tendencies of the human being, which he names in Latin as “laetus, felix, beatitudo and gaudio”. Maslow orders the basic human needs from physiological to safety, love, esteem, and finally self actualization. This paper observes that a) both Spitzer and Polo are in agreement with the perennial philosophy views about happiness and b) that Polo gives a trans-metaphysical (transcendental) grounding to a personal consideration of the last two levels analysed by Spitzer and c) that Maslow bases his analysis in dynamic psychology, and tends to mix Spitzers’ last three levels in his three last levels of needs.
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    Introduction to Leonardo Polo's philosophical motivation
    Branya, John
    The purpose of this article is to give a brief bird’s eye view of L. Polo highlighting the motivation and originality of his philosophy. We do not intend to assess how original he was and whether his claims are accurate or not. That will require a longer and deeper study which goes beyond the limits of this article.
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    Synderesis according to Leonardo Polo Barrena
    (Strathmore University, 2016) Branya, John
    The present work tries to see whether Leonardo Polo´s proposal expands synderesis in a way that, assuming the medieval traditional views, it can be the ontological basis for grounding a personalistic view of ethics.Synderesis seems to be a controversial topic. The human reality behind the term was touched upon by Greek and Latin philosophers but the term was not used in classic philosophy. It was Jerome the first to use this term in his commentary to Ezequiel 1:4-14. This was a theological treatise. Synderesis was a popular term among philosophers in the Middle Ages especially after Peter Lombard included St. Jerome’s commentary in his Sentences. Peter Lombard’s Sentences was a common textbook in most universities and therefore synderesis became a compulsory and therefore well know term in medieval philosophy. Aquinas used it extensively as well as his commentators. Aquinas considered synderesis an intellectual habit responsible for the first principles of morality. For Bonaventura synderesis was the will’s inclination to do good. Ockham does not mention synderesis in his works. Luther in his early works mentions it but later breaks with tradition and no longer accepts synderesis as he defended that nature was totally corrupt after the original sin, and synderesis was seen as an unpolluted remain of the original nature which kept men aware of sins. From there on the topic, with rare exceptions, was only developed by those who followed medieval traditions. It looks as if Leonardo Polo not only regains the traditional view of synderesis but makes it a pivotal topic in anthropology. For him synderesis becomes the innate habit through which the personal act of being activates all human faculties. Synderesis then, is at the root of all human decisions, because it becomes the unifying structure of the intellect and will. Because of this it also becomes the root of ethics because it allows viewing human decisions in their relationship with the human integral good.