What does it mean to be human? Carol Lynn Miller, a philosophy student (University of South Carolina) and teacher (Catholic University of America), explores this question through the branch of philosophy known as personalism. John Paul II, a leading personalist figure, posited that both a cosmological and a personalist vision of the human person is needed to fully define who we are. In this video, Miller describes that while the cosmological view, with its focus on reason, sets us apart from other creatures, the personalist perspective, which emphasizes our subjectivity or deep interior life, may actually provide richer insights into what it means to be human.

0:00 Intro
0:33 What Is Personalism?
0:54 Subjectivity and the Irreducible in Man
1:20 The Cosmological Vision
1:53 The Personalist Vision
2:27 How is a Person's Interior Life Revealed to Us?
3:27 Self-Presence and Our Interior Life