Persona e corporeità. Per un’antropologia personalista

The human being can be defined as homo symbolicus since he became erected to contemplate the heavens and so began to interpret reality as a symbol. Humans, indeed, give the world they live in a transcendent meaning which is not immanent to the world itself. Concerning the human person, this structural vocation to transcendence is linked with her bodily dimension, which is equally essential. It opens up the problem - undertaken by the French personalism movement of the twentieth century as shaped by Emmanuel Mounier - of the relationship between symbolism or transcendence and human corporeality. Furthermore, this issue leads to the fundamental question about the nature of the human person. Consequently, this article will provide a definition of the human person with reference to the analyses of some personalist theories, particularly those of Mounier. In conclusion, the study of the connection between the carnal and the spiritual will allow us to clarify the possibility to interpret the body itself as a symbol of the human.