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interpretations . According to Aristotle and Aquinas , mind properly refers to mental acts such as knowing and choosing , while body properly refers to bodily acts such as walking and growing ; “[ b ] ut the word ( rational ) ‘ soul ’ refers to the substantial form by which a human being is what he or she is .” 70 Hylomorphism critically distinguishes between matter ( being able to be something or other ) and form ( actually being a definite thing ). 71 At this junction , between matter and form , Fey articulates a distinction pertinent to the popular understanding of gender and its take on bodily importance : the body should not be reduced to the concept of matter . It is more correct to talk about the unity of the person as ‘ form and matter ’, while ‘ body and mind ’ refer to ways of being and acting as a human being . 72 Therefore , people do mental and bodily things . By this same distinction , bodily and mental activities performed by the human person are equally essential to being human . What we do with our physical bodies and how we perceive the world and ourselves with our minds are equally personal . Fey clearly states this point : “ No part of human nature is subhuman or nonpersonal .” 73 The physical human body , therefore , remains absolutely significant to the life of the human person .
Human personhood rightly includes physicality . To be a human being is to be a kind of animal – even the Scholastic theologians admitted as much , defining the human being , in part , as a rational animal . 74 The biological materiality of the body cannot be discarded lightly , without contradicting “ lived ” experience . Yet , are human beings persons because they are the highest kind of animal ( a very sophisticated kind of physical body ), or because they are the lowest kind of person ( an ontological position )? Liberal gender theorists correctly argue against a biologically reductive sense of teleology , since it belittles the human person into being a merely sophisticated kind of physical body . As a qualification , however , to the liberal gender theorists ’ criticism , Fey points out that how human beings choose to act is always incarnated in the active , physical body . 75 Furthermore :
It is a mistake to separate one ’ s ‘ intentions ’ from one ’ s ‘ bodily activity .’ Modern Western culture , while sometimes tending to reduce the mind to the physical brain , also tends towards a dualist view of the person as a conscious subject encased in a body object …. This involves an instrumentalist view of human goods as well as a dualist view of the person . It suggests that the living body is one thing and the fulfilled person is something else . 76
A rejection of functional concepts inherent to the physical body , active in biological functioning , makes possible the instrumentalist view of the body . Functional concepts , contrary to the instrumentalist view
70 William Fey , O . F . M , “ Taking Seriously Our Bodily Being ,” Logos : A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 4 , no . 4 ( 2001 ): 136 . 71 Ibid . 72 William Fey , O . F . M , “ Taking Seriously Our Bodily Being ,” Logos : A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 4 , no . 4
( 2001 ): 136 . 73 Ibid , 137 . 74 Joseph W . Koterski , S . J ., An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy : Basic Concepts ( Malden , MA : Wiley-Blackwell ,
2009 ), 159 . 75 William Fey , O . F . M , “ Taking Seriously Our Bodily Being ,” Logos : A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 4 , no . 4 ( 2001 ): 141 . 76 Ibid , 141-142 .