Place and Person(a)

Abstract

Without any polemic intention, our present contribution will be concerned with the idea of corporeality as an ontological index, in positive and negative perspective. In the positive perspective, corporeality represents the definitional index of the human person. More specifically, we shall approach the (human) corporeality within the formative process of the person`s consciousness (persona). In order to make relevant our philosophical target, the idea of corporeality will be treated within the semiotic extension of the concept of place / locus (Romanian: loc, Latin: locus, French: lieu/place, Hebrew: makom ‘place/ locus’ — Hamakom ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’), in conformity with the following three oppositions: (a) place as a physical index vs. human symbol; (b) place with reference to physical persona vs. spiritual persona; (c) place in profane sense vs. sacred sense. In the negative perspective, the absence of corporeality makes relevant a new meaning of the Judaic concept hamakom: Hamakom with the sense of ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’. We intend to establish two targets for our research: 1. to follow the process during which the definitional index represents a formative agent of (self) consciousness; and 2. to establish the switching point where hamakom (“the place”) becomes Hamakom ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’.