To get a disturbing child off his back a tired father shreds a page with a world map from his newspaper and challenges the little fellow to piece it up together.  The chap speeds off to his room and comes back after ten minutes to the amazement of daddy.  The boy was about to give up when he suddenly discovered that the reverse side of the page had a portrait of a wanted gangster… By piecing up the human face, which he recognized, he managed to solve the puzzle of the shredded world map.

A lot of effort is being made to make ours a better world with no explicit role given to the most fundamental factor: man! What [is] man (relating to his identity, essence, nature)? Why man (his goal, purpose, reason for existence)? How man (the right choice of means to that end)? Besides, we are dealing with a broken humanity. Why not tackle man's brokenness before we prescribe a nice set of economic, social and political rules?

'The Overlooked Factor' is an attempt at unravelling the mystery of man, seeking to understand the very root of his unity of being in all its human manifestations. Besides, we are dealing with a broken humanity. Why not tackle man's brokenness before we prescribe a nice set of economic and democratic rules?

Martin Kimani captured the paradox prevalent in our Kenyan discourse on socio-economic issues in the 'EastAfrican' issue of February 4-10. “Kenya's political analysts and writers insist on believing that politics is a secular affair governed only by material means and ends. Yet even as they believe that about politics the rest of their lives are suffused with belief in the transcendent,”  Kimani wrote.

Kimani's point was there is more to man than economic efficiency and democracy. To give a holistic account of the human person, Fr Paul adopts in this book a three-pronged approach.  First, there is the traditional approach: the so-called third-person perspective.  This is the view of the human being that results from looking at persons as a collection of objects.  It is the preferred approach of the scientific method.

Then there is the first-person perspective, the method that consists in viewing people as a collection of subjects.  This translates into looking at the mystery of man from the point of view of the acting person.  If considered in tandem with the first method, it is an equally valid approach.

But what really crowns the two approaches is the powerful concept of intersubjectivity: the second-person perspective. This is the view that sees inter-personal relationship as fundamental.

Fr Paul holds an MA and a PhD in Philosophy (Pontifical Roman Athenaeum of the Holy Cross, Rome) and a Bachelor of Science (Civil Engineering) from University of Nairobi.  He was ordained priest in 1982. He is currently a lecturer in Ethics and Theology at Strathmore University.

The book is available on sale at the University's Distance Learning Centre sales office.