Freedom of the

Human Person
Man’s Quest for Freedom

– What is freedom?
– Why is freedom important?
– How is freedom possible?
 Freedom Entails…

a. Questioning- questioning implies that the questioner is

free.
b. Self-reflection
c. Self- possession
d. Self- determination
 Existentialism

– Mode and character of philosophizing emerged during

20th century
– Existence of the individual subject is the foci of
philosophical inquiry
– Highlights human existence on:
a. Function (responsibility)
b. Human value (freedom)
 Jean Paul Sartre

Sartre’s work:
Being and Nothingness

Two regions of being:

1. Being in itself- En soi
2. Being for itself- Pour Soi
En Soi and Pour Soi
Being in itself (En soi)
– The one which is devoid of consciousness and subject to causal laws
of nature
– Unfree entity, determinate objects

Being for itself (Pour Soi)

– Possesses consciousness and freedom
– Conscious object
– Aware that he knows
– Capable of self consciousness
 Existence Precedes Essence

– Human beings are condemned to be free

– He is self-determining
– He exists, examines, and defines himself
– He is what he makes of himself
– He is free

=It is man who defines and gives meaning to his life

 Facticity and Transcendence

– Facticity- contingencies surrounding our state of affairs;

inescapable.
– Examples of facticity are religion, culture, language, the
given situation, etc.
 Facticity and Transcendence

“We are always beings “in situation,” but the precise

mixture of transcendence and facticity that forms any
situation remains indeterminable, at least while we are
engaged in it. Hence Sartre concludes that we are always
“more” than our situation and that this is the ontological
foundation of our freedom.”
Source: Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/.
 Freedom and Responsibility

– To be free is also inescapable

– We are responsible for what we make of ourselves
– anxiety- the difficulty of accepting the outcomes of their
decisions
 Bad Faith

– To act as if we are not free

– Dictated by others
– Dependent to the decision of others
Man and
Fellowman
 Man as Being-With:

The intersubjectivity of Man has two aspects:

a. Interhuman
b. Social
 Man as Being-With

Does anyone can live alone?

If no one, then…
Who is the other?
What is the relationship of man to others?
How does man participate in the society?
Iterhuman

– Martin Buber’s I-Thou

Relationship and I-It
Relationship
– I and Thou (1983)
 Interhuman

I-thou Relationship- Genuine dialogue begins when one passes the

world of seeming and enters into communications with other by
becoming aware of his totality, whereby the other is also another I.

I-it Relationship- monologue happens when one stays in the world

of seeming of impressions and treat other as an object, as something
that fills his or her need as of the moment.

Source: Philosophy of Man: Selected Readings, 1986.

 Social

– Man is naturally a social being.

– The Social is within each man: Man does not only live in society, society
live in man.
Social

– Karl Marx’s dialectic

materialism
 Karl Marx’s dialectic
materialism
– In the social production of life, man enters into definite social
relations.
– The mode of production of material life conditions the social,
political and intellectual life process in general.
– It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being,
but on the contrary, their social being that determines their
consciousness.
– The material productive forces of society come in conflict with
the existing relations of production.
Source: Abstract from the Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
 Karl Marx’s dialectic
materialism
– As man enters into social relationship, he finds it difficult
to escape and make his own life. As such, it is society
(and everything in the society which includes labor,
production, goods and services, social stratification, etc.)
that determines man’s life.
 Types of Alienation

a. Product of labor
b. Act of producing- Workers do not have control over the process
of production.
c. As a producer- However, capitalism takes away ‘Gattungswesen’
or the essence of being human. The individual’s labor is forced
and coerced.
d. From other workers- Under capitalism, the worker is seen as an
entity which can be used and traded to maximize production and
profits.
 Social

– Karol Wojtyla’s Social Philosophy of

Community and Participation

– Karol Wojtyla’s Philosophy stresses that

man is not passive but is active participant
to his neighbor and in the society.
 Wojtyla’s Participation

– It is a property and ability of a person acting “together

with others”.
– The consciousness or awareness of the other as another I
is the basis of participation.
– It is challenge for man to participate in the social
interplay.
– As human beings, we are capable of acting together with
others and participating in the very humanity of other
people.
 Wojtyla’s Community

– It is not simply a plurality of subjects, but the dynamic

and active unity of the plurality.
– The human person exist and act common with others
towards a value.
– The coexistence and cooperation of members in a
community has a fundamental norm, which is the
common good.
 Wojtyla on Alienation

– Alienation points to a situation where a person is

denied of the possibility of experiencing a person
as another subject. The main thing to be
concerned about in alienation is its denial of the
person his capability of participating in the
humanity of others. ~Mejos, June2007
“It is through self that one can achieve consciousness, and
through others that one can achieve ethics and morality .”
~Fleurdeliz Altez-Albela Ph.D
Application:
– Man’s Freedom and the effects of martial
law
– Man’s Intersubjectivity and the EDSA
People Power Revolution