Lesson 5:

INTRODUCTION:
This lesson highlights freedom from intellectual, political, spiritual and economic aspect. To be free is part of
humanity’s authenticity. In one way, understanding freedom is part of human transcendence. Freedom consists
of going beyond situations such as physical or economic.

REALIZE THAT “All Actions Have Consequence”

HUMAN PERSON AS FREE

That context in which we speak of freedom includes:
a) Political Freedom – or liberty: State of affairs in which people are shaping politics to which they
belong.
b) Religious freedom – choice to belong, propagate, practice or not to practice any religion.
c) Freedom of expression – freedom of speech and freedom to write or express and disseminate opinions
and,
d) Personal freedom – or inner freedom, distinguishes persons and his actions from merely natural
behavior.

Freedom can be an empty space: The distinctively human mode of existence arises from an act of negation, in
the sense that humanity has distance itself from nature of the world of things.
The human person is always something new: one who is entirely subject to nature’s compulsion, someone who
is in fact asserting independence from nature.
Freedom is the negation of nature in itself: a distance from nature; a kind of declaration of human
independence. Human condition manifests that humans are both free and determined but the beginning of
freedom starts from an act of negation; a finite being has transcended nature. So, human freedom remain a
mystery, something that can never be fully taken in by understanding or by experience.
Human freedom is always limited: People do speak of “the open future”, but the tragedy is that the future is
never fully open sometimes we can only hope that it is a jar and there is some small of freedom. Human freedom
is always conjoined with finitude or limitations. To be finite means to stand at a given point in space or time.

A. Aristotle:
The Power of Volition:
The imperative quality of judgement of practical intellect is meaningless, apart from will. Reason can
legislate, but only through WILL can its legislation be translated into action.
The task of practical intellect is to guide will by enlightening it.
The WILL of humanity is an instrument of FREE CHOICE. It is within the power of everyone to
be good or bad, worthy or worthless. This is borne out by:
- Our inner awareness of an aptitude to do right or wrong
- The common testimony of all human beings;
- The rewards and punishment of rulers; and
- The general employment of praise and blame.
Moral acts, which are always particular acts, are in our power and we are responsible for them.
Character or habit is no excuse for immoral conduct.
Attending class is a student’s responsibility. Should the student cut class, then he/she must be held
responsible for the consequence of his actions. As a result, he/she should be held responsible for any accident or
failure in grades that will befall on him/her. The point is the student should not have cut class in the first place.
When the matter is sifted down, the happiness of every human being’s soul is his/her own hands, to preserve and
develop, or to cast away.

For Aristotle, a human being is rational. Reason is a divine characteristic. Humans have the spark of the divine.
If there were no intellect, there would be no will. Reason can legislate, but only through WILL can its legislation
be turned into action. OUR WILL IS AN INSTRUMENT OF FREE CHOICE.

For Aristotle; the purpose of human being is to be happy. To be one, one has to live a virtuous life.
 B. St. Thomas Aquinas
Love is Feedom
Of all creatures of God, human beings have unique power to change themselves and the things around
them for better. St. Thomas Aquinas considers the human beings as a moral agent. Through our
spirituality, we have a conscience. Whether we choose to be “good” or “evil” becomes our responsibility.

A Human being, therefore, has a supernatural, transcendental destiny. This means that he can rise
above his ordinary being or self to a highest being or self. This in line with the idea of St. Thomas
that in the plan of God, a human being has to develop and perfect himself by doing his daily task.
Hence, if a human being perseveringly lives a righteous and virtuous life, he transcends hos moral
state of life and soars to an immoral sate of life.

The power of change, cannot be done by human beings alone, but is achieved through cooperation with
God. Between humanity and God, there is is an infinite gap, which God alone can bridge through His
power. Perfection by participation here means that it is a union of humanity with God. Change should
promote not just any purely private advantage but good of the community.

Aquinas gives a fourfold Classification of Law:

1. Eternal Law – the decree of God that governs all creation. It is, “that Law which is the Supreme
Reason cannot be understood to be otherwise that unchangeable and eternal.
2. Natural law – is the human participation of the eternal law and is discovered by reason. Applies only
to human beings, the first principle and precept of the natural law is that good is to be sought AFTER
AND EVIL BE AVOIDED.
3. Human law
4. Divine Law – is divided into old (Mosaic) and the New (Christian) that are that re related as the
immature and imperfect to the perfect and complete.

For St. Thomas Aquinas, he follows the same line thinking but points out a higher happiness be possible to
humanity beyond life, and could be found only in God alone.

C. St. Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Freedom

St. Thomas Aquinas establishes the existence of God as a first cause Of all God’s creations, human beings have
the unique power to change themselves and things around them for the better. As humans, we are both material
and spiritual. We have a conscience because of our spirituality. God is Love and Love is our Destiny.

D. Jean Paul Sartre: Individual Freedom

Sartre’s philosophy is considered to be representative of existentialism. For him, the human person is the desire to
be God: the desire to exist as a being which has its sufficient ground in itself. Person There are no guideposts
along the road of life. The human person builds the road to the destiny of his/her choosing; he/she is the creator.

E. Thomas Hobbes: The Theory of Social Contract

A Law of Nature is a precept or general rule established by reason, by which a person is forbidden to do that
which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he
thinks it may be best preserved.

Hobbes concludes that we should seek peace. This becomes his first law of nature. The reasonableness of seeking
peace immediately suggests a second law of nature, which is that mutually divest ourselves of certain rights so as
to achieve peace. The mutual transferring of these rights is called a contract and is he basis of the notion of moral
obligation and duty. If one agrees to give up his right to punch you, you give up your right to punch him.
You have then transferred these rights to each other and thereby become obligated not to hurt each other.

F. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
 Social Contract: he elaborated his theory of human nature. The EDSA Revolution is an example, though an
imperfect one, of what the theory of Social Contract is all about. According to Hobbes and Rousseau, the state
owes his origin to Social Contract freely enters into by its members. Hobbes developed his idea in favor of
absolute monarchy, while Rousseau interpreted the idea in terms of absolute democracy and individualism.

Both have one thing in common, that is, human beings have to form a community or civil community to
protect themselves from one another, because the nature of human beings is to wage war against each other,
and since by nature, humanity tends toward self-preservation, then it follows that they have to a free mutual
agreement to protect themselves.

Lesson 6:
6.1. Realize that Intersubjectivity Requires Accepting Differences and Not to Impose on Others
Though we are part of our society, we are still different individuals living in the society. Each of us will
have different appearances or points of view.

Intersubjectivity as Ontology: The Social Dimensions of the self

-Martin Buber’s and Karol Wojtyla’s views will be used as the main framework in understanding
intersubjectivty. Both philosophers were influenced by their religious background. They believed in the
notion of concrete experience/existence of the human.
-They also think that one must not lose the sight of one’s self in concrete experience. Both refuse to regard
the human person as composite of some kind of dimensions, such as animality and rationality.
-For both views, the human person is total, not dual. For Wojtyla, the social diemsions is represented by “We
relation” and for Buber, the interpersonal is signified by the ‘I-You realtion’

Martin Buber: Saint Pope John Paul or Karol Wajtyla

- Is a Jewish existentialist philosopher. He was - Was born in Poland
born in Vienna and was brought up in Jewish - He was elected to the Papacy on October 16,
tradition. 1978
- In his work I and thou (1923), He conceives - Action reveals the nature of the human agent.
the human person in his/her wholeness, - Through participation, the person is able to
totality, concrete existence and relatedness to fulfill one’s self
the world. - The person is oriented toward relation and
- “I-thou” philosophy is about the human sharing in the communal life for the common
person as a subject, who is a being different good.
from things from objects. - We participate in the communal life (We)
- The human persons experiences his - Our notion of the “neighbor” and “fellow
wholeness not in virtue of his one’s self, but member” is by participating in the humanness
in virtue of his relation to another self. of the other person (I-You). The neighbor
- The human person establishes the world of takes into account humanness.
mutual relation, of experience.
- The human person is not just being-in-the-
world but being-with-others, o being in
relation.
- In contrast, to realm of meeting and dialog,
Buber cites the I-It Relationship. Is a person
to thing, subject to object that is merely
experiencing and using; lacking directedness
and mutuality (feeling, knowing, and acting)

6.2. Appreciate the Talents of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and those from the Underprivileged Sectors
and Their Contributions
A. On PWDs
The process of suspecting, recognizing, and identifying the handicap for parents with PWD will include
feeling of shock, bewilderment, sorrow, anger and guilt. Whether these pertain to deafness or spirited of children,
denial, for instance, is universal.
During diagnosis, isolation of affect occurs when parents when the parents intellectually accepts deafness
of their child. The loss should require mourning or grief, otherwise, something is seriously wrong.

- Feeling of impotence or questioning “why me? Are some feelings of ambivalence regarding a child’s
condition. Some parents turn to religion, and consider “heaven sent blessing disguise.”
- Additional reactions include fear of the future, when parents worry about the disability of the child will
affect his/her future, when parents worry about how the disability of the child will affect his/her
productivity, or become a lifelong burden.
Categories of pf PWD or Persons With Disabilities:
- Hearing impaired
- Diabetic
- Asthmatic or cystic fibrotic persons
- ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

B. On Underprivileged Sectors of Society

DIMENSIONS OF POVERTY:
- The notion of poverty is not one-dimensional; rather it is multidimensional. A number of different
concepts and measures of poverty relate to its various dimensions. Each of these dimensions has the
common characteristics of representing deprivation that encompasses:
1. Income
2. Health
3. Education
4. Empowerment
5. Working Condition
The most common measure of the underprivileged is income poverty, which is defined in terms of
consumption of goods and services. (Poor Health)

C. On Rights of Women
Jean Jacques Rousseau: said that women should be educated to please men. Moreover, he believes that women
should be useful to men, should take care, console men, and to render men’s lives easily and agreeable. Also
influenced the development of modern political, sociological, and educational thought.

Mary Wollstonecraft: in Vindication on the Rights of Women (1782), argued that such education would
produce women who were propagators of fools. She believes that women must be united to men in wisdom and
rationality.
- Society should allow women to attain equal rights to philosophy and education given to men.
- Women should not just be valued until their beauty fades
- She maintains that women must learn to respect themselves. Men’s worth should not be based on the
vanity of women and babies, for this degrade women by making them mere dolls. She stressed that
women should marry for support. Instead, they should earn their own “bread.”

6.3. Explain the Authentic Dialog that is Accepting Others Regardless of Individual Differences
We Are a Conversation

Martin Heidegger says that humankind is a conversion. Conversion is more than an idle talk but a dialog.
This means that humanity is progressive attuned to communication about Being. Language, as one of
human possession, creates human world. Language is a tool for communication, information, and social
interaction.

6.4. Perform Activities that Demonstrates the Talents of PWDs and Underprivileged Sectors of Society

The Philippine government supports persons with disabilities (PWDs) to land a job. It is a negative
perception that they are less productive. In reality PWDs do face a number of barriers in finding a job whether
through inaccessibility of transportation in the workplace, discrimination, and negative perception of their
capacity. As of 2014, the National Statistic Office estimated that about 1.44 million Filipinos have some form of
disability in the employable 15-64 years old age bracket.

Lesson 7:

7.1. Recognize How Individuals From Societies and How Individuals Are Transformed by Societies
 A. Effects of Computers, internet, and social media to emotions and relationships
B. Soren Kierkgaard: We are reduced to mediocrity. Our modern age remains an era of increasing
dullness,
conformity, and lack of genuine individuals (Soccio 2007)
C. Philosophically: Our totality, wholeness, or “complete life,” relies on our social relations. Aristotle
said that
friends are two bodies with one soul.

7.2. Compare Different Forms of Societies and Individuals (Agrarian, Industrial and Virtual)

A. Medieval Period (500-1500 CE)

Some Historians say tha the Middle Ages begun in AD 476 when the barbarian Odoacer overthrew
Romulus Augutulus, ending the Western Roman Empire; still others say about AD 500 or even later. Historians
say that the Middle Ages ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, with the discovery of America in 1942; or
with the beginning of Reformation in 1517. The early Medieval Period is sometimes referred to as the Dark
Ages (Solomon & Higgins 1996)

The way of life in the Middle Ages id called feudalism, which comes from medieval latin feudum, meaning
property or “possession.”

The Middle Ages employed pedagogical method that caused the intercommunications between the various
intellectual centers and unity of scientific language. Philosophy was taught in the Latin language.

There is another consideration that we must mention; the practically unlimited trust in reason’s power
illumination is based, first and foremost, on faith.
In the early Middle Ages the dichotomy between faith and reason had not yet taken place.

B. Modern Period (1500-1800)

In particular, the title “modern Philosophy” is an attack on and a rejection of the Middle Ages that
occupied the preceding thousand years (Solomon & Higgins 1996). It is an attack to the church that ruled those
ages and dictated its ideas. It is an attack on the very notion of authority itself, which was, as we have been, very
much st issue during the centuries preceding.

The modern period is generally said to begin around 1500.

- Martin Luther: Attack the church becomes the door to Reformation, which would cause
several centuries of upheaval in Europe, change the nature of Christian Religion, and eventually
concepts of human nature.
- With the Reformation came not only the rejection of medieval philosophy but also the
establishment of the “Protestant ethic” and the beginnings of modern capitalism.

Human Being is the Most Interesting in Nature During the Modern Period
Leadership in art and literature reached a peak in the renaissance period. The result is the revival of
ancient philosophy and European philosophers turning from supernatural to natural or rational explanations of the
world.
Experimentation, observation and application of mathematics in the natural sciences set standards for
philosophic inquiry. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton influenced the thinking of philosophers. There is
no denying that the advances in science during the 15th to 18th centuris inspired Descartes, Hobbes, Bacon, and
others. Yet, there are other influences on the growth pf philosophy.
Among them were: a. the widespread use of money
b. the consequent spread of commercialism and growth of great cities
 At the beginning, there is the philosophy of 17th century. Rationalism was the predominant feature of this
period. The development of its philosophy could be traced from the writings of Descartes (born in 1596) to
Leibniz (who died in 1716).
1. The first period was one of what we may called naturalism:
It belongs almost wholly to the 17th century. The philosophy of this first age lived in a world where
two things seemed clear: a) that nature is full of facts which conform fatally to exact and
irreversible law,
b) that human beings live best under a strong, benevolently dictatorial civil
government.
The philosophers of this time had left off contemplating the heaven of medieval piety and were disposed to
deify nature. They adored the rigidity of geometrical methods; they loved the study of the new physical science,
which begun with Galileo. Human beings, they conceived as a mechanism (Johnston 2006). Human emotions,
even the loftiest, they delighted in the explaining by every simple and fundamental natural passions.

2. The 18th century has its defining movement too. The characteristics tendencies of the period are such
that it is frequently call the Age of Empiricism:
John Locke, Hume, and Berkeley were the main exponents of this general point of view. The
second age of modern philosophy turned curiously back to the study of wondrous inner world of
humanity’s soul. To defy nature is not enough. Human being is the most interesting in nature, and he
is not yet deitified. Gradually, attention is turned more and more from the outer world to the mind of
human being.
1st period had been one naturalism
2nd period is one of sort of a new humanism (Johnston 2006)
embryni
Reflections is now more an inner study, an analysis of the mind, than an examination of the
business of physical science. Human reason is still the trusted instrument, but it soon turns its criticism
upon itself.

3. Near the end of the century, Immanuel Kant, whose philosophy is generally known as critical idealism,
brought up his philosophic thoughts with the more general problem of knowledge.(Copernican
innovation)

C. Globalization and Technological Innovations

Globalization is not a one-way process, but comprises the multilateral interactions among global systems,
local practices, transnational trends, and personal styles.
Globalization makes local knowledge no longer pure local. The process of globalization, however, in the
sense of adoption and acceptance of standards in the various aspects of life, has its embryonic beginnings in the
West in the 15th century as an accompaniment to the new ideas of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Industrial Revolution: The movement in which machines changed people’s way of life as well as
their methods of manufacturing. Significant changes that brought about the Industrial Revolution were (German
2000)
- The invention of machines in lieu of doing the work of hand tools;
- The use of steam, and other kinds of power vis-à-vis the muscles of human beings and of
animals;
- The embracing of factory system.

As technology advanced, more and more automatic machines were invented to handle the jobs with little
supervision by human beings. The abstract thought mathematicians, coupled with the development of
indigenous electronic technology, created not only a new industry, but also catalyst to help quicken the
tempo and reshape the structure of industrial society.
Achievements: Great jet airliners and space trips to the moon.
Media Communication and invention of computer

7.3. Explain How Human Relations Are Transformed by Social Systems

 Change as a condition of Modern Life
A. New Knowledge
B. Policy Making
C. Economic Sphere
D. Social Realm
E. Technology
F. On (Women’s) Friendships
-True friends
-Miss “Not Always Sweet”
- A Tribute to Our First Friend: Our Mothers

7.4. Evaluate The Transformation of Human Responsibility of Human Relationships by Social Systems and
How
Societies Transform Individual Human Beings
- Martin Heidegger: call for meditative thinking or philosophical reflection has a very
important role in this connection; Science greatly influenced the picture we have on human
existence and what is essential to humanity. Therefore, the difficulty to the period of rapid
change challenges us to discover more about what is fundamental to our existence.

Lesson 8:

8.1 Recognize the Meaning of One's Life

Who am I? What is the meaning of life?
 This chapter shall evaluate the meaning of life and various perspectives of human limitations such as death. It is
vital that the learners contribute in identifying their own goals and to be aware of the meaning of life.
A. Socrates
 Socrates, renowned teacher in Athens around 469 BC, links self-awareness to problem-solving
(Berversluis 2000).
 In Clouds, Socrates heads a school focused on research and teaching.
 Socrates utilizes two teaching methods: expository and Socratic.
A. Expository method answers questions, dispels ignorance through analogy or illustration, and
challenges conflicting beliefs.
B. Socratic method involves assessing a student’s character through questions, urging problem
reduction, and critiquing solutions.
 First process, ironic, clears prejudices and fosters knowledge-seeking by accepting ignorance.
 Second process, maieutic, follows ironic process, extracting truth through dialogue, examining, comparing,
and studying ideas for clarity.
Happiness
- For Socrates, for a person to be happy, he has to live a virtuous life.
- Virtue is not something to be taught or acquired through education, but rather it is merely an awakening of
the seeds of good deeds that lay dormant in the mind and heart of a person.
- Self-knowledge reveals what is in the mind and heart, emphasizing practical knowledge over theoretical.
- Practical knowledge means that one does not only know the rules of right living, but one lives them. Hence,
for Socrates, true knowledge means wisdom, which in turn, means virtue.
Socrates major ethical claims were:
(1) happiness is impossible without moral virtue; and
(2) unethical actions harm the person who performs them more than the people they victimize.
- Socrates, thus, saw someone steeped in vice as lacking the freedom, self-control, and intellectual clarity that
are needed to live happily. The immoral person literally becomes a slave to his desires.

B. Plato
 Contemplation in Plato's mind involves communion with universal and eternal ideas.
 Crucial for humanity, it provides the only means for a mortal to transcend space-time confinement and
commune with immortal, eternal, infinite, and divine truths.
 This contemplation is not passive; it's about doing good in life, not just thinking or speculating.
 Human beings are in constant contemplation of truth, as earthly things are mere shadows of the real truth
in the world of Ideas.
 Contemplation extends to the good, acknowledging the earthly inclination of the body towards evil things.
 Beauty is also a subject of contemplation, as earthly manifestations are not universally fair or foul.
- Humanity should contemplate absolute, simple, and everlasting beauty.
Plato's Theory of Immortality
According to Plato, the body is the source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement
of food, and is liable also to diseases, which overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of
love, lusts and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolishness. For example, when war comes, money has
to be acquired by and for the sake of the body.
The body, for Plato, causes us turmoil and confusion in our inquiries. Thus, to see the truth, we must
quit the body—the soul in itself must behold things in themselves. Then, we shall attain the wisdom we desire.
Knowledge, however, can be attained (if at all) after death: for if while in the company of the body, the soul
cannot have pure knowledge.

C. Aristotle
Realizing Your Potential
• Aristotle's account of change calls upon actuality and potentiality (Hare et al. 1991)
• Everything in nature seeks to realize itself - to develop its potentialities and finally realize its actualities.
• All things have strived toward their "end". It is the potentiality to be changing. Aristotle called this process
entelechy.
ENTELECHY
- a greek word for "to become its essence".
 - nothing happens by chance
- Humans have more actuality than potentiality and some, such as bees, have more potentiality than actuality.
- for the world of potential things to exist at all, there must first be something actual (form) at a level above
potential or perishing things (matter).

• Aristotle divided everything in the natural world into two main categories: nonliving things and living things
(Price 2000).
a. Nonliving things - have no potentiality for change
b. Living things - have the potentiality for change
• Unmoved Mover (God)
- pure actuality without any potentiality
- all things in the world are potentially in motion and continuously changing
- there must be something that is actual motion and which is moved by nothing external
- eternal, immaterial, with pure actuality or perfection, and with no potentiality.
- its main activity consists of pure thought (Nous)
- form of the world moving it towards its divine end

8.2 Enumerate the Objectives One Really Wants to Achieve and to Define the Project One Wants to Do in Life

Finding your purpose

A. Know thyself
✓ Four aspects:

o Open Area (Known by Self and Others): These are the traits that an individual is aware of and
others can also see.
o Blind Spot (Not Known by Self but Known by Others): These are the traits that an individual is
unaware of but others can see.
o Hidden Area (Known by Self but Not Known by Others): These are the traits that an individual is
aware of but others are not.
o Unknown Area (Not Known by Self or Others): These are the traits that neither the individual nor
others are aware of.

8.3 Meaning of Life (Where Will This Lead To?)

A. Friedrich Nietzsche
- The Birth of Tragedy (Nietzsche's first book)
- It analyzed Athenian Tragedy
- According to Nietzsche , tragedy grew from his unflinching recognition and the beautification, even the
idealization, of the inevitably of human suffering (Johnston, 2010).
- Nietzsche fantasized, "They knew how to live!" Insofar as "morality".
- Realizing one's "higher self", means fulfilling one's loftiest vision, noblest ideal.

B. Arthur Schopenhauer
What am I? What shall I do with my life?
• We have to be responsible for our own existence
• Unless we do "become ourselves," life is meaningless
• Schopenhauer utilized Kant's distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal realms to explain the
source of human ignorance.
• The phenomenal world, however, is a world of illusion
• The Will is neither peculiar to human agents, nor does each agent have his or her own Will.
• Every being in the phenomenal world manifests the Will in its own way
- as a natural force
- as instinct
- as intellectually enlightened willing
• Schopenhauer's Will is ultimately without purpose, and therefore it cannot be satisfied.
• He sees the willful nature of reality - a reality that has no point and cannot be satisfied, as the grounds for
his well-known pessimism (Solomon & Higgins 1996).
• Following the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, Schopenhauer contends that all of life is suffering.
 - Suffering is caused by desire, and we can alleviate suffering, as the Buddhists taught, bu "putting an
end to desire."
• Our egoism produces the Illusion that other people are separate and opposed beings, in competition for
the satisfactions we crave.
• The person who wickedly exerts his will against others suffers too (Solomon & Higgins 1996)

C. Martin Heidegger
- human existence is exhibited in care
- care is understood in terms of finite temporality, which reaches with death.
- Death is a possibility that happens, all possibilities are evaluated in this light, when one lives with a
resoluteness, which brings unity and wholeness to the scattered self.
- ETERNITY does not enter the picture, for wholeness is attainable within humanity's finite temporality
(Falikowski, 2004).

CARE has a threefold structure:

A. POSSIBILITY
- humanity gets projected ahead of itself.
- humanity constructs the instrumental world on the basis of the person's concerns.

B. FACTICITY
- a person is not pure possibility but facial possibility:
• possibilities open to him at any time condition and limited by circumstances.
- Heidegger speaks of "THROWNESS", that is a person is thrown into a world and exists in his/her
situation.

C. FALLENNESS
- humanity flees from the disclosure of anxiety to lose oneself in absorption with the instrumental world,
- or to bury oneself in the anonymous impersonal existence of the mass , where no one is responsible.

- Heidegger claims that only by living through the nothingness of death in anticipation do one attain
authentic existence.
- death is non-transferable.
- an individual must die himself along (being-unto-death).
- he believes that death is not accidental, nor should be analyzed.
- it belongs to humanity's facticity (limitations).

D. Jean-Paul Sartre
• considered to be a representative of (atheistic) existentialism (Falikowski 2004).
• The human person desires to be God; the desire to exist as a being that has its sufficient ground in itself
(en sui causa). This means that for an atheist, since God does not exist, the human person must face the
consequences of this.
• The human person is entirely responsible for his/her own existence.
• The human person builds the road to the destiny of his/her choosing; he/she is the creator (Landsburg
2009).
• Sartre is famous for his dualism:
a. en-soi (in-itself) - signifies the permeable and dense, silent and dead. The en-soi is absurd, it only
finds meaning only through the human person, the one and only pour-soi
b. pour-soi (for-itself) - the world only has meaning according to what the person gives to it.
Compared with the en-soi, a person has no fixed nature.
• Sartre's existentialism stems from this principle: existence precedes essence.
• The person is nothing else but that what he makes of himself. The person is provided with a supreme
opportunity to give meaning to one's life.
• Freedom is therefore the very core and the door to authentic existence. Authentic existence is realized
only in deeds that are committed alone, in absolute freedom and responsibility, and which therefore is the
character of true creation.
• The human person who tries to escape obligations and strives to be en-soi, (e.g., excuses such as "I was
born this way" or "I grew up in a bad environment") is acting on bad faith (mauvais foi).
E. Karl Jaspers
- One of the very few Christian intellectuals in Germany, Jaspers (1883-1968) resolutely opposed Nazism.
- he was the first German to address the question of guilt:
- of Germans ,of humanity implicated by the cruelty of the Holocaust.
- he concluded that caution must be exercised in assigning collective responsibility since this notion has no
sense from either the judicial, moral, or metaphysical point if view (Falikowski, 2004)
- Jasper's philosophy places the person's temporal existence in the face of the transcendent God, an
absolute imperative.
- Transcendence relates to us through limit-situation (Grenzsituation).
- once involved in limit-situations, a lonely individual has "to go through these alone".

• Authentic existence (existenz) is freedom and God

- Freedom alone opens the door to humanity's being.
- In freedom, the person becomes aware of God as never before.
- Freedom reveals itself as a gift from somewhere beyond itself.
- Freedom without God only leads to a person's searching for a substitute to God closer to oneself.
- Usually himself tries to be God .
- Jaspers asked that human beings be loyal to their own faiths without impugning the faith of others.

F. Gabriel Marcel
For Marcel, philosophy has the tension (the essence of drama) and the harmony (that is the essence of
music). Philosophy's starting point is a metaphysical "disease." The search for a home in the wilderness, a
harmony in disharmony, takes place through a reflective process that Marcel calls secondary reflection.

Marcel's Phenomenological Method

a.Primary Reflection. This method looks at the world or at any object as a problem, detached from the self
and fragment. This is the foundation of scientific knowledge. Subject does not enter into the object
investigated. The data of primary reflection lie in the public domain and are equally available to any
qualified observer.

b. Secondary Reflection. Secondary reflection is concrete, individual, heuristic, and open. This reflection is
concerned not with object but with presences. It recaptures the unity of original experience. It does not go
against the date of primary reflection but goes beyond it by refusing to accept the data of primary reflection
as final..
The question "What am I?" cannot be fully answered on human level.
The question that proved unanswerable on the human level turns into an appeal. Beyond one's experience, beyond
the circle of fellow human beings, one turns to the Absolute Thou, the unobjectifiable Transcendent Thou.
When a person loves and experiences the inevitable deficiencies of human love, he or she sees the glimpse of an
absolute I-Thou relationship between the totality of one's being. Thus, in this sense, philosophy leads to adoration.
I'll provide a comprehensive summary focusing on the key concepts you mentioned:

Summary of Key Philosophical Concepts on Human Freedom and Existence

Freedom of the Human Person

Freedom is a fundamental aspect of human authenticity, encompassing multiple dimensions:

1. Political Freedom: Shaping one's political environment

2. Religious Freedom: Choice to practice or not practice religion
3. Freedom of Expression: Right to speak, write, and disseminate opinions
4. Personal/Inner Freedom: Distinguishing human actions from natural behaviors

Key Philosophical Perspectives on Freedom:

 Aristotle: Freedom is about free choice and moral responsibility

 St. Thomas Aquinas: Humans have unique power to change themselves and their environment
 Jean Paul Sartre: Humans create their own destiny; "existence precedes essence"

Intersubjectivity

Intersubjectivity emphasizes human relationships and mutual understanding:

 Martin Buber's "I-Thou" relationship: Recognizing others as subjects, not objects

 Karol Wojtyla: Emphasizes participation in communal life and recognizing the humanness of others

Human Person in Society

Society transforms and is transformed by individuals:

 Social Contract Theory (Hobbes, Rousseau): Individuals form communities for mutual protection
 Technological Impact: Globalization and technology reshape human interactions
 Social Dimensions: Individuals are shaped by social relations

Human Person and Mortality

Philosophers' perspectives on human existence and death:

 Martin Heidegger: Existence is characterized by "care" and finite temporality

 Jean-Paul Sartre: Humans are responsible for creating meaning in their lives
 Karl Jaspers: Authentic existence involves freedom and transcendence

Key Philosophical Contributions

Jean Paul Sartre

 Atheistic Existentialism
 Humans create their own meaning
 "Existence precedes essence"
 Freedom and personal responsibility are paramount

Other Notable Philosophers

 Socrates: Virtue and self-knowledge lead to happiness

 Plato: Contemplation of eternal truths
 Aristotle: Realizing human potential
 Nietzsche: Embracing suffering and achieving "higher self"
  Schopenhauer: Life is suffering, driven by unfulfillable will

Practical Applications

1. Appreciating individual differences

2. Recognizing the potential of persons with disabilities
3. Understanding social responsibilities
4. Personal growth through self-reflection
5. Ethical decision-making
6. Recognizing human limitations while embracing potential

Exam Preparation Suggestions

For the exam covering 65 points, focus on:

 Definitions of freedom
 Philosophers' key contributions
 Concepts of human existence
 Social and personal responsibilities
 Relationships between individuals and society