HUMAN PERSON:

Knowledge & Freedom

Ma. Lourdes n. Fernandez, rn, man

I. Human Person
The human person is and can be understood through its acts,
human actions. Though this understanding may be an
approximation due to permanence and accumulation, but
nonetheless give a deeper understanding of the human person
above anything else.
II. Understanding Human Acts
II.A. to be able to understand human actions is to consider that which impedes it.
II.B. there are two essential concepts that must be considered in understanding
human actions: Knowledge and freedom.
II.C. Knowledge and Freedom both allows and impedes human act. But more than
just merely allowing it, it broadens human act.
III. Defining Human Acts
Human acts by definition are passing things. They happen
and after which they are gone, but human beings are not
passing, they continue, they evolve or deteriorate but
continue nonetheless.
IV. Definition of a Human Person
We cannot really have a concrete definition of the human person because
we really cannot and will never see the ‘person’ in its bare reality. What we
see and experience are ‘persons-clothed-in-action’. More precisely, we
experience actions that do not stand by themselves, actions that reveal
and manifest, and express a ‘person’ that lies beneath.
V. Asserting Our Personhood: First
Reason
Even if we understood the human person through human acts, we experience
ourselves more than our actions. It is true that we are never apart from our
actions, as in we are ‘never doing nothing’. The ‘doing’ and ‘being’ of our lives
are never separated but always coexist. In the instance that we sense to view
ourselves as nothing more than the summation of our activities is to reduce
ourselves, cheapen ourselves and to withhold from a fundamental reality.
V. Asserting Our Personhood: First
Reason
Indeed it has some truth when we say ‘people are known by their actions’, but
not altogether true. Even if we make a comprehensive list of all that we do,
the deeds we perform, the thoughts we think, the feelings we possess, we
would still fail to capture the ‘being’ that we are. There is ‘moreness’ in life,
something that is not adequately accounted for, and to account for this
‘moreness’ is to posit the reality of the Human Person.
VI. Asserting Our Personhood:
Second Reason
It is the personhood that gives actions their human
importance. When I say “I am cold” I am asserting two things:
first, I am asserting the experience of coldness; second, I am
asserting the presence of a person. Coldness itself is
unimportant, what is important is that it is mine.
VII. Asserting Our Personhood: Third
Reason
Human beings are responsible for their behavior. Where does that “responsibility” come
from? From personhood. We are not the sum total of all of our actions put end to end,
nor do we mutate from one moment to moment, moving from identity to identity as we
move from place to place. If we do, we cannot be held responsible for our actions, thus
we could say, “That was yesterday’s human act,” “today I am someone different.” The
reality is that the action pass but the agent remains. Whether we admit it or not, we are
responsible for our actions, we are made responsible in as much as we are persons.
VIII. Layers of the Human Person
Understanding the human person is to look inwards and
see for ourselves the layers that bound him together.
VIII. Layers of the Human Person

Outermost
Outermost Layer
Layer

Inner
Inner Layer
Layer

Deeper
Deeper Layer
Layer

Central/
Central/ Core
Core
VIII. Layers of the Human Person

Outermost Layer Inner Layer Deeper Layer Central/ Core

•• Environment
Environment •• Actions
Actions •• Convictions
Convictions •• The
The ‘Person’/
‘Person’/ The
The ‘I’
‘I’
•• World
World •• Behavior
Behavior
•• Possession
Possession •• Deeds
Deeds
•• Body
Body
VIII. Layers of the Human Person
Who does this ‘looking’? ‘I’ do. The person that I am, the person
that we are. But the person that I am, that we are, will always
remain the ‘viewer’ and never the ‘viewed’.
The eye cannot see and will never see itself, though it can perceive
itself through another eye.
IX. The Human Person and the
Human Act
Two perspective or views to fully understand our personhood and our
acts.
IX.A. As Agents. We can be viewed as Agents, as ‘doers of Human act’
IX.B. As Persons. We can be viewed as Persons, ‘beings that precede,
ground and transcend those actions’
X. Human-as-Agents
As Agents we are ‘objects’ (as in grammar, recipients of an act or that we are
the ‘object’ of the human act). As ‘objects’ of the human act, we are able to
be analyzed; we become the perfect focus for human knowing (recipient of
knowledge). We are also understood as changeable beings, because actions
change from one instance to another therefore the doer also changes.
X. Human-as-Agents
And as we understand ourselves as ‘do-ers’, we exercise our
existence by doing. As Agents, we see ourselves as particular
instances of ‘humanity’: I can make a given decision, perform a
given deed; capable of making the same decision, and perform
the same deed.
XI. Humans-as-Persons
As Persons we are ‘subjects’ (as in we are above and precedes our human act or that
we are the ‘subject’ of the human act). We are self-aware; implied in an activity. We
are never the direct object of knowledge (not its recipient but its origin). We
perdure beyond the lifespan on an individual action. We understand ourselves as ‘be-
ers’, thus we exercise our reality by simply being. And we are more than just an
instance of human nature: never before real and never reduplicated.
XII. Distinguishing Persons from
Agents
The clearest way to distinguish human-as-agents
from human-as-persons is from the reality of
knowledge and freedom.
XIII. Knowledge
XIII.A. Knowledge:
Human-as-Agents
As Agents the knowledge that we possess is an evaluative knowledge. Evaluative
knowledge is the most objective of all knowledges, though deeply personal and
cannot be shared in its entirety.
The knowledge that is involved in human act is ‘reflex knowledge’; it is
knowledge that is or can be the object of its own reflection within our minds.
XIII.A. Knowledge:
Human-as-Agents
Simplification: for this reason we shall call this the ‘head knowledge’, it
is simply knowing the facts and owning the facts that we know. We
know that we know. A mechanical knowledge. 
Example: a person knows that it is his obligation to attend Sunday Mass
and so he attends knowing that it is his obligation and none other.
XIII.A. Knowledge:
Human-as-Persons
Our personhood cannot be ‘reflected on’ and so in contrast with reflex knowledge, as
persons we have ‘non-reflex knowledge’; the knowledge of our core human person.
Simplification: we shall call this the ‘heart knowledge’, it is knowledge that brings one
into action; knowing what a person oath to do.
Example: a person knows that it is his obligation to attend Sunday Mass and so he
attends not only because it is his obligation but that he must attend.
XIV. Freedom
XIV. Freedom
Freedom is an essential component of a genuinely human act. But what
sort of freedom do consider? Liberum arbitrium – Freedom of Choice.
We are confronted with multitudes of options, multitude of open
doors, yet upon choosing one all others are closed, thus this freedom is
also a limiting freedom.
XIV.A. Freedom:
Human-as-Agents
The freedom of the human act of human-as-agent, is a
dividing freedom: freedom that takes the experience of
life and separates it, divides it into alternatives. This
freedom is called categorical freedom.
XIV.A. Freedom:
Human-as-Agents
Example: a person who is celebrating an anniversary oath
to prepare the dinner for the two of them, therefore
upon choosing to prepare dinner implies that that person
cannot do any other act in the same moment, solely
focused on preparing dinner.
XIV.B. Freedom:
Human-as-Persons
At the deeper level of being, of personhood, we’ll find that only
objects can be categorized, our personhood is not an object
therefor cannot be categorized. Inasmuch as we are a ‘being’,
really the only free decision to be made is the decision “to be” or
“not to be”.
XIV.B. Freedom:
Human-as-Persons
XIV.B. Freedom:
Human-as-Persons
I reality and in truth, can we really say ‘no’ to our very being? And in doing
so, do we not also say ‘no’ to our own existence. Thus a contradiction of
oneself, a denial of reality, opposition to the good, and act of evil—that
which is against God. And so “to be” or “not to be” is the same as “for the
good” or “for the evil,” “for God” or “against God”.
XIV.B. Freedom:
Human-as-Persons
Since this freedom is above all sorts of categories and
instances, we shall understand it as transcendental
freedom.
XV. Summary
Human persons are known through Human acts in which they both direct and is subject to.
Whether a person is subject to his actions or directs his actions, both are essentially an act
of freedom; freedom of choosing and freedom of defining oneself.
A person’s individual acts is never separate from his self-definition; in an intertwined
paradox, a person’s individual acts leads to his self-definition, and his self-definition is
made manifest in his individual acts.
THANK YOU