Sem. John Raven C.

Angeles Pre- College

Philosophical Writing March 17, 2018

Contemporary Thought about the Freedom of Man in the context of Mind

The concept of person has its own network of social, legal, cultural and moral institutions

and practices, we are bounded by time and space and principles as well.1 On the other hand, man

must be aware of what is ought to do, man has the ultimate faculty which makes him or her as

the most distinct in the hierarchy of being and that is mind, which is simply emphasizing the

importance of consciousness.

Minds are the spiritual entities that temporarily reside in the bodies, entering at the

moment of conception and departing on death.2 This definition of mind is parallel to the

substance dualism of Plato where man is merely unity of ideas and forms (soul) and matter and

senses (body). Moreover, Rene Descartes views the authenticity in two kinds such as mind and

matter, where the mind is non-physical entity which is conscious and not measurable and matter

which is physical entity of the human person which is observable and spatial.

Both philosophers affirms the view that person is a composite of corporeal and non-

corporeal substance. As man has the freedom to make his own essence he or she is using his or

her mind to bring out the intentions (aboutness) into actions. And so, this concept of mind

encounters problem such the Freedom in mind- body causal relations and some philosophical

1
Simon J. Evenine, Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3.

2
John Heil, Philosphy of Mind: A Contemporary Edition. (Great Britain: TJ International Ltd, Padstow,
Cornwall, 1998), 15.
approaches such as epiphenomenalism, computationalism, and behaviorism and mind-brain

identity theory, this approaches have something to do with the human freedom.

Freedom in the strict sense is the ability of the mind to make choices and do certain

actions to carry out these choices3. The possibility of mind is affirmed through mind body

relation which is stated that mind is the cause of every action as its certain ability. In the

perspective of no mind view, mind has no distinction from the physical entity of the human

person and they are both physical and bound by natural laws, one of the view is the mind- brain

identity theory which affirms that mind cannot undertake the causation in the body, in the sense

that mental states of the mind is identical to brain states. The second one is behaviorism; it is the

view that our mental states are mere tendencies to manifest certain human behaviors.

Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental states are ordinary outcome of physical states. The

fourth one is the Computationalism which sublate the freedom of mind because this view affirms

the process of mind such as thinking is just a procedure of imposing programs in the mind by the

brain.

However, theoretically speaking “mind is non object it is a set of capacities and

dispositions.”4 This capacities and dispositions are the components of the brain for it to called as

mind and as fundamentals of our mental abilities, this features of the mind are widely renowned

3
Napoleon Mabaquiao Jr. and Ronaldo Mactal, The Pandayon Series: Making Life Worth Living: An
Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person. (Quezon City: Phoenex Publishing House, Inc., 2017), 111.

4
Julian Baggini and Peter Fosl, The Philosopher’s Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and
Methods. (Blackwell publishing Ltd, 2010), 80.
in the contemporary thought as “Marks of the Mental: Consciouness, Subjective Quality,

Intentionality, Ontological Subjectivity, and Privacy.”5

The first among the features is the Consciousness, it is the state of sentience that typically

begins when we wake up in the morning from a dreamless sleep and continue throughout the day

until we fall asleep again.6It is simply to become aware of something, this is the faculty of our

mind that perceives something which has existential actuality. The second one is subjective

quality, this is the personal way of being aware of our own mental states7, this has something to

do with our own perspective as we become aware or conscious of something. Third is

Intentionality, refers to the faculty of mental states that consist in their being directed toward

some object or state of affairs8, intentionality is the property of our mind to be directed to some

objects and to have contents within it, intentionality includes are directed desires to the content

of an particular affair or object. The fourth is that mental states are ontologically subjective, this

is simply discusses that the mental states are merely present and experienced by the person who

has it. “This state such exist only as a person has or experience them.” 9 Lastly, mental states

are private in the sense that mental states are directly knowable to the person who has them.10

5
Mabaquiao and Mactal, The Pandayon Series: Making Life Worth Living: An Introduction to the
Philosophy of the Human Person, 90
6
Ibid.

7
Ibid.

8
Samuel Stumpf and James Fieser, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond: A History of Philosophy. (New York:
McGraw Hill Education, 2007), 422

9
The Pandayon Series: Making Life Worth Living: An Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human
Person, 90.
 Our mind is maintaining our freedom because it is the only aspect of our personhood that

can interact with the material and non-material entity immaterially in the world it can explore the

realms in non-quantifiable way. It is not bound by the rest of nature and matter. Man is free yet

bounded by laws, we are free to give our obedience to the law that can make our life worth living

or disregard it for destruction of our own welfare.

10
Ibid.
 Abstract

This Research Paper tackles particular information about mind in the contemporary

period, such concepts views and approaches that affirms and denies the possibilities

freedom of the human person: Mind-brain Identity theory, Behaviorism,

Computationalism, Epiphenomenalism, etc. . In line with this, this paper introduce the

Marks of the mental which is referred as fundamental disposition, properties and features

of our mind which is relevant to our awareness in particular object and events such as a)

Consciousness, b) Subjective Quality, c) Intentionality, d)Ontological Subjectivity and

e)Privacy.
 Contemporary Thought about the Freedom of Man in the context of Mind

I- Introduction

a. What is Mind?

b. Substance Dualism

II- Body

a. Cartesian and Palatonic View

b. Marks of the Mental

1. Consciousness

2. Subjective Quality

3. Intentionality

4. Ontological Subjectivity

5. Privacy

III- Conclusion
Bibliography
Baggini, Julian. The Philosopher's Toolkit: A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and
Methods. New York: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010.

Evinine, Simon J. Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood. New York: Oxford University Press,
2008.

Heil,John. Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Edition. Great Britain: Tj International Ltd.,

1998

Jr., Napoleon M. Mabaquiao,et al. Making Life Worth Living: An Introduction to the Philosophy
of the Human Person. Quezon City: Phoenix Publishing House, Inc., 2017.

Stumpf, Samuel, et al. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond: A history of Philosophy. Manila: Mc
Grawhill Education (Asia), 2007.