The Concept of the Person and the Problem of Freedom

Abstract

This chapter presents my translation of two segments of a book that William Stern published in 1918. The first segment, which served as the introduction to that book, provides an overview of his understanding of the personalistic concept of the person and of the dynamics of person-world relationships. He explains how the concept of psychophysical neutrality transcends the age-old ‘mind-body problem.’ The second segment of this chapter presents material that appeared in the fourth chapter of the 1918 book. Here, Stern takes up directly the challenge of explaining how a scientific psychology aimed at achieving causal explanations for human actions can be reconciled with critical personalism’s teleological thesis, according to which a person’s actions are causally determined in part by the goal-oriented person him/herself.