Greek theatre. Therefore, Christ (the /''Verbum'') was defined as a "person" of God. This concept was applied later to the Holy Ghost, the angels and to all human beings. Trinitarianism holds that God has three persons.
Since then, a number of important changes to the word's meaning and use have taken place, and attempts have been made to redefine the word with varying degrees of adoption and influence. According to Jörg Noller, at least six approaches can be distinguished:
# "The ontological definition of the person as "an individual substance of a rational nature" (
Boethius).
# The self-consciousness-based definition of the person as a being that "can conceive itself as itself" (
John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
).
# The moral-philosophical definition of the person as "an end in itself" (
Immanuel Kant). In current analytical debate, the focus has shifted to the relationship between bodily
organism and person.
# The theory of
animalism (
Eric T. Olson) states that persons are essentially animals and that mental or psychological attributes play no role in their identity.
# Constitution theory (
Lynne Baker
Lynne Rudder Baker (February 14, 1944 – December 24, 2017) was an American philosopher and author. At the time of her death she was a Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1944 to Vi ...
), on the other hand, attempts to define the person as a natural and at the same time self-conscious being: the bodily organism constitutes the person without being identical to it. Rather, it forms with it a "unity without identity".
#
.. Another ideafor conceiving the natural-rational unity of the person has emerged recently in the concept of the "person life" (Marya Schechtman)."
Other theories attribute personhood to those states that are viewed to possess intrinsic or universal value.
Value theory attempts to capture those states that are universally considered valuable by their nature, allowing one to assign the concept of personhood upon those states. For example, Chris Kelly argues that the value that is intuitively bestowed upon humans, their possessions, animals, and aspects of the natural environment is due to a value
monism known as "richness." Richness, Kelly argues, is a product of the "variety" and the "unity" within an entity or agent. According to Kelly, human beings and animals are morally valued and entitled to the status of persons because they are complex organisms whose multitude of psychological and biological components are generally unified towards a singular purpose in any moment, existing and operating with relative harmony.
Primus defines people exclusively as their desires, whereby desires are states which are sought for arbitrary or nil purpose(s). Primus views that desires, by definition, are each sought as ends in and of themselves and are logically the most precious (valuable) states that one can conceive. Primus distinguishes states of desire (or 'want') from states which are sought instrumentally, as a means to an end (on the basis of perceived 'need'). Primus' approach can thus be contrasted to
Kant's moral-philosophical definition of a person: whereas Kant's second formulation of the
categorical imperative states that rational beings must never be treated merely as a means to an end and that they must also always be treated as an end, Primus offers that the aspects that humans (and some animals) desire, and only those aspects, are ends, by definition.
See also
References
Further reading
*
Cornelia J. de Vogel (1963). ''The Concept of Personality in Greek and Christian Thought''. In Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy. Vol. 2. Edited by J. K. Ryan, Washington: Catholic University of America Press. pp. 20–
*
Grant, Patrick. ''Personalism and the Politics of Culture''. New York: St Martin's Press 1996.
* Grant, Patrick. ''Spiritual Discourse and the Meaning of Persons''. New York: St Martin's Press 1994.
* Grant, Patrick. ''Literature and Personal Values''. London: MacMillan 1992.
*
*
*
Stephens, William O. (2006). ''
The Person: Readings in Human Nature''. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. .
*
* Jörg Noller (2019)
Person In: Thomas Kirchhoff (ed.): Online Encyclopedia Philosophy of Nature / Online Lexikon Naturphilosophie. Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg: https://doi.org/10.11588/oepn.2019.0.66403.
* Eric T. Olson (2019)
"Personal Identity" In: Edward N. Zalta (ed.): The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition).
External links
Rights of Non-Human Persons Program(Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies)
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