The aim of this article is to show that human persons belong, ontologically, in social ontology. After setting out my views on ontology, I turn to persons and argue that they have first-person perspectives in two stages (rudimentary and robust) essentially. Then I argue that the robust stage of the first-person persective is social, in that it requires a language, and languages require linguistic communities. Then I extend the argument to cover the rudimentary stage of (...) the first-person perspective as well. I conclude by enumerating ways in which human persons differ from nonhuman animals. (shrink)

In the essay, I want to disscuss Maritain's concept of freedom. If we want to understand some obscure thoughts about Maritain, we have to understand Thomas's thoughts. In the essay entitled "The Conquest of Freedom.", Maritain illustrates what freedom means. He indicates it is inseparable between the notions of personality and independent freedom. It is therefore necessary to study the Thomistic concepts of the will as nature and the will as reason . My purpose in this paper will be twofold: (...) to consider first of all the differences which Maritain establishes between individuality and personality, and secondly, to understand what he says about freedom by placing it within the Thomistic context which is both philosophical and theological. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 341 if you started asking them questions about possible worlds. But Bradley's contribution is to have given us a painstaking and thorough reading of some extremely tightly wound and important aspects of the Tractatus, to have brought that text into direct contaot with con· temporary issues, and to have made progress toward showing that how· ever remarkable we thought the Tractatus was, it is still more remarkable (...) than that. JOHN CHURCHILL Hendrix College Conway, Arkansas The Human Person: Animal and Spirit. By DAVID BRAINE. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Pp. xxv + 555. $32.95 (cloth). Any study in philosophical anthropology that rejects both mate· rialism and dualism, and seeks to set forth a " holistic " alternative, may be met in many quarters with some skepticism today-especially if that alternative seeks to accommodate itself to religious teaching regarding the soul's continued existence after death. For, it will be asked, on the one hand, how can it deny that the esse of the human being ceases at death (538) without affirming some sort of dualism? On the other hand, unless it is some sort of soft-headed New Age philosophy (which this most certainly is not), how can it sustain its claim to "holism" while rejecting the monolithic materialism of those whom Walker Percy once described as our "brain engineers, neuropharmacologists, and chemists of the synapses "? The challenge is " how to produce an account which allows the human person to continue exist· ing after death, and even to have body restored to it, while remaining completely faithful to the insight that it belongs to human nature to be bodily," and, at the same time, to " avoid reerecting the soul into a complete substance" (xix). The peculiar obstacle faced by such a project is the pervasive proclivity towards reductionism in modern accounts of human nature stemming from the impress of both materialism and dualism. Both analyze the human person into an aggregate of parts in certain relations, the behavior of the whole being ·the result of the interactions of these parts. " In all this the materialist has exactly the same picture as the dualist. Indeed, unless the mental can first be represented as inner, logically independent of anything in the ' outer man ' and the ' world,' there is no way in which it can be identified with a brain-process or 342 BOOK REVIEWS state" (3). So whether one thinks of the mind as an independent en· tity (as in dualism), or not (as in materialism), the body is left to be accounted for by the brain engineers and their aggregates of physi· ological, anatomical, neurological, and chemical causes. And since materialism involves no complicating questions about causal interaction between the physical and the mental (as in dualism), it is usually preferred on grounds of its simplicity-all causation being subsumed under the physical. In this ambitious tome, David Braine, a philosopher at the University of Aberdeen, offers a thoroughgoing analysis and critique of such views, whereby he undertakes to overturn these ways of viewing human nature and to offer a holistic alternative. He sets forth a framework for understanding things like perceiving, doing, and speaking as irreducibly the acts of the psychosomatically integrated beings to which we normally attribute them-an understanding that conforms to the ordinary experience of such acts in ourselves and in others. He seeks to expose how materialist arguments repeat the mistakes of the dualists by reducing human beings (and other animals) to their aggregate parts, segmented sequences, and their interrelations. He takes issue with the arguments of recent analytical philosophers (such as Davidson and Dummett) in detail, and sets forth a holistic alternative-both with re· spect to the human person as " animal" and as " spirit." As to the human as "animal," Braine notes, accordingly, that "it is the bodily animal being as such, not just its mind, which is an ' I ', a ' he or she ', a focalized subject in relation to the world. The primary reason why human behaviour cannot be simulated by a computer does not lie in things special to human beings, but in the fact that this fo. calized psychophysical structure which they share with the... (shrink)

The questions of whether there is a shared nature common to all human beings and, if so, what essential qualities define this nature are among the most widely discussed topics in the history of philosophy and remain the subject of perennial interest and controversy. This book offers a metaphysical investigation of the composition of the human essence-that is, with what is a human being identical or what types of parts are necessary for a human being to (...) exist: an immaterial mind, a physical body, a functioning brain, a soul? It also considers the criterion of identity for a human being across time and change-that is, what is required for a human being to continue existing as a person despite undergoing physical and psychological changes over time? Jason Eberl's investigation presents and defends a theoretical perspective from the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Advancing beyond descriptive historical analysis, this book places Aquinas's account of human nature into direct comparison with several prominent contemporary theories: substance dualism, emergentism, animalism, constitutionalism, four-dimensionalism, and embodied mind theory. There are practical implications of exploring these theories as they inform various conclusions regarding when human beings first come into existence-at conception, during gestation, or after birth-and how we ought to define death for human beings. Finally, each of these viewpoints offers a distinctive rationale as to whether, and if so how, human beings may survive death. This book's central argument is that the Thomistic account of human nature includes several desirable features that other theories lack and offers a cohesive portrait of one's continued existence from conception through life to death and beyond. (shrink)

The paper presents the two-fold intuitive idea regarding the meaning of being human in the philosophy of Martha Nussbaum which is anchored on Karl Marx's concept of human dignity and Aristotle's eudaimonia, as applied to the concept of human development which was first developed by Amartya Sen in his Capability Approach.

This work contends that the metaphysical understanding of the human person, simply as a rational and free being is incomprehensive, and for a comprehensive understanding of the human person, there is a need to understand the human person as a conscious being in action and in relationship within and without itself due to the shared consciousness of 「仁。」To guide this philosophical investigation, the writer posits the research question: How can the philosophy of Karol Wojtyła on the (...) class='Hi'>human person help to deepen the understanding of the Confucian philosophy of person as 「仁者」? Thus, in this research the writer has three main tasks. The first task is to substantially investigate and expound the philosophical anthropology of Karol Wojtyła. The second task is to investigate and expose the Confucian concept of 「仁。」The third task is to discourse the human person by the means of a re-interpretation of the concept of 「仁者」as the Wojtyłian concept of “Person-revealed-in-Action.” So, the entire Part One of this work, is aimed at achieving the first task, and the entire Part Two, is aimed at achieving the second and the third tasks of the investigation. The Philosophical anthropology of Karol Wojtyła, is substantially influenced by the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, and the Philosophy of Max Scheler. Hence, the writer creates the background for the exposition of Karol Wojtyła’s philosophical anthropology by presenting a discourse on Thomas Aquinas and Max Scheler. And to understand the concept of persona in Thomas Aquinas there is a need to discuss the philosophical anthropology of Socrates-Plato, Aristotle and Boethius. On the other hand, to understand the phenomenology of Max Scheler, which Karol Wojtyła employed in his analysis of human experience and action, the writer briefly exposes the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl the founder of phenomenological movement and the phenomenology of Heidegger the student of Husserl and the contemporary of Max Scheler. Hence, the writer considers an exposition of the concept of 「仁，」from the perspective of textual analysis of the meaning of 仁 as it is found in three classical text: 《 論語》, 《中庸 》and《孟子》. These three Confucian classics all consider 「仁」as not just an important concept in Confucianism, but as the concept that defines the human person, as the quiddity of the human person. The writer therefore, synthesizes Wojtyła’s concept of “person-revealed-in-action”, and the Confucian concept of 「仁者，」to affirm a philosophy of person that is indeed wholistic and comprehensive. This philosophy of person, the writer gives the name: “Jenism.” “Jenism” then, is the concept of the human person (人) understood from a synthesis of the Wojtyłian concept of human action and the Confucian understanding of 「仁。」This understanding of the human person, does not only explain the metaphysical quiddity of the human person, but also explains the specific difference of the human life. The writer, therefore, is persuaded to think that a philosophy of person has been developed that is capable of responding to the philosophical anthropological problematics of our contemporary times. Especially, with problematics that are related to Ethics, Bioethics, Human Dignity and Artificial Intelligence. (shrink)

In this paper, I wish to reflect on the psyche of the West with respect to the changing cultural trends involving Christianity, Islam, and the human person. I propose that we first understand the context we find ourselves in regarding the apparent confusion surrounding Islam in the West. Then from there, in the second section, I suggest that it will be useful to define and examine some terms including religion, relativism, tolerance, and intolerance. This will help provide a (...) clearer picture of some of the conflicting and confusing ideas circulating throughout the media, academic institutions, and everyday life. Third, it will be important to provide an examination of the discourse on apologetics, while primarily focusing on Christian and Islamic apologetics. (shrink)

I don’t think Lynne Rudder Baker’s constitution view can account for personal identity problems of a synchronic or diachronic nature. As such, it cannot accommodate the Christian’s claim of eschatological bodily resurrection-a principle reason for which she gives this account. In light of this, I press objections against her constitution view in the following ways: First, I critique an analogy she draws between Aristotle’s “accidental sameness” and constitution. Second, I address three problems for Baker’s constitution view [‘Constitution Problems’ ], (...) each more problematic than the next: CP1: Her definition of constitution lacks explanatory power; CP2: If there is a plausible definition of constitution, constitution implies either too many persons or no human persons at all; CP3: Constitution yields no essential distinction between human and divine persons. If my argument go through, her constitution view has neither an explanation for diachronic personal identity nor personal identity through resurrection. (shrink)

A typical human person has privileged epistemic access to its identity over time in virtue of having a first-person point of view. In explaining this phenomenon in terms of an intimate relation of self-attribution or the like, I infer that a typical human person has direct consciousness of itself through inner awareness or personal memory. Direct consciousness of oneself is consciousness of oneself, but not by consciousness of something else. Yet, a perduring human person, $S_p$, i.e., (...) a human person with temporal parts, is identical with the complete series of its temporal parts. I argue that because $S_p$ is diverse from any incomplete series of its temporal parts, and because $S_p$ cannot be conscious of all of its temporal parts through inner awareness or personal memory, $S_p$ cannot have direct consciousness of itself. I conclude that a human person endures, i.e., wholly exists at each of the times it exists. (shrink)

Because the image we have of the human person determines educational practice, Stein’s philosophy of education consists in anthropology. Her main work in education theory falls into two parts, philosophical and theological, as both disciplines influence our image of the human person. The Structure of the Human Person, the first and philosophical part of this foundational project, constitutes Stein’s mature philosophy of the human person – a subject that had occupied her all her life. This (...) article examines the philosophical anthropology of this work, its historical background and its place within Stein’s entire work. (shrink)

In an intentionally provocative essay published in the journal Esprit (January, 1983) on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, I ventured the following slogan: “Death to personalism; long live the person!” I was attempting to suggest that Mounier's formulation of personalism was, as he himself readily admitted, connected with a certain cultural and philosophical constellation which is no longer ours today: existentialism and Marxism are no longer the only opponents. They are no longer even opponents at all, against which personalism (...) would be required to define itself, at the risk of becoming one or another system or `ism'. I concluded my essay with the following citation from Mounier's Qu'est-ce que le personnalisme?: “We are witnessing [...] the first meanderings of a cyclical course where the explorations pursued to exhaustion along one path are are given up only to be rediscovered farther on, enriched by this forgetting and by the discoveries for which it cleared a path” (p. 11). In addition, I wanted to say that the person is still the most appropriate term to designate those investigations for which neither the term `con-sciousness', nor `subject', nor `individual' really apply, for the various reasons that I invoked at the time. I would like to discuss some of those investigations here, beyond the point reached in that essay, where I restricted myself to defining the person by an attitude in Eric Weil's sense, or as one would say in hermeneutics, by the everyday understanding that we have of it. Following Paul Landsberg, I used the criteria of crisis and commitment, adding to the latter certain corollaries such as fidelity over time to a higher cause, and acceptance of alterity and difference within personal identity. Now I would like to make use of contemporary investigations into language, action and narrative in order to provide the ethical constitution of the person with a substratum and roots, comparable to those explored by Emmanuel Mounier in Traité du Caractère. In this sense, the present study is an extension of Mounier's book. (shrink)

"This collection of essays makes a significant contribution to the field of liturgical studies. Many are original in the best sense that theological work can be: grounded in the authentic tradition, perceptive, imaginative, and capable of giving readers new insights into, and a fresh appreciation of, timeless truths. Taken together they will attract readers from a variety of disciplines, in the first place because worship is an essential aspect of every Christian life, and in the second because the essays (...) are written from, or informed by, the perspectives of a range of related disciplines: doctrinal and spiritual theology, history, philosophy, and liturgical studies." --_Lauren Pristas, Caldwell College_ "The essays in this book grapple with the basic question: 'Who celebrates the liturgy?' By delving into the complex interrelationship between the divine initiative and the human response, between the action of Christ and the Church and the participation of the individual Christian, the authors--coming from a wide range of theological disciplines--make a stimulating contribution to contemporary liturgical theology." --_Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., Pontifico Instituto Liturgico, Rome_ _The Liturgical Subject_ brings together in one volume a wide and sometimes divergent range of understandings of the liturgy. Written primarily by Roman Catholics, with one important ecumenical contribution, the publication of these essays at this moment is particularly apt. They reflect the widespread reassessment of various aspects of especially the post-Conciliar period of liturgical reform. At the same time the collection indicates how liturgical study is called to account by, and is itself able to question, the philosophical aspects of its work. This is an area of enquiry as yet in its infancy, whose contours are nevertheless already discernible in the papers gathered here. This volume is a landmark for research of this kind, pointing toward further ecumenical dialogue and contributing to more fundamental studies of liturgy. (shrink)

Edith Stein’s work revolves around one central question, namely, the identity of the person. Discussions of this topic are already present in Stein’s dissertation. Iexamine her theory of identity, developed throughout her work and maturing in her magnum opus, Finite and Eternal Being, in three stages, each of which is historically relevant and original. First, Stein’s development of the question is examined phenomenologically, focusing on Stein’s early work. Second, I will show how Stein takes her early phenomenological positions concerning (...) the nature of the human person and combines them with Greek and medieval insights into ontology. Here I focus on Finite and Eternal Being. Finally, I concentrate on the meaning and value of Stein’s theory of identity as it contributes to a theory of the person in connection with Greek and medieval metaphysics, and a phenomenological philosophy of consciousness. Together, the three stages of the essay will demonstrate Stein’s systematic contribution toward a theory of personal identity, one of the most difficult problems of philosophy. (shrink)

"This work is designed to be an introduction to abnormal psychology. The problems considered, however, belong equally to normal psychology. The present volume consists of selected lectures (with the exception of four) from courses on abnormal psychology delivered at the Tufts College Medical School (1908-10) and later at the University of California (1910). These again were based on a series of papers on the Unconscious published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (1908-9) of which they are elaborations. Since the lectures (...) were delivered a large amount of new material has been incorporated and the subject matter considered in more detail and more exhaustively than was practical before student bodies. The four additional lectures (X, XI, XII and XIII) appeared in abbreviated form in the same Journal (Oct., Nov., 1912) under the title "The Meaning of Ideas as Determined by Unconscious Settings." As the subconscious and its processes are fundamentals both in the structure of personality and in the many mechanisms through which personality, normal and abnormal, finds expression, the first eight lectures are devoted to its exposition. Indeed, the subconscious is not only the most important problem of psychology, it is the problem. The study of its phenomena must be preliminary to that of the functioning mechanisms of both the normal mind and of those special pathological conditions--the psycho-neuroses--which modern investigators are tracing to its perversions. It ought to be possible to construct the theory of the subconscious by inductive methods on the basis of facts of observation just as any theory of the physical sciences is constructed. This task I have set before myself as well as that of giving precision to our conception of the theory and taking it out of the domain of philosophical concepts. With this purpose in view I have endeavored to apply the method of science and construct the theory by induction from the data of observation and experiment. I have divided the subconscious into two classes, namely (1) the unconscious, or neural dispositions and processes, and (2) the coconscious, or actual subconscious ideas which do not enter the content of conscious awareness. In these lectures I have also endeavored (Lectures XIV-XVI) to develop the phenomena of the emotional innate dispositions which I conceive play one of the most fundamental parts in human personality and in determining mental and physiological behavior. Experimental methods and the well-known clinical methods of investigation have been employed by me as far as possible. The data made use of have been derived for the most part from my own observations, though confirmatory observations of others have not been neglected. Although a large number and variety of subjects or cases have been studied, as they have presented themselves in private and hospital practice, the data have been to a large extent sought in intensive studies, on particular subjects, carried on in some cases over a period of many years. These subjects, because of the ease with which subconscious and emotional phenomena were either spontaneously manifested or could be experimentally evoked, were particularly suitable for such studies and fruitful in results. It is by such intensive studies on special subjects, rather than by casual observation of many cases, that I believe the deepest insight into mental processes and mechanisms can be obtained. The favorable reception which was given to the first edition of this work has tempted me in preparing a new edition at the request of the publishers to incorporate four additional chapters dealing with the general principles underlying the structure and dynamic elements of human personality (Lecture XVII) and a study of a special problem in personality in which these principles are involved, namely, the psychogenesis of multiple personality as illustrated by a study of the case known as B.C.A. (Lectures XVIII-XX)." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

What is a human person, and what is the relation between a person and his or her body? In her third book on the philosophy of mind, Lynne Rudder Baker investigates what she terms the person/body problem and offers a detailed account of the relation between human persons and their bodies. Baker's argument is based on the 'Constitution View' of persons and bodies, which aims to show what distinguishes persons from all other beings and to (...) show how we can be fully material beings without being identical to our bodies. The Constitution View yields answers to the questions 'What am I most fundamentally?', 'What is a person?', and 'What is the relation between human persons and their bodies'? Baker argues that the complex mental property of first-person perspective enables one to conceive of one's body and mental states as one's own. (shrink)

Rosmini’s philosophy is a comprehensive effort toward the renovation of Christian thought in modern times. An intense discussion of the problem of knowledge led him to reformulate Augustine’s theory of illumination in terms of the ideal presence of universal being to the mind. Universal being is the lumen intellectus and our mind’s first object: it is implied in all our thoughts and makes them possible. Although devoid of reality, it shows remarkable features, such as infinity, necessity, and eternity. Without (...) being God, it may be called “divine,” and confers a special value to intelligent creatures, whose dignity comes from their being enlightened by universal being. The “divine” is also the seal of God’s presence in nature. The present article supports the logic of this argument. (shrink)

The German philosopher Robert Spaemann is one of the most important living thinkers in Europe today. This volume presents a selection of essays that span his career, from his first published academic essay on the origin of sociology to his more recent work in anthropology and the philosophy of religion. Spaemann is best known for his work on topical questions in ethics, politics, and education, but the light he casts on these questions derives from his more fundamental studies in (...) metaphysics, the philosophy of nature, anthropology, and the philosophy of religion. At the core of the essays contained in this book is the concept of nature and the notion of the human person. Both are best understood, according to Spaemann, in light of the metaphysics and anthropology found in the classical and Christian tradition, which provides an account of the intelligibility and integrity of things and beings in the world that safeguards their value against the modern threat of reductionism and fragmentation. A Robert Spaemann Reader shows that Spaemann's profound intellectual formation in this tradition yields penetrating insights into a wide range of subjects, including God, education, art, human action, freedom, evolution, politics, and human dignity. (shrink)

BackgroundOver the past decade, the exponential growth of the literature devoted to personalized medicine has been paralleled by an ever louder chorus of epistemic and ethical criticisms. Their differences notwithstanding, both advocates and critics share an outdated philosophical understanding of the concept of personhood and hence tend to assume too simplistic an understanding of personalization in health care.MethodsIn this article, we question this philosophical understanding of personhood and personalization, as these concepts shape the field of personalized medicine. We establish a (...) dialogue with phenomenology and hermeneutics (especially with E. Husserl, M. Merleau-Ponty and P. Ricoeur) in order to achieve a more sophisticated understanding of the meaning of these concepts We particularly focus on the relationship between personal subjectivity and objective data.ResultsWe first explore the gap between the ideal of personalized healthcare and the reality of today’s personalized medicine. We show that the nearly exclusive focus of personalized medicine on the objective part of personhood leads to a flawed ethical debate that needs to be reframed. Second, we seek to contribute to this reframing by drawing on the phenomenological-hermeneutical movement in philosophy. Third, we show that these admittedly theoretical analyses open up new conceptual possibilities to tackle the very practical ethical challenges that personalized medicine faces.ConclusionFinally, we propose a reversal: if personalization is a continuous process by which the person reappropriates all manner of objective data, giving them meaning and thereby shaping his or her own way of being human, then personalized medicine, rather than being personalized itself, can facilitate personalization of those it serves through the data it provides. (shrink)

The purpose of a first-in-human (FIH) clinical trial is to gather information about how the drug or device affects and interacts with the human body: its safety, side effects, and (potential) dosage. As such, the primary goal of a FIH trial is not participant benefit but to gain knowledge of drug or device efficacy, i.e., baseline human safety knowledge. Some FIH clinical trials carry _significant_ foreseeable risk to participants with little to no foreseeable participant benefit. Participation (...) in such trials would be a bad deal for participants, and the research is considered justifiable because of the promise of significant potential social benefit. I argue that there is an ethical tension inherent in risky FIH research and that researchers should fairly compensate risky FIH trial participants. This does not make the risk–benefit outcome more favorable for participants; rather, it amounts to a collective reckoning with the ethical tension inherent in the research. (shrink)

The central fact about the problem of personal identity is that it is a problem posed by an apparent dichotomy: the dichotomy between the objective, third-person viewpoint on the one hand and the subjective perspective provided by the first-person viewpoint on the other. Everyone understands that the mind/body problem is precisely the problem of what to do about another apparent dichotomy, the duality comprising states of consciousness on the one hand and physical states of the body on the other. (...) By contrast, contemporary discussions of the problem of personal identity generally display little or no recognition of the divide which to my mind is at the heart of the problem. As a consequence, there has been a relentlessly third-personal approach to the issue, and the consequent proposal of solutions which stand no chance at all of working. I think the idea that the problem is to be clarified by an appeal to the idea of a human being is the latest manifestation of this mistaken approach. I am thinking in particular of the claim that what ought to govern our thinking on this issue is the fact that human beings constitute a natural kind, and that standard members of this kind can be said to have some sort of essence. Related to this is the idea that ‘person’, while not itself a natural kind term, is not a notion which can be framed in entire independence of this natural kind. (shrink)

The nature of persons is a perennial topic of debate in philosophy, currently enjoying something of a revival. In this volume for the first time metaphysical debates about the nature of human persons are brought together with related debates in philosophy of religion and theology. Fifteen specially written essays explore idealist, dualist, and materialist views of persons, discuss specifically Christian conceptions of the value of embodiment, and address four central topics in philosophical theology: incarnation, resurrection, (...) original sin, and the trinity. (shrink)

This article will address Edith Stein's interests in relation to the microcosm of man, whether as a material, living, animated or spiritual body, as well as in his social, historical, community and cultural position. For Edith Stein, only through this set of interrelated and exclusive instances, each with its own particularities and yet dependent on the others. The phenomenological study of the SELF presented by the author, in the search for the Divine, for awareness of “character”, in the experience of (...) each part of one's own being, in experience, in empathy, where through philosophical anthropology Edith Stein conceives everyone as living beings, with man as a microcosm. For this reason, in the first part it will be discussed regarding The Centrality of the Body in Stein's Philosophical Anthropology. It has become a necessity within anthropology to refer to the body/empathy element. These two realities are established as essential in Stein's considerations and they are what will determine the scope of what refers to the empathic process and the Constitution of the self, elements so necessary for the recovery of the affirming reality of the human in its specification’s man/woman. In the second stage will address about the Soul and Spirit in Stein's Philosophical Anthropology. The living body is established in the fact that in addition to possessing external sensory characteristics, which can be grasped by consciousnesses, they themselves are holders of the ability to feel. Stein postulates as the first characteristic of the experienced body The Binding of the latter to an individual consciousness, to a subject. In his doctoral work, Stein turns to the characterization of an individual who has an essence that is established not only in the corporeal-psychic dimension, but also in that of spiritual appreciation. Finally, and will be closed with conclusions. (shrink)

Abstract: On standard accounts, actions are caused by reasons (Davidson), and reasons are taken to be neural phenomena. Since neural phenomena are wholly understandable from a third-person perspective, standard views have no room for any ineliminable first-personal elements in an account of the causation of action. This article aims to show that first-person perspectives play essential roles in both human and nonhuman agency. Nonhuman agents have rudimentary first-person perspectives, whereas human agents—at least rational agents and (...) moral agents—have robust first-person perspectives. The author concludes with a view of intentional causation, according to which reasons are constituted by (but not identical to) neural phenomena. The idea of constitution without identity allows for a causal account of action that automatically includes first-personal aspects of agency. (shrink)

To introduce the issue of the tracking and identification of human agents, I examine the ability of an agent to track a human person and distinguish this target from other individuals: The ability to perform person identification. First, I discuss influential mechanistic models of the perceptual recognition of human faces and people. Such models propose detailed hypotheses about the parts and activities of the mental mechanisms that control the perceptual recognition of persons. However, models based (...) on perceptual recognition are incomplete theories of person identification because they do not explain several identification behaviors that are fundamental to human social interactions. Furthermore, recognition-based models tend to appeal to the controversial concept of the “identity” of a person without explaining what determines personal identity and persistence. To overcome these limitations, I propose to integrate the face-recognition program into a broader causal-historical theory of identification. The causal-historical theory of identification complements models focused on perceptual recognition because it can account for the types of non-perceptual identification overlooked by the face-recognition program. Moreover, it can decompose the identification behaviors into tracking processes that succeed or fail to be sensitive to causal characteristics of a target. I illustrate these advantages with a discussion of the difference between the tracking of a person understood as either a causally continuous biological organism or a psychologically continuous mind. Finally, I argue that the causal-historical theory provides a theoretical framework for investigating the tracking of relations between a target and its contextual and historical attributes, such as a target's possessions. (shrink)

The concept of first-personness is well defined in grammar, but it has developed two discrepant senses in common usage and in the psychology and philosophy literatures. First-personness is taken to mean phenomenal experience , and also to mean a person's point of view. However, since we can nonconsciously perceive, judge and behave, all from a point of view which we must name ‘our own', these acts can be called first-person acts even though they are nonconscious. Therefore, I (...) propose that the main idea behind first-personness is the point of view; that it is not a unique property of consciousness; and that consciousness will be easier to understand if it is not freighted with extraneous issues. This essay explores the concepts underlying point of view and entity. Entiticity is viewed as a matter of degree and as a matter of convention. It is found most coherent to consider an entity's point of view as the total set of discriminations or interactions made possible by the entity's present state and context. Whether or not an entity is a person or is conscious is irrelevant to its having a point of view referenced to itself. Even inanimate objects can receive input and act only in so far as they are enabled or limited by their points of view. Since humans find it awkward at first to say that non-human or non-biological entities have a first-person point of view, it would be best to drop the reference to person in this context. C.S. Peirce's term ‘firstness', developed in 1891, might do nicely. This analysis of first-personness applies equally to agents as it does to subjects. Once these terms are clarified, it is easier to see how a superordinate entity reconciles conflict when its relatively autonomous subsystems have points of view discrepant from each other or from the whole. This has application in untangling confusions concerning the duality of the cerebral hemispheres and the results of their disconnection in relation to the popular assumption of personal unity. (shrink)

Abstract.In contradistinction to the contemporary human sciences, recent theological accounts of the individual‐in‐relation continue to defend the concept of the singular continuous self. Consequently, theological anthropology and the human sciences seem to offer widely divergent accounts of the sense of self‐fragmentation that many believe pervades the modern world. There has been little constructive interdisciplinary conversation in this area. In this essay I address the damaging implications of this oversight and establish the necessary conditions for future dialogue. I have (...) three primary objectives. First, I show how the notion of personal continuity acquires philosophical theological significance through its close association with the concept of personal particularity. Second, through a discussion of contemporary accounts of self‐multiplicity, I clarify the extent of theological anthropology's disagreement with the human sciences. Third, I draw upon narrative accounts of identity to suggest an alternative means of understanding the experiential continuity of personhood that maintains the tension between self‐plurality, unity, and particularity and thereby reconnects philosophical theological concerns with human‐scientific analyses of the human condition. Narrative approaches to personhood are ideally suited to this purpose, and, I suggest, offer an intriguing solution to understanding and resolving the problem of self‐fragmentation that has caused recent theological anthropology so much consternation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Aquinas’s doctrine of individuation as it applies to human beings. There are three main sections. In the first, the general lines of Aquinas’s doctrine of individuation are presented in the context of discussing an article by Joseph Owens and some other recent work on individuation. I argue for form as the primary principle of individuation and specify the uniqueness of human individuality by reference to the degrees of perfection among things. The second section (...) focuses on three ways in which a meditation on our form—the rational soul—is fruitful for understanding what makes us individuals. Here I consider, in turn, the three distinctive activities of human reason—theoretical, moral, and aesthetic. Each activity is presented as it relates to three levels of perfection in the human being. In the third section, I bring up three pertinent objections to my thesis and suggest answers to them. (shrink)

The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the “Geneva Declaration” by the World Medical Association, both in 1948, were preceded by the foundation of the United Nations in New York (1945), the World Medical Association in London (1946) and the World Health Organization in Geneva (1948). After the end of World War II the community of nations strove to achieve and sustain their primary goals of peace and security, as well as their basic premise, namely the health of (...) class='Hi'>human beings. All these associations were well aware of the crimes by medicine, in particular by the accused Nazi physicians at the Nuremberg Doctors Trial (1946/47, sentence: August 1947). During the first conference of the World Medical Association (September 1947) issues of medical ethics played a major role: and a new document was drafted concerning the values of the medical profession. After the catastrophe of the War and the criminal activities of scientists, the late 1940s saw increased scrutiny paid to fundamental questions of human rights and medical ethics, which are still highly relevant for today’s medicine and morality. The article focuses on the development of medical ethics and human rights reflected in the statement of important persons, codes and institutions in the field. (shrink)

There has been a growing interest in research concerning memory modification technologies (MMTs) in recent years. Neuroscientists and psychologists are beginning to explore the prospect of controllable and intentional modification of human memory. One of the technologies with the greatest potential to this end is optogenetics—an invasive neuromodulation technique involving the use of light to control the activity of individual brain cells. It has recently shown the potential to modify specific long-term memories in animal models in ways not yet (...) possible with other MMTs. As the therapeutic potential of optogenetics has already prompted approval of the first human trials, it is especially important and timely to consider the opportunities and dangers this technology may entail. In this article, we focus on possible consequences of optogenetics as an MMT by analyzing fundamental threats potentially associated with memory modifications: the potential disruption of personality and authenticity. (shrink)

Human dignity seems very important to us. At the same time, the concept ‘human dignity’ is extrordinarily elusive. A good way to approach the questions “What is it?” and “Why is it important?” is to raise another question first: In virtue of what do human beings have dignity? Speciesism - the idea that human beings have a particular dignity because they are humans - does not seem very convincing. A better answer says that human (...) beings have dignity because and insofar as they are persons. I discuss several versions of this idea as well as several objections against it. The most promising line of analysis says that human beings cannot survive psychologically without a very basic form of recognition and respect by others. The idea that humans have a very special dignity is the idea that they owe each other this kind of respect. All this also suggests that human dignity is inherently social. Non-social beings do not have dignity - nor do they lack it. It is because we are social animals of a certain kind that we have dignity - not so much because we are rational animals. (shrink)

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The (...) sequence of topics in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information,and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution. (shrink)

Science and its philosophical companion, Naturalism, represent reality in wholly nonpersonal terms. How, if at all, can a nonpersonal scheme accommodate the first-person perspective that we all enjoy? In this volume, Lynne Rudder Baker explores that question by considering both reductive and eliminative approaches to the first-person perspective. After finding both approaches wanting, she mounts an original constructive argument to show that a non-Cartesian first-person perspective belongs in the basic inventory of what exists. That is, the world (...) that contains us persons is irreducibly personal.After arguing for the irreducibilty and ineliminability of the first-person perspective, Baker develops a theory of this perspective. The first-person perspective has two stages, rudimentary and robust. Human infants and nonhuman animals with consciousness and intentionality have rudimentary first-person perspectives. In learning a language, a person acquires a robust first-person perspective: the capacity to conceive of oneself as oneself, in the first person. By developing an account of personal identity, Baker argues that her theory is coherent, and she shows various ways in which first-person perspectives contribute to reality. (shrink)

What do we express when we use the first-person pronoun 'I' in phrases such as 'I think' or 'I ought to'? Do we refer to ourselves as biologically unique, socially determined individuals? Or do we express a consciousness of ourselves as the bearers of thoughts we share, or can share, with all other human beings whatever their particular biological, social, or cultural background? Every year the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam invites a prominent philosopher to (...) occupy the Spinoza Chair and give two public lectures on a topic in philosophy. Beatrice Longuenesse, in these lectures, explores the contrast and complementarity between these two aspects of the use of 'I'. Her first lecture considers the first-person pronoun in relation to the exercise of our mental capacities in abstract reasoning, and in relation to our knowledge of objective facts about the world. Her second lecture explores the use of 'I' in relation to what we take to be our moral obligations. In bringing together these two fascinating lectures, this book presents contrasting aspects of the self as radically individual on the one hand, and as the bearer of universally shared capacities on the other. (shrink)

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT has two broad phases: the first is that of infancy, childhood, and adolescence; the second is that of our continuing development as adults. Without excluding the former, I wish to concentrate upon the latter in order to describe what I will argue is a spiritual form of life in the individual human being. Becoming in the order of human personhood arises out of a dynamic source that is not easy to name with accuracy. It has (...) been called the "psyche," or "subjectivity," or "personality," and sometimes "the human spirit," though the latter term often remains rather too vague for philosophical purposes. Aristotle has said that the fruits of understanding come with getting the name right. What, then, is the proper name with which to designate the dynamic principle at the center of the movement of life that is appropriate to the human person? (shrink)

There are two perspectives available from which to understand an agent's intention in acting. The first is the perspective of the acting agent: what did she take to be her end, and the means necessary to achieve that end? The other is a third person perspective that is attentive to causal or conceptual relations: was some causal outcome of the agent's action sufficiently close, or so conceptually related, to what the agent did that it should be considered part of (...) her intention? Recent goods based views in ethics are divided as to whether only the first person perspective, or a mix of both perspectives, are necessary to understand intention and action. But resolution of the issue is necessary if goods based views are to be able to deploy to principle of double effect; for that principle requires an account of how to distinguish what is genuinely a matter of intention in human action from what is not. I argue that the pure first person account is better than the mixed account. (shrink)

It might seem too obvious to start with this quotation:O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.But then, I think it is obviously correct, as Professor Waterman suggests, that "There are more things in heaven and earth" than simply the application of the scientific method to medical practice. Perhaps there are two quick comments to make about the quotation. (...) First, in Shakespeare's time, "philosophy" would have included science; second, Shakespeare apparently contemplated using "our" rather than "your." So Hamlet is speaking to us, not just to Horatio, and he's speaking about our... (shrink)

Purpose. The purpose of the study is to show the connection of romanticism with the anthropological doctrine that goes back to Hegelianism and Kantianism, and at the same time – with the concepts of the future, structuralism and postmodernism. Theoretical basis. The man is a central figure of the Romantic literary, therefore it makes sense to single out romantic human anthropological doctrine and the image of man associated with a specific historical and cultural era called the "epoch of romanticism"; (...) to show that many romantic philosophical positions remained relevant to the basic foundations of contemporary anthropological research and coincide with it in analytical and critical thinking about a man, a person, his historical and evolutionary fate. Originality. The romantic worldview determined the specifics of anthropological discourse, both logical and illogical, remaining symbols and attaching, as for example, a real historical anecdote, a popular history, a philosophical thought, a myth, a famous literary episode and the arts multiplied by creative inspiration and imagination. This tendency determined the fragmentation of thinking and the scientific image of man as a dual being, nevertheless, presented and described in all the variety of relations with the world and with himself, that allows us to call this area of thought "the romantic human science". Conclusions. Structural analysis of numerous romantic texts allows us to draw the following conclusion: with mythopoetic imagery and anthropological thought about a man, romantic writers introduced the reader to any wisdom, to philosophical understanding of their human essence, to past and modern teachings, in a way processed antique, medieval and enlightening views, in which an important place was given to reflections on the place of man in nature, society, and history. Correlating the well-known statements about a person as a descendant of the "old Adam", "person", "personality", "soul", with the modern idea of historical and social development, about the evolution of the consciousness of a person who revealed himself as an individual in modern times, with scientific and aesthetic views, the writers of the first half of the XIX century gave romantic thought anthropological meaning and, in fact, laid the foundations of historical, social, psychological, cultural and psychoanalytic anthropology. (shrink)

Personal space is the distance that people tend to maintain from others during daily life in a largely unconscious manner. For humans, personal space-related behaviors represent one form of non-verbal social communication, similar to facial expressions and eye contact. Given that the changes in social behavior and experiences that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, including “social distancing” and widespread social isolation, may have altered personal space preferences, we investigated this possibility in two independent samples. First, we compared the size (...) of personal space measured before the onset of the pandemic to its size during the pandemic in separate groups of subjects. Personal space size was significantly larger in those assessed during the onset of the pandemic. Lastly, we found that the practice of social distancing and perceived risk of being infected with COVID-19 were linked to this personal space enlargement during the pandemic. Taken together, these findings suggest that personal space boundaries expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic independent of actual infection risk level. As the day-to-day effects of the pandemic subside, personal space preferences may provide one index of recovery from the psychological effects of this crisis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IS EVERY HUMAN BEING A PERSON?* ROBERT SPAEMANN Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich, Germany I. DEFINING THE QUESTION THE PAPAL encyclical, Evangelium vitae (EV), declares solemnly that "... the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral" (EV 57). This unconditional ethical obligation to respect every human life is justified by reference to "the incomparable dignity of the human person." Such an unconditioned (...) claim is made upon us by the face of every human being we meet. The encyclical supports this claim of intuitive perception with two arguments. First and foremost, the claim to unconditional respect is based biblically and theologically on the recognition of the human being as the imago Dei. The human is the "image" of God. Humans, however, are not unconditioned simply taken in themselves ; merely as such, theirs is a most conditioned, finite being, which can be transformed from living to dead with hardly the lifting of a finger. And yet, such violence, while always possible for us physically, is absolutely impossible on another level. In the human being something "reveals" itself to us that is more than any finite and conditioned mode of being; thus, the term "image." In contrast to mere pictures, which are images only in an accidental sense, the human is created as image. Human being is being an image. Thus human being participates in the 'Translated by Richard Schenk, O.P. 463 464 ROBERT SPAEMAN incorruptibility of the One of whom the human is an image. Human beings are called to eternal life. The second and secondary argument is based on the consequences of not respecting the unconditioned dignity of the human being. The encyclical points out that an order of law in which the freedom from being at another's free disposition is lacking does not deserve the name of law; it is merely an organization of the power of the stronger over the weaker. In section nineteen the pope mentions a theory held by some who would acknowledge only those humans as subjects of legal rights who already manifest certain signs of personal autonomy. He also speaks of the theory of those who would "identify the dignity of the person with the capacity for explicitly verbal communication." Not included in this category are therefore the unborn, the dying, and severely impaired or senile humans; although not mentioned by the encyclical, it must be added that by this theory infants are excluded as well. In his book, Practical Ethics,1 the most influential proponent of this theory, Peter Singer, has declared outright that the life of a human infant is of less value than that of an adult pig.2 Because the encyclical argues for the most part theologically, it does not deal closely with the arguments proposed by Singer and his followers in their attempt to eliminate human rights and to claim that not all human beings are persons.3 The Holy Scriptures do not speak of "persons" as such, but simply of human beings. For revelation, humanity is one single family: all that are begotten of humans belong to this family. The conviction that even newlyborn children possess human dignity is reflected in the infancy 1 Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). An expanded second edition appeared in 1993 (Cambridge University Press). 2 "A week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week, a month, or even a year old. If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee" (Singer, Practical Ethics, 122-23; in the second edition this statement appears with slight modifications on p. 169). 3 Cf. also Norbert Hoerster, Abtreibung im saekularen Staat: Argumente gegen den Paragraphen 218 (Frankfurt, 1991). IS EVERY HUMAN BEING A PERSON? 465 narratives of the Gospel, where shepherds and kings worship the child at Bethlehem. The conviction that human being begins... (shrink)

Digital phenotyping will potentially enable earlier detection and prediction of mental illness by monitoring human interaction with and through digital devices. Notwithstanding its promises, it is certain that a person’s digital phenotype will at times be at odds with their first-person testimony of their psychological states. In this paper, we argue that there are features of digital phenotyping in the context of psychiatry which have the potential to exacerbate the tendency to dismiss patients’ testimony and treatment preferences, which (...) can be instances of epistemic injustice. We first explain what epistemic injustice is, and why it is argued to be an extensive problem in health and disability settings. We then explain why epistemic injustice is more likely to apply with even greater force in psychiatric contexts, and especially where digital phenotyping may be involved. Finally, we offer some tentative suggestions of how epistemic injustice can be minimised in digital psychiatry. (shrink)

As persons, we are importantly different from all other creatures in the universe. But in what, exactly, does this difference consist? What kinds of entities are we, and what makes each of us the same person today that we were yesterday? Could we survive having all of our memories erased and replaced with false ones? What about if our bodies were destroyed and our brains were transplanted into android bodies, or if instead our minds were simply uploaded to computers? (...) -/- In this engaging and accessible introduction to these important philosophical questions, Amy Kind brings together three different areas of research: the nature of personhood, theories of personal identity over time, and the constitution of self-identity. Surveying the key contemporary theories in the philosophical literature, Kind analyzes and assesses their strengths and weaknesses. As she shows, our intuitions on these issues often pull us in different directions, making it difficult to develop an adequate general theory. Throughout her discussion, Kind seamlessly interweaves a vast array of up-to-date examples drawn from both real life and popular fiction, all of which greatly help to elucidate this central topic in metaphysics. -/- A perfect text for readers coming to these issues for the first time, Persons and Personal Identity engages with some of the deepest and most important questions about human nature and our place in the world, making it a vital resource for students and researchers alike. (shrink)

Law, Person, and Community: Philosophical, Theological, and Comparative Perspectives on Canon Law takes up the fundamental question "What is law?" through a consideration of the interrelation of the concepts of law, person, and community. As with the concept of law described by secular legal theorists, canon law aims to set a societal order that harmonizes the interests of individuals and communities, secures peace, guarantees freedom, and establishes justice. At the same time, canon law rests upon a traditional understanding of the (...) spiritual end of the human person and religious nature of community.The comparison of one of the world's ancient systems of religious law with contemporary conceptions of law rooted in secular theory raises questions about the law's power to bind individuals and communities. Professor John J. Coughlin employs comparative methodology in an attempt to reveal the differing concepts of the human person reflected in both canon law and secular legal theory. Contrasting the contemporary positivistic view of law with the classical view reflected in canon law, Law, Person, and Community discusses the relationship between canon law, theology, and natural law. It also probes the interplay between the metaphysical and historical in the theory of law by an examination of canonical equity, papal authority, and the canon law of marriage. It juxtaposes the assumptions of canon law about church-state relations with those of the modern liberal state as exemplified by U.S. first amendment jurisprudence. No scholarly work has yet addressed this question of how the principles and substance of canon law, both past and present, relate to current issues in legal theory, such as the foundation of human rights and in particular the right of religious freedom for individuals and communities. (shrink)

In her essay collection First, Second, and Other Selves: Essays on Friendship and Personal Identity, well-known scholar of ancient philosophy Jennifer Whiting gathers her previously published essays taking Aristotle's theories on friendship as a springboard to engage with contemporary philosophical work on personal identity and moral psychology. Whiting examines three themes throughout the collection, the first being psychic contingency, or the belief that the psychological structures characteristic of human beings may in fact vary, not just from one (...) cultural context to another, but also from one individual to another. The second theme is the belief that friendship informs an understanding of the nature of the self, an idea that springs from Whiting's uncommon reading of Aristotle's writings on friendship. Specifically, Whiting explains a scenario in which a "virtuous agent" adopts a kind of impersonal attitude both towards herself and towards her "character" friends, loving both because they are virtuous; this scenario ties in with an examination of the Aristotelian concept of the ideal friend as an "other self," or a friendship that evolves from character rather than ego, as well as Whiting's meditation on whether or not a virtuous individual should have a "special" sort of concern for her own future self, distinct in kind from the concern that she has for others. The third theme is that of rational egoism, a concept that Whiting critiques, especially in the context of Aristotle's eudaimonism. The central tenet of the collection is the message that taking "ethocentric" attitudes both towards ourselves and towards our friends sheds light on the nature of personal identity and helps to combat ethnocentric and other objectionable forms of bias, a message that is becoming increasingly urgent in light of the recent deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. (shrink)

Background:Personal values influence nursing students’ development of professional values, which affect professional outcomes, and how nursing students react to different situations. Personal values can be shaped by different factors, including culture, gender, and age.Aims:To explore personal values held by nursing students, and to verify if and how gender and year of study affect nursing students’ personal values.Research design:A multicenter, cross-sectional study was used.Participants and research context:The whole population of nursing undergraduate students available at the time was recruited from eight centers (...) of two Universities, composing a sample of 947 students. Demographic data were collected and it was administered the Portrait Values Questionnaire.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Boards of the University of the participating centers.Findings:The study sample was mainly composed of young (92.6%, n = 877), female (77.3%, n = 732), Italian (95.8%, n = 907), and unmarried (98.6%, n = 934) nursing students. The most important value for nursing students, consistently through the years of nursing school, was Self-transcendence, which has the motivational emphasis on helping others and selflessness. Then, we found that male students had higher levels of Power (p < 0.001) and Achievement (p = 0.031), while female students outscored male students in Benevolence (p = 0.005) and Security (p = 0.006). Year of study showed no statistically significant difference.Discussion:Nursing students express high levels in hetero-directed values. Male nursing students, although they choose a stereotypically feminine profession, outscored females in stereotypical masculine values such as dominance and success. This is the first study that describes the personal value profile of undergraduate nursing students, according to the Theory of Basic Human Values, and it is a starting point for future research.Conclusion:Nursing educators might want to consider the findings from this study while guiding students in developing awareness for their personal values. (shrink)

This article presents an interpretation of Marx's idea of humans as species-beings. It argues that a group of individual beings count for Marx as species-beings if they consciously produce for others of their own kind.

Theories of the human person differ greatly in their ability to underwrite a metaphysics of resurrection. This paper compares and contrasts a number of such views in light of the Christian doctrine of resurrection. In a Christian framework, resurrection requires that the same person who exists on earth also exists in an afterlife, that a postmortem person be embodied, and that the existence of a postmortem person is brought about by a miracle. According to my view of persons (...) (the Constitution View), a human person is constituted by—but not identical to—a human organism. A person has a first-person perspective essentially, and an organism has interrelated biological functions essentially. I shall argue for the superiority the Constitution View as a metaphysical basis for resurrection. (shrink)

While there is a growing literature on “dark traits” (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first (...) draft measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and benefice... (shrink)

Marya Schechtman argues that psychological continuity accounts of personal identity, as represented by Derek Parfit's account, fail to escape the circularity objection. She claims that Parfit's deployment of quasi-memory (and other quasi-psychological) states to escape circularity implicitly commit us to an implausible view of human psychology. Schechtman suggests that what is lacking here is a coherence condition, and that this is something essential in any account of personal identity. In response to this I argue first that circularity may (...) be escaped using quasi-psychological states even with the addition of the coherence condition. Second, I argue that there is something right about the coherence condition, and a major task of this paper is to identify its proper theoretical role. I do so by reflection on integration therapies for people with multiple personality disorder (MPD). The familiar distinction between the moral and the metaphysical concept of the person is developed alongside such reflection. Connecting these two issues I argue that coherence acts as a normative constraint on accounts of personal identity, but that the normative dimension of personhood is not essential to our notion of a person tout court. (shrink)

Philosophers and Cognitive Scientists have become accustomed to distinguishing the first person perspective from the third person perspective on reality or experience. This is sometimes meant to mark the distinction between the “objective” or “intersubjective” attitude towards things and the “subjective” or “personal” attitude. Sometimes, it is meant to mark the distinction between knowledge and mere opinion. Sometimes it is meant to mark the distinction between an essentially private and privileged access to an inner world and a merely inferential (...) or speculative access to that world. No doubt there are other uses as well. But I don't care about this dichotomy here, or indeed any of these putative distinctions it is alleged to mark. Instead, I want to call attention to the central role of the less often acknowledged grammatical and phenomenological category, that of the second person. This category is essential not only for understanding the development of self-understanding, but also for the development of the moral sense that allows us to participate in the societies that constitute us as persons. The task of moral education is the cultivation of care for second persons. But we do so by extending not self-regard (for that is inextensible—others are not oneself), but by extending the spontaneous caring response we have for those with whom we immediately interact—second persons. Our moral lives, I will argue, like our cognitive lives, cannot be understood without understanding the special nature of second person relationships. In short, I will argue that the second person perspective is in fact essential to the constitution of human subjectivity, and that it permeates all forms of interpersonal consciousness and even self-consciousness. (shrink)