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The Definition of Person

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Jenny Teichman
Jenny Teichman
Affiliation:
New Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

In one of the Theological Tractates, Boethius wrote ‘ we have found the definition of Person, viz: “The individual substance of a rational nature”’. He justifies the definition partly by a consideration of Latin and Greek etymologies and partly by stating ‘what Person cannot be affirmed of’. Person cannot be affirmed of Universals, accidents, relations, lifeless bodies, living bodies without sense (e.g. trees), nor of ‘that which is bereft of mind and reason’.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 60 , Issue 232 , April 1985 , pp. 175 - 185
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1985

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References

1 Boethius, ‘A Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius’, The Theological Tractates, translated by Stewart, H. F. (London: Heinemann, 1918), 85.Google Scholar

2 Aquinas, On Spiritual Creatures (Article VIII), translated by FitzGerald, M. C. (Milwaukee:Marquette University Press, 1949), 86-87.Google Scholar

3 Locke, , Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London: Dent, 1961), 280.Google Scholar

4 Strawson, P. F., Individuals (London: Methuen, 1959), 104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Hidé, Ishiguro, ‘The Primitiveness of the Concept of a Person’, Philosophical Subjects: Essays Presented to P. F. Strazvson, Straaten, Zak Van (ed.) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 62-75.Google Scholar

6 M., Tooley, ‘A Defense of Abortion and Infanticide’, The Problem of Abortion, Feinberg, Joel (ed.) (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1973), 51-91.Google Scholar

7 This is one of the senses discussed by Boethius.

8 J., Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law (London: Centenary Press, 1944), passim.Google Scholar