1.4 How This Book Proceeds
The question “What is human personhood?” cannot be answered in a single step. One must proceed carefully, and in a definite order: clarify concepts before making claims, lay foundations before drawing conclusions. This book follows a path structured as follows:
The next chapter (Chapter 2) deals with method: How does one actually think about such questions? Can one arrive at secure knowledge here, or is it all merely a matter of opinion? The answer will be: yes, there is a method of philosophical reflection that leads to genuine insights. This method is neither a proof in the mathematical sense nor mere speculation. It consists in bringing reality attentively into view and in carefully and honestly interpreting, in thought, what shows itself. The point is to recognize essential connections — that is, not merely to describe what something looks like, but to understand what it is.
Chapter 3 then poses the question: What is a person in the first place? Before we can ask what constitutes human personhood, we must clarify what the word “person” actually means. For the word is used in very different ways in everyday language and in philosophy. It turns out that there are fundamentally different concepts of person — and that it makes a real difference which one we use. Some concepts capture the reality of the person; others curtail it. This chapter examines the most important concepts of person from intellectual history and asks which is the most adequate.
Chapter 4 is the heart of the book: What is human personhood? Here the three basic ideas sketched above are unfolded. What does it mean that the human being is a spiritual substance in the body? What do body and soul mean, and how are they connected? How can it be shown that personhood is fundamentally different from what a person does? When does human personhood begin? And how does the one personhood of the human being unfold in its three layers — from fundamental existence through conscious life to moral unfolding?
Chapter 5 looks at the flip side: What happens when we forget what a person is? Here the phenomenon of the oblivion of the person is examined in its various forms — in theory and in practice. This chapter shows what is at stake when we fail to recognize the human being for what he is. It also shows how widespread and how dangerous this forgetting is — and why remembering what the human being is amounts not to an academic project but to a moral necessity.
Chapter 6 summarizes the results and looks ahead. It draws together the main findings and shows what consequences they have — for thinking and for acting.