Acknowledgements
No book is written alone. And a doctoral thesis least of all.
In the acknowledgements of my dissertation I wrote that the question of human personhood is one of the few truly great questions of humanity — a question to which there is no final, all-encompassing answer, because the human being cannot fully know himself. It was precisely the greatness of this question and its unforeseen challenges that motivated me to attempt an answer nonetheless. Such an attempt, of course, always remains piecemeal. But it is an honest one.
My heartfelt thanks go to my two doctoral supervisors: Prof. Walter Schweidler, who, in many conversations in person, gave me guiding inspiration and expert advice, and who, through the doctoral colloquia, gave me the opportunity to present my research findings and put them up for discussion. And Prof. Günther Pöltner, who drew my attention to important works on the subject. Both have deeply shaped my thinking.
I thank the European Family Foundation for the completion grant that made it possible for me to finish this work.
I thank the many people — professors, friends, companions along the way — who have accompanied me in the course of my studies and my life. Among the many, I would like to single out Prof. Josef Seifert, who has shaped my philosophical thinking in a special way.
And I thank my family. The help and love I have received and continue to receive from them is the greatest gift. For what makes gratitude possible at all is the gift of personal life itself. And gratitude — as I learned while writing this work — is itself a deeply personal act: only persons can thank one another. In giving thanks, we acknowledge the personhood of the other.
Continue reading: To You, the Reader →