Metaphysics is the science of being qua being — the question of that which is, insofar as it is. Spaemann formulates the central thesis: “There is no ethics without metaphysics” (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 27 ff.). Without insight into the being of the person, her dignity cannot be grounded. Aristotle establishes metaphysics as “First Philosophy”; Thomas Aquinas deepens it as the science of being. The question “What is human personhood?” is a genuinely metaphysical question: it asks not after empirical properties, but after the being of the human person.
Without a metaphysical grounding, ethics becomes untethered. Without the substance-ontological concept of person, it cannot be grounded why every human being is a person. Without essential laws, there are no inalienable rights. Without a constitutive nature, dignity becomes the product of social ascription.
Heidegger diagnoses a “forgetfulness of being” in modern philosophy. The dissertation transfers this to the oblivion of the person: modernity forgets not only being, but also the personhood of the human being. Husserl seeks to return “to the things themselves.” Conrad-Martius joins phenomenology with real ontology and shows that the archphenomena point to real being.
The empirical-functionalist concept of person rejects metaphysics. Yet the dissertation shows that this is itself a metaphysical position — an implicit ontology that reduces being to what is measurable. Descartes’ division between res cogitans and res extensa forms one root of the modern oblivion of the person, because it renders the body-soul unity of the person unintelligible.
Chapter assignment: Chapter 2: Method, Chapter 3: What is a Person?
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Aristotle: Metaphysics, Book IV (Γ). (on metaphysics as “First Philosophy”)
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, I, qq. 2–3. (on the science of being and the question of God)
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’. Transl. Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. (on the connection between metaphysics and ethics)
- Heidegger, Martin: Sein und Zeit (1927). Tübingen: Niemeyer. (German) (on the diagnosis of the “forgetfulness of being”)
- Husserl, Edmund: Logical Investigations. Transl. J. N. Findlay. London/New York: Routledge, 2001. (on the return “to the things themselves”)
- Conrad-Martius, Hedwig: Das Sein (1957). München: Kösel. (German) (on the connection between phenomenology and real ontology)
- Seifert, Josef: Back to ‘Things in Themselves’. A Phenomenological Foundation for Classical Realism. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. (on realistic phenomenology)
- Reinach, Adolf: Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (1913). In: Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung. (German) (on the a priori analysis of essences)
- Pascal, Blaise: Pensées (1670). (on the relation between reason and faith)
See also
Truth, Insight, Cognition, Person, Personhood, Dignity, Substance, Act and Potency, Form and Matter, Essential Law, Archphenomenon, Oblivion of the Person, Concept, Human Person, Nature, Agere sequitur esse, Personalist Norm, Concept of Person, Substance-Ontological Concept of Person, Empirical-Functionalist Concept of Person, Someone, Soul, Body, Body-Soul Unity, Freedom, Love, Reason, Interiority, Self-Consciousness, Embryo, Basal Relations, Robert Spaemann, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Edmund Husserl, Rene Descartes, Martin Heidegger, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Josef Seifert, Adolf Reinach, Blaise Pascal, Chapter 2: Method, Chapter 3: Concept of Person