The word “person” possesses an extraordinary breadth of meaning: it can be a mere counting word, a name, a social role, an idea, a unique being, a spiritual Substance, a concept of Dignity, or a being with certain capacities. The dissertation distinguishes eighteen different meanings of the word (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 61—65). Most philosophical controversies about the person arise from the fact that different interlocutors mean something entirely different by the same word — without noticing it.
From the book
“When is someone a person? If someone is someone, then this means: he is a person… whoever is someone always was someone.” — Robert Spaemann
— The Human Being as an Independent Being in Relation (German), Chapter 4
At the core of the substance-ontological concept of person defended here stands the insight: a person is a Someone, not a mere something — a unique, unrepeatable, independent being with a rational nature. Boethius formulated the classical definition: “The person is an individual substance of a rational nature.” Thomas Aquinas adds: “The person signifies that which is most perfect in the whole of nature.” The concept of person is at the same time always a concept of Dignity, as Alexander of Hales already observed: “The person is a matter of morality, because it expresses a property pertaining to dignity.”
Personhood is not an added property, but the independent being itself — the substrate underlying all capacities. It is an archphenomenon that cannot be reduced to anything impersonal. Whoever reduces the person to its Person-Behavior confuses the ground of being with its expressions. The Personalistic Norm holds that the person is to be affirmed and loved for its own sake.
Chapter assignment: Chapter 3: What Is a Person? (German), Chapter 1: Introduction (German)
Presently Existing Person
The presently existing person is a Human Person who lives and acts at the present moment. It is distinguished from the future person, but possesses the same ontological Dignity (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 320 ff.).
The distinction is not ontological-substantial, but temporal. A future person is not less a person, but merely does not yet exist. From precisely this arises the specific Responsibility of the present person: it bears an anticipatory responsibility for the conditions under which future persons will live. This concerns in particular intergenerational Justice and ecological responsibility.
Spaemann emphasizes that the temporality of existence does not relativize the concept of person. Personhood is not a gradual feature that increases or decreases with presentness.
Ontological relations:
- is a form of: Human Person
- (inverse) mutually exclusive with: Future Person
- (inverse) domain of: has anticipatory responsibility for
- (inverse) domain of: owes to future persons
Future Person
A future person is a Human Person who has not yet been begotten and therefore does not yet really exist. It is in the mode of possible being (potentia objectiva). Since no subject exists in which Personhood and ontological Dignity could inhere, the future person does not yet possess real personhood and does not yet possess real ontological dignity.
Decisive, however, is this: as soon as it is begotten, it immediately and inalienably possesses full personhood and full ontological dignity. The certainty of this future personhood already grounds the present ethical duty toward future persons. This concerns in particular questions of the natural foundations of life, genetic technology, and entrepreneurial decision-making. Our actions today shape the conditions under which future persons will be able to unfold their personhood.
The future person is mutually exclusive with the present person and the past person.
Ontological Classification
Superordinate concept: Entity
Ontological relations:
- has mode of being: Possible Being
- mutually exclusive with: Presently Existing Person, Past Person
Anticipatory Responsibility
Ontological relation: Every presently existing person has an anticipatory Responsibility for future persons. This responsibility is grounded not in an already real Dignity of the future person, but in: (1) the certainty that every future person will have dignity (the necessity of Personhood as an essential law), (2) the Personalistic Norm, which demands the affirmation of personhood across time, (3) the Third Dimension of the acting person itself: only responsible action perfects the person qualitatively.
- Domain: Presently Existing Person
- Range: Future Person
Ontological classification: Superordinate concepts: Spiritual Substance, Archphenomenon; subordinate concepts: Human Person, Non-Human Person
Ontological relations:
- surpasses in dignity: Animal Substance, Higher Animal
- essentially distinct from: Higher Animal
- mutually exclusive with: Artificial Intelligence, Commodity
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Boethius (ca. 512–522): Contra Eutychen et Nestorium (Liber de persona et duabus naturis), ch. 3 (“rationalis naturae individua substantia”).
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I, q. 29, a. 3 (“persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura”).
- Alexander of Hales: Summa Theologica, Lib. III, Inq. 1 (ca. 1245) (the person as “res naturae cum distinctione proprietatis ad dignitatem pertinente”).
- Spaemann, Robert, Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, transl. Oliver O’Donovan, Oxford University Press 2006.
See also
Personhood, Person-Behavior, Someone, Dignity, Substance, Soul, Body, Body-Soul Unity, Cognition, Freedom, Love, Embryo, Forgetfulness of the Person, Human Person, Nature, Archphenomenon, Personalistic Norm, Self-Consciousness, Reason, Interiority, Intentionality, Self-Transcendence, Affirmation, Act and Potency, Form and Matter, Agere sequitur esse, Basal Relations, Concept of Person, Substance-Ontological Concept of Person, Empirical-Functionalist Concept of Person, Relational Concept of Person, Dementia, Fertilization, Personal Life, Metaphysics, Essential Law, Third Dimension, Second Dimension, First Dimension, Robert Spaemann, Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, Josef Seifert, Karol Wojtyła, René Descartes, Martin Heidegger, Chapter 4: Personhood (German), Chapter 3: Concept of Person (German)