Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius is the philosopher who formulated the most influential definition of the person in the history of Western philosophy. This definition forms the point of departure for the substance-ontological concept of person that the book unfolds.
Key Contribution
Boethius’s classical definition reads: “A person is an individual substance of a rational nature” (naturae rationalis individua substantia, Liber de persona et duabus naturis, c. 3). This short formula contains four determinations: (1) individua — unique and unrepeatable; (2) substantia — a self-standing being, not a mere bundle of properties; (3) rationalis — endowed with a spiritual, rational nature; (4) naturae — belonging to a determinate kind of essence. Each of these four determinations is indispensable for the concept of person (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 115–130).
Central Ideas in the Book
Person Is Substance, Not Accident
Boethius’s decisive insight consists in this: the person must not be sought in the realm of supervening properties (accidents) but in the realm of substance. Person is not something that is added to a being — like a capacity or a state — but the self-standing being itself. Boethius thereby places personhood on an ontological foundation that cannot be shaken by any functionalist reduction.
Against the Confusion of Being and Doing
Because the person is substance, personhood cannot depend on the actual exercise of particular capacities. An embryo, a sleeping human being, a human being with dementia — they are all persons, because their substantial being as someone is not bound to person-behavior. This insight is the foundation for the critique of the empirical-functionalist concept of person of John Locke, Derek Parfit, and Peter Singer.
Person as a Concept of Dignity
Boethius’s definition was developed further by Alexander of Hales and Thomas Aquinas. Thomas adds that the person designates “that which is most perfect in all of nature.” Alexander makes the dignity character of the concept of person explicit. Both build on Boethius’s fundamental insight that person is a concept of being, not a mere concept of function.
Place in the Book
Boethius’s definition is analyzed in detail in the chapter Chapter 3: What Is a Person? (German) and systematically unfolded in the chapter Chapter 4: What Is Human Personhood? (German). It serves as the touchstone against which the various concepts of person are measured: the substance-ontological, the empirical-functionalist, and the relational concept of person.
Sources: Bexten 2017, pp. 115–130 (Boethius’s classical definition of the person as the point of departure for the substance-ontological concept of person).
Further sources:
- Contra Eutychen et Nestorium — English translation in: The Theological Tractates. The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand, S. J. Tester. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library 74), 1973 (the classical definition of the person: naturae rationalis individua substantia)
- De consolatione philosophiae — English translation: The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. S. J. Tester, in the same Loeb volume (the relation of fate, providence, and human dignity)
See also
- Thomas Aquinas
- Alexander of Hales
- Aristotle
- Robert Spaemann
- Hedwig Conrad-Martius
- Josef Seifert
- Person
- Personhood
- Human Person
- Substance
- Accident
- Concept of Person
- Substance-Ontological Concept of Person
- Empirical-Functionalist Concept of Person
- Relational Concept of Person
- Someone
- Dignity
- Nature
- Reason
- Body-Soul Unity
- Cognition
- Insight
- First Dimension
- Agere sequitur esse
- Person-Behavior
- Embryo
- Dementia
- Freedom
- Form and Matter
- Act and Potency
- Personalistic Norm
- Christian Philosophy
- Basal Relations
- Metaphysics
- Chapter 3: The Concept of Person (German)
- Chapter 4: Personhood (German)