Persons and personality: a contemporary inquiry

Abstract

Conceptions of the human person, often implicit, underlie many contemporary ethical controversies, particularly in science and medicine. This inquiry examines the concept from a range of disciplinary perspectives, setting out the polarity between a materialist, reductionist understanding of persons as purposeless products of cosmic chaos and a theistic dualism that posits the “soul” as the essential component of personhood. Philosophical analysis explores the person as a biological entity, a subject of consciousness, and a bearer of ethical attributes, arguing for a unitary psychophysical subject against reductionist challenges to personal identity. The concept is further examined as a social and cultural construct, as a legal entity, and as it functions in medicine, psychology, and literary criticism. The work concludes with theological views, presenting the person as an embodied, relational being-in-process and exploring holistic, non-dualist anthropologies in both modern and early Christian thought. Throughout, the inquiry addresses whether a person is merely a complex biological organism or possesses an essential inner self that confers a unique status and value. – AI-generated abstract.