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Explores how the concept of person developed from both non-Christian and Christian sources and the ensuing of post-Christian culture.
List of contents
Part I. Constructing the 'Mainline Tradition': 1. The first foundations: Plato and Aristotle; 2. From Stoic individuals and personae to Christian persons; 3. Mixtures: Plotinus, Porphyry, Nemesius; 4. Augustine's personae: theology, metaphysics, history; 5. The definition: Boethius and Richard of Saint Victor; 6. Toward a synthesis: Thomas Aquinas; 7. Between two worlds: Duns Scotus; Part II. No God, No Soul; What Person?: 8. Virtue, 'virtue', rights; 9. Descartes on soul, self, mind, nature; 10. Personal identity from Hobbes to Locke; 11. After Locke; 12. Sympathy or empathy: Richardson, Hume, Smith; 13. Ambiguous Rousseau's soul and 'moi'; 14. Kant's rational autonomy; Part III. Toward Disabling the Person: 15. Introducing the five ways; 16. Assimilation and homogenization; 17. The way of Prometheus; 18. Whistling in the humanitarian wind; 19. Virtual morality: propaganda as social glue; 20. The way to an absolute nihilism; Part IV. Persons Restored or Final Solution?: 21. Parfit and Heidegger; 22. Strawson and Nagel; 23. Personalism, phenomenology, Edith Stein; 24. God made Adam and Eve.
About the author
John Rist is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Toronto. Author of more than a dozen books and over a hundred articles on ancient philosophy, patristics, and ethics, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Aquinas Medalist of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.
Summary
Explores how the concept of person developed from both non-Christian and Christian sources and the ensuing impact of post-Christian culture. This book considers whether we have rights as persons, whether we 'matter', and how we have reached a position where we are not sure whether we do.
