WHAT IS IT TO BE A PERSON?

Authors

  • Mohammad Reza TAHMASBI The University of Queensland, Australia. Mailing address: 307-9088 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill, ON, L4C 6Z9, CANADA. Email: mohammadreza.tahmasbi@uqconnect.edu.au

Keywords:

Person, Reflexive self-consciousness, Criterialism, First potentialities, Second potentialities

Abstract

I will deal with the synchronic question of persons to clarify the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a person. Having reflexive self-consciousness is both the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a person. I discuss the relationship between having reflexive self-consciousness and the other properties which uniquely belong to persons ‘i.e.,’ being a moral agent, being a rational agent and having free will. A problem arises when one defines a person based on having reflexive self-consciousness. “Is a sleeping human being still a person?” To resolve the problem, I will appeal to Aristotle’s distinction between first and second potentialities.

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STUDIA UBB PHILOSOPHIA, Volume 60 (LX), No. 2, August 2015

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Published

2015-08-28

How to Cite

TAHMASBI, M. R. (2015). WHAT IS IT TO BE A PERSON?. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philosophia, 60(2), 19–40. Retrieved from http://193.231.18.162/index.php/subbphilosophia/article/view/5855

Issue

Volume 60, No. 2, August 2015

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Articles

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