What Is a Person?: Realities, Constructs, Illusions (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781108478076)

In this book, John M. Rist offers an account of the concept of 'person' as it has developed in the West, and how it has become alien in a post-Christian culture. He begins by identifying the 'mainline tradition' about persons as it evolved from the time of Plato to the High Middle Ages, then turns to successive attacks on it in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, then proceeds to the 'five ways' in which the tradition was savaged or distorted in the nineteenth century and beyond. He concludes by considering whether ideas from contemporary philosophical movements, those that combine a closer analysis of human nature with a more traditional metaphysical background, may enable the tradition to be restored. A timely book on a theme of universal significance, Rist ponders whether we persons matter, and how we have reached a position where we are not sure whether we do.

Author: John M. Rist
ISBN-10: 1108478077
ISBN-13: 9781108478076
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/30/2020
Pages: 294
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 07/01/2020