Persons and the Personal

Abstract

My thought about my wife or child involves an idea of her as a unique, irreplaceable individual who, in a significant sense, persists through time despite radical changes in her characteristics. This is the picture which is embodied in my responses to her. Now, how do these facts about our feelings towards and treatment of certain particular individuals connect with the general ‘metaphysical’ question: ‘Are people creatures of that kind?’ In my last chapter I suggested that if one views this relationship in a certain way one will, if one is thinking clearly, find oneself pushed to wards (if not beyond) some form of the denial of the reality of the self. The alternative way of viewing this relationship which I would favour should be clear from my treatment of other dimensions of our thought about people in Parts I and II. In brief, we should not think of a ‘metaphysical account of what a person is’ as something which might be established prior to and independently of one’s commitment to particular forms of concern for people; and thus as something which might justify that form of concern. Rather, a metaphysical picture of persons is inevitably an expression of one’s commitment to a certain ideal in one’s relations with others.