The Presence of Persons

Abstract

In this chapter the book’s concept of coming into the presence of persons is delineated. The meaning of “person” used in this book is the ordinary and commonly used meaning of “person,” but the category of coming into the presence of persons requires some commentary, and that is provided in this chapter. Though the experience of coming into the presence of persons phenomenally presents itself as a unified experience, that experience has four interlocking elements or aspects on the analysis developed in this book: (1) the attainment of an experienced awareness of the moral necessity of treating those persons into whose presence one has come not merely as means, (2) the attainment of an awareness of a primary relationship to them as persons, (3) coming to a sense of respect or sympathy for them as persons, or to some other response in the respect-love range, and (4) coming to a realization of the inherent worth they have by virtue of being persons.