A COMPARISON OF ARISTOTLE AND STRAWSON ON THE CONCEPT OF A PERSON

I intend to achieve two main goals in this dissertation. First, I intend to reconstruct Aristotle's theory of a (human) person. Second, I intend to compare Aristotle's theory of a person with P. F. Strawson's theory of a person in an attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of one theory as compared with the other.;Since a necessary condition for the existence of a person is that it have a soul of a certain kind, I devote Chapter II to an examination of Aristotle's theory of the soul in the De Anima. I also give a critical analysis of his doctrines of the active and passive minds, and I investigate the extent to which Aristotle was a materialist.;Since Aristotle relies on a certain theory of the soul in the Nicomachean Ethics, I devote Chapter III to an examination of this theory of the soul and to Aristotle's discussion of reason in the Nicomachean Ethics. I also argue that Aristotle uses a theory of the soul in the Nicomachean Ethics that is different from the theory of the soul that he develops in the De Anima.;Having explored Aristotle's theory of a person, I devote Chapter IV to a critical analysis of P. F. Strawson's theory of a person. The source of my account of Strawson's theory of a person is Chapter III, titled "Persons," of his book Individuals. My discussion of Strawson's theory of a person touches on his views of descriptive metaphysics, basic particulars, and P- and M-predication. I consider criticisms that have been raised against various aspects of Strawson's theory of a person by Joseph Margolis, Roland Puccetti, Jerome A. Shaffer, and Bernard Williams.;I devote the first chapter to a consideration of two questions: "What makes an individual thing to be a person?" and "How can we decide when the concept of a human person applies to an individual thing?" Relying heavily on Aristotle's discussion of substance and essence in Metaphysics VII, I arrive at the conclusion that the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a person is an ensouled body. I also arrive at the conclusion that the necessary and sufficient condition for applying the concept of a person to an individual is that the individual have the essence of a person.;Finally, I devote the last chapter to a comparison of Aristotle's and Strawson's theories of a person. I conclude that one advantage of Strawson's theory of a person is that it recognizes the need to explain how we have non-observational knowledge of ourselves. An account of the inner, personal aspect of the person is missing, for the most part, from Aristotle's theory of a person. Nevertheless, I also conclude that Aristotle's account of a person is more successful than Strawson's account of the person in explaining the similarities and the differences between persons and other animals.