Book contents
- What is a Person?
- What is a Person?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
- 1 The First Foundations: Plato and Aristotle
- 2 From Stoic Individuals and Personae to Christian Persons
- 3 Mixtures: Plotinus, Porphyry, Nemesius
- 4 Augustine’s Personae: Theology, Metaphysics, History
- 5 The Definition: Boethius and Richard of Saint Victor
- 6 Toward a Synthesis: Thomas Aquinas
- 7 Between Two Worlds: Duns Scotus
- Part II No God, no Soul: What Person?
- Part III Toward Disabling the Person
- Part IV Persons Restored or Final Solution?
- Epilogue or Epitaph?
- Appendix The World of Rights Transformed Again
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Mixtures: Plotinus, Porphyry, Nemesius
from Part I - Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2019
- What is a Person?
- What is a Person?
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Constructing the ‘Mainline Tradition’
- 1 The First Foundations: Plato and Aristotle
- 2 From Stoic Individuals and Personae to Christian Persons
- 3 Mixtures: Plotinus, Porphyry, Nemesius
- 4 Augustine’s Personae: Theology, Metaphysics, History
- 5 The Definition: Boethius and Richard of Saint Victor
- 6 Toward a Synthesis: Thomas Aquinas
- 7 Between Two Worlds: Duns Scotus
- Part II No God, no Soul: What Person?
- Part III Toward Disabling the Person
- Part IV Persons Restored or Final Solution?
- Epilogue or Epitaph?
- Appendix The World of Rights Transformed Again
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Once the Stoics had drawn attention to the qualitative uniqueness of individuals, and attributed it to differences in form, the problem of the nature of that form might expectably have been discussed within a non-pantheist, but still providentialist and specifically Platonist world view. That brings us to Plotinus, who took up the question of individuality, albeit hesitantly, even incoherently, and without apparent awareness of the full significance of the issues involved. His chief ‘anthropological’ concern was to defend Plato’s two-substance account of the soul–body relationship and to fend off Aristotelian and Stoic attacks on it. His attempt to do that – though apparently convincing the young Augustine – can hardly be called an unqualified success.1
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- Information
- What is a Person?Realities, Constructs, Illusions, pp. 35 - 43Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019