{"id":2754,"date":"2022-04-12T17:44:41","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T17:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/chapter\/5-3-the-nature-of-the-human-person-2\/"},"modified":"2024-01-15T17:05:22","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T17:05:22","slug":"5-3-the-nature-of-the-human-person-2","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/chapter\/5-3-the-nature-of-the-human-person-2\/","title":{"raw":"5.3 The Nature of the Human Person","rendered":"5.3 The Nature of the Human Person"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\r\n\r\n<strong>LEARNING OBJECTIVES<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\nBy the end of this section you will discover:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>How the question of the nature of the human person and of personal identity is not an easy one.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What the metaphysical options are for understanding human nature.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\">Consider this classic puzzle first posed by the ancient philosopher Plutarch:<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; margin-left: 36pt;\">The ship wherein\u00a0Theseus\u00a0and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of\u00a0Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; margin-left: 36pt;\">\u2014\u2009<em>Plutarch<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"288\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/d\/df\/Greek_Galleys.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph of four reconstructed ancient Greek trireme ships\" width=\"288\" height=\"222\" \/> An EDSITEment-reconstructed Greek fleet of galleys based on sources from The Perseus Project.[\/caption]\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\">Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes introduced a further puzzle, wondering what would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced, and then used to build a second ship.\u00a0Hobbes asked which ship, if either, would be the original ship of Theseus.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">Clearly, the puzzle applies to us as well! Given the possibilities described in the previous section, we must ask \u201cwhat makes up the human person?\u201d Is the human person one kind of thing or a combination of two kinds of realities? Most of us have grown up to believe that we are made up of two separate components: an ideal \u201cmind\u201d and a material \u201cbody\u201d that interact with each other throughout our lives.<\/p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><ins><strong><strong><strong>Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/trqDnLNRuSc[\/embed]\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><ins><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=trqDnLNRuSc&amp;list=PLUHoo4L8qXthO958RfdrAL8XAHvk5xuu9&amp;index=19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Or watch the video here<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">As with the broader question of the nature of all reality, the metaphysical possibilities for what constitutes the nature of human reality seem to be three:<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>THE HUMAN BEING IS MADE OF:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<table class=\"grid landscape\" style=\"height: 197px;\">\r\n<thead>\r\n<tr class=\"shaded\" style=\"height: 15px;\">\r\n<td style=\"height: 15px; width: 560px; text-align: center;\">ONE SUBSTANCE<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"height: 15px; width: 616.989px; text-align: center;\">TWO SUBSTANCES<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/thead>\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"width: 560px;\">PHYSICALISM: what constitutes \u201cme\u201d is really only a physical body, the brain being the center of personality<\/td>\r\n<td style=\"width: 616.989px;\" rowspan=\"2\">DUALISM: what constitutes \u201cme\u201d are really two substances, the physical body\/brain and the mind; these interact with each other.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td style=\"width: 560px;\">IDEALISM: what constitutes \u201cme\u201d is really only pure thought; I am a mind, body is just a mental formation of mind<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">But what do we mean by a \u201cperson?\u201d This is not as easy a question as it may first appear.<\/div>\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><ins><strong><strong>Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy #21<\/strong><\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GxM9BZeRrUI[\/embed]\r\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GxM9BZeRrUI&amp;list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR&amp;index=22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Or watch the video here<\/a><\/p>\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n<div>\r\n<p class=\"import-normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\"><strong>Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div>\r\n<p class=\"hanging-indent\">Campana, Ma\u00eetre des Cassoni. \u201cTheseus and the Minotaur.\u201d<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>Wikimedia Commons<\/i>, 1500, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Ma\u00eetre_des_Cassoni_Campana_-_Th\u00e9s\u00e9e_et_le_Minotaure_-_1500-1525.jpg. Accessed 17 May 2022.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<div>\r\n<p class=\"hanging-indent\">CrashCourse.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19<\/i>.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>YouTube<\/i>, YouTube, 27 June 2016, https:\/\/youtu.be\/trqDnLNRuSc. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div>\r\n<p class=\"hanging-indent\">CrashCourse.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy #21<\/i>.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>YouTube<\/i>, YouTube, 25 July 2016, https:\/\/youtu.be\/GxM9BZeRrUI. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"textbox shaded\">\n<p><strong>LEARNING OBJECTIVES<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>By the end of this section you will discover:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How the question of the nature of the human person and of personal identity is not an easy one.<\/li>\n<li>What the metaphysical options are for understanding human nature.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\">Consider this classic puzzle first posed by the ancient philosopher Plutarch:<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; margin-left: 36pt;\">The ship wherein\u00a0Theseus\u00a0and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of\u00a0Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff; margin-left: 36pt;\">\u2014\u2009<em>Plutarch<\/em><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 288px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/d\/df\/Greek_Galleys.jpg\" alt=\"A photograph of four reconstructed ancient Greek trireme ships\" width=\"288\" height=\"222\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An EDSITEment-reconstructed Greek fleet of galleys based on sources from The Perseus Project.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\">Plutarch thus questions whether the ship would remain the same if it were entirely replaced, piece by piece. Centuries later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes introduced a further puzzle, wondering what would happen if the original planks were gathered up after they were replaced, and then used to build a second ship.\u00a0Hobbes asked which ship, if either, would be the original ship of Theseus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">Clearly, the puzzle applies to us as well! Given the possibilities described in the previous section, we must ask \u201cwhat makes up the human person?\u201d Is the human person one kind of thing or a combination of two kinds of realities? Most of us have grown up to believe that we are made up of two separate components: an ideal \u201cmind\u201d and a material \u201cbody\u201d that interact with each other throughout our lives.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><ins><strong><strong><strong>Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-1\" title=\"Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/trqDnLNRuSc?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><ins><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=trqDnLNRuSc&amp;list=PLUHoo4L8qXthO958RfdrAL8XAHvk5xuu9&amp;index=19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Or watch the video here<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\">As with the broader question of the nature of all reality, the metaphysical possibilities for what constitutes the nature of human reality seem to be three:<\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>THE HUMAN BEING IS MADE OF:<\/strong><\/p>\n<table class=\"grid landscape\" style=\"height: 197px;\">\n<thead>\n<tr class=\"shaded\" style=\"height: 15px;\">\n<td style=\"height: 15px; width: 560px; text-align: center;\">ONE SUBSTANCE<\/td>\n<td style=\"height: 15px; width: 616.989px; text-align: center;\">TWO SUBSTANCES<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 560px;\">PHYSICALISM: what constitutes \u201cme\u201d is really only a physical body, the brain being the center of personality<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 616.989px;\" rowspan=\"2\">DUALISM: what constitutes \u201cme\u201d are really two substances, the physical body\/brain and the mind; these interact with each other.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 560px;\">IDEALISM: what constitutes \u201cme\u201d is really only pure thought; I am a mind, body is just a mental formation of mind<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div class=\"textbox shaded\">But what do we mean by a \u201cperson?\u201d This is not as easy a question as it may first appear.<\/div>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><ins><strong><strong>Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy #21<\/strong><\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-2\" title=\"Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy #21\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GxM9BZeRrUI?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"import-Normal\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GxM9BZeRrUI&amp;list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNgK6MZucdYldNkMybYIHKR&amp;index=22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Or watch the video here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"import-normal\" style=\"text-align: center; text-align: center;\"><strong>Works Cited<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"hanging-indent\">Campana, Ma\u00eetre des Cassoni. \u201cTheseus and the Minotaur.\u201d<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>Wikimedia Commons<\/i>, 1500, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Ma\u00eetre_des_Cassoni_Campana_-_Th\u00e9s\u00e9e_et_le_Minotaure_-_1500-1525.jpg. Accessed 17 May 2022.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"hanging-indent\">CrashCourse.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>Personal Identity: Crash Course Philosophy #19<\/i>.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>YouTube<\/i>, YouTube, 27 June 2016, https:\/\/youtu.be\/trqDnLNRuSc. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"hanging-indent\">CrashCourse.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>Personhood: Crash Course Philosophy #21<\/i>.<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><i>YouTube<\/i>, YouTube, 25 July 2016, https:\/\/youtu.be\/GxM9BZeRrUI. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":"cc-by-nc"},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[62,63],"license":[55],"class_list":["post-2754","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless","contributor-daniel-g-shaw","contributor-ph-d","license-cc-by-nc"],"part":2740,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2935,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2754\/revisions\/2935"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/2740"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/2754\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/introtophilosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}