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Full Description
For a human being to exist, does it require an immaterial mind, a physical body, a functioning brain, a soul?
Is there a shared nature common to all human beings? What essential qualities might define this nature? These questions are among the most widely discussed topics in the history of philosophy and remain subjects of perennial interest and controversy. The Nature of Human Persons offers a metaphysical investigation of the composition of the human essence.
Jason Eberl also considers the criterion of identity for a developing human being—that is, what is required for a human being to continue existing as a person despite undergoing physical and psychological changes over time? Eberl places Thomas Aquinas's account of human nature into direct comparison with several prominent contemporary theories: substance dualism, emergentism, animalism, constitutionalism, four-dimensionalism, and embodied mind theory. These theories inform conclusions regarding when human beings first come into existence (at conception, during gestation, or after birth), how we ought to define death for human beings, and whether (and if so how) human beings may survive death. Ultimately, The Nature of Human Persons argues that the Thomistic account of human nature addresses the matters of human nature and survival more holistically than other theories and offers a cohesive portrait of one's continued existence from conception through life to death and beyond.
Contents
Foreword by Christopher Kaczor
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. What Am I? Questions of Human Nature and Identity
2. This is Us: Hylomorphic View of Human Nature
3. I Think, Therefore...: Varieties of Dualism
4. Thou Art Dust: Varieties of Materialism
5. Starting Out: The Beginning of Human Persons
6. End of Line: The Death of Human Persons
7. Is This All that I Am? Post-Mortem Persons
8. Who is My Sister or Brother? Treating Persons Ethically
List of Aquinas's Works and Abbreviations
Bibliography
Index
