Philosophy Anthropology

• "The good is the object of all desire" - Aristotle
• Metaphysics is the study of being, which is defined as that which is
• The human person studies substances and accidents:

  • Substance refers to the "whatness" or the type of reality
  • Accidents are the attributes of a substance
• Dualism theories:

  • Dualism posits that humans are immaterial souls and physical bodies
  • Rene Descartes' cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) highlights the two substances of being human: the physical (body) and the non-physical (mind/soul)
  • Thomas Reid's dualism emphasizes that the self is a continued existence, with identity dependent on memory but not solely based on memory
• Animalism views humans as animal-persons with qualities such as rationality, intelligence, and self-consciousness

  • The Thinking Animal Argument asserts that human persons are fundamentally human beings
  • Identity as a human person depends on being the same human animal over time
• Constitutionalism argues that humans are not immaterial souls, nor identical to any material or biological substance, but are constituted by such substances

  • Constitutionalism distinguishes between "you" and "your animal body" as materially coincidental but not numerically identical
  • The Ship of Theseus illustrates the concept of material constitution
• Humeanism, or the Bundles Theory, posits that persons are not substances but bundles of perceptions

  • Humean identity is based on psychological continuity, with no underlying person, only a bundle of properties
  • Derek Parfit's Humeanism emphasizes the Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity, where identity is based on unique psychological continuity