a quote every theology student working on the Trinity or Incarnation should memorize

Respected Catholic philosopher Alfred J. Freddoso corrects some pervasive baloney about persons which theologians are still repeating, these 22 years later! The asterisk marks his footnote – this whole passage is an aside in a very rich paper of his. Out of politeness, I omit the author of the wrongheaded passage, and I’ve added some bold highlighting to the whole thing. We’ve been over some of this before, but I think Freddoso puts it all very, very well.

…the many contemporary philosophers who accept a basically Aristotelian (as opposed to, say, Lockean or Humean) account of substance will have little difficulty with the metaphysical analysis of a person as a suppositum [ultimate subject of properties] with an intellectual nature [with essential powers of freely willing and knowing]. In fact, such philosophers are likely to be bemused by the assertion, sometimes heard issuing from the mouths of modern theologians, that the medieval notion of a person has been preempted or superceded in “modern thought”.

* One can only conclude that those who make assertions like this have a disappointingly superficial and unduly selective acquaintance with the voluminous recent philosophical literature on substance, personhood and identity. The medieval conception of a person has not, to the best of my knowledge, been discredited in modern thought. To the contrary, I, like a number of other philosophers – including many who care not a whit about theology – believe it to be essentially correct…

*[Freddoso’s footnote:] The following passage is not atypical:

“…nothing can be done to conceal the real shift between the ancient and the modern concept of ‘person’. Classical theology spoke of a rational being existing in its own right. It failed to express interpersonal relations in its account… Modern thought latches onto self-awareness, freedom, and – in a particular way – intersubjectivity as key characteristics of personhood. We become persons in dealing with other persons, sharing a common language and experiencing a common history. Human persons exist only in the plural. We repeat the traditional word (‘person’) at our peril. It has changed its meaning. …” [author omitted]

Such talk may simply reflect a harmless misunderstanding, since the medieval account clearly entails that persons have natures intrinsically disposed towards self-awareness, free action and interpersonal relations. Or perhaps the writer is innocently confusing a metaphysical analysis of personhood with a psychological account of paradigmatic personhood or personal flourishing. However, the implications are a bit more disturbing if we take statements like the above as serious attempts to state sober metaphysical truths. Is the writer claiming, for instance, that self-awareness and the power to act freely and engage in meaningful intersubjective relationships are metaphysically necessary conditions for being a person? If so, this bit of news will not be welcomed by those many human beings who happen to be mentally retarded, insane, senile, comatose, or, for that matter, sound sleepers – not to mention, more poignantly in view of the fact that the author is a Catholic priest, fetuses and newly born infants. Again, in claiming that “we become persons in dealing with other persons,” does the author really intend to propose the metaphysical thesis that one and the same individual can in the normal course of of things first be a non-person and then be a person? Of course, if the assertion that human persons exist only in the plural is meant to express a metaphysical necessity, it will at least have the virtue of bringing comfort to anyone beset by an inordinate fear of being the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust. But such an assertion is itself unlikely to survive the devastation wrought by careful philosophical scrutiny.

– Alfed J. Freddoso, “Human Nature, Potency and the Incarnation,” Faith & Philosophy 3:1 January 1986, pp. 29, 49-50.

To our theologian friends: yes, very many philosophers, and in particular Christian ones, accept a broadly Aristotelian account of persons – that persons are fundamental things which persist through time and change, and have essential and non-essential properties. There are of course rival views, and Hume does have a few fans out there. A couple of good (and free) places to start, in getting your head around what recent philosophers have argued about persons, would be Personal Identity in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Dualism and Mind in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.