The Person

The Person

In everyday language, the word person refers to a being with reasoning power who has consciousness about himself and who has his own identity . The excluding example is usually man , although some extend the concept to other species that populate this planet.

A person is a being capable of living in society and has sensitivity, in addition to having intelligenceand will, typical aspects of humanity. For psychology , a person is someone specific (the concept encompasses the physical and psychic aspects of the subject that define it according to its unique and unique condition).

In the field of law , a person is everything that, by its nature, is entitled to have rights and assume obligations . That is why we talk about different types of people: natural persons (as human beingsare defined ) and people of ideal or legal existence (group where corporations , societies , the State , social organizations , etc. are grouped ).

Natural or natural persons are contemplated from a concept of a legal nature that was drafted by Roman jurists. Currently, natural persons have, by the mere fact of existing , with various attributes recognized by law.

Legal or moral persons are those entities that, in order to carry out certain purposes of collective scope , are backed by legal norms that recognize their capacity to be holders of rights and to contract obligations.

Finally, it should be noted that the basic grammatical trait that the so-called personal pronouns reflect is designated as a grammatical person . This property offers the possibility of regulating the deictic mode that is required to determine which role the speaker occupies, the listeners and the rest of those involved in the structure of the preaching. In the Spanish language , there are three grammatical persons in the singular and another three persons in the plural.

In philosophy the concept of person has been the subject of extensive debates. Among the theories that have been developed, there are three that have gained more acceptance.

Person is a Latin term that has its equivalent in Greek and is prósopon , which refers to the masks used by actors in classical theater . In this way, according to the etymology we could say that prósopon person means character .

Another etymological explanation affirms that person comes from personothat comes from the infinitive personare that means to sound the voice , can have connection with the previous explanation while and as soon as the actors carry out this action to be heard in the theater.

The third theory is inclined to find the meaning of the term in a legal root , considering that it refers to a legal subject, with duties and obligations. It is the theory that has most firmly influenced the philosophical and theological uses .

The intellectual Saint Augustine affirmed that an individual could be considered a person because of his capacity for self-reflection , that is to say, being aware of his limitations and responsibilities before God, he must analyze each of his actions so that they do not give him away and take him out of the way. of truth and happiness (in this theory the majority of the theologians of the Catholic Church are based).

One of the fundamental authors when defining the concept of person is Boethius . His theory about the concept is the most accepted today. It says that a person is naturae rationalis individual substantia . That is, it is rational in nature and reason is what serves to demonstrate its individual essence, I am implying that before being a sociable being , the individual is a person, free and capable of reasoning and deciding on their actions.

On the other hand, contemporary anthropology affirms that the person is a structural whole that opens up to the world and other living beings. An independent and free subject in front of other objects and subjects.

To finish we can say that there are five ways to define the concept, taking into account the ideological line and interests of the person who defines it. These are:

* Person as substance : attribution of particular properties such as independence and reason (Aristotle, Boecia and Middle Ages).

* Person as a thinking being : an epistemological subject where reason exceeds its physical existence (Modern Thought).

* Person as being ethical : individual absolutely free, but subject to a moral obligation, responding to a set of divine laws before the laws of their own nature (Stoics, Kant and Fichte).

* Person as a legal entity : individual subject to intrinsic laws of its essence that are related to universal rights. This characteristic is above the ethical essence of being.

* Religious person : individuals linked to a faith, fulfilling divine mandates and seeking true freedom. (Existentialism and Personalism, Judeo-Christian tradition, St. Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard).