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I need to research for a theoretical framework about definition of "person"* by different authors. I'm struggling to find any kind of outline to make the research, so I am wondering if I'm trying to search using a wrong concept. I'm constantly stumbling against "Personal Identity", but is not what I'm looking for. I was thinking that I could research about classical ontological dilemmas like monism vs dualism, but I'm also not quite sure if it will help me into compare definitions.

My first idea was to explain about different epochs, something like: what did greeks philosophers think? in medieval times? in renaissance? in the modern era? in the post modern era? ecc.

* in case is useful to answer the question. I'm asking because we are analyzing a text that speaks about a "person centered approach" in health, so we ask ourselves: ok, what/who is a person then?

Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C.
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  • Thanks! though I said before that I don't want to speak about the problem of "Personal Identity", since it's outside of the scope of my research. – Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C. Dec 20 '16 at 14:35
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    The words person and personhood have several different meanings depending on the context. It would really help if you made your context clearer. If the question is "what did they think it took to be a person", then the "personal identity" concept you are eschewing is correct to use. – virmaior Dec 20 '16 at 14:55
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    See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ – Alexander S King Dec 20 '16 at 19:06
  • And http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/33966/why-should-we-care-about-personal-identity – Alexander S King Dec 20 '16 at 19:06
  • What is a "person centered approach"? – Ram Tobolski Dec 20 '16 at 23:12
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    @RamTobolski my best guess without the edits is that the author is studying either approaches to medical care, approaches to medical/professional ethics, or counseling models. But the term would have distinct meanings in all of those areas. – virmaior Dec 21 '16 at 05:40
  • @RamTobolski well, our research will try to answer that question. That's why we started looking for definitions of "person". Nevertheless there is a homonym clinical method, that we will study too. – Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C. Dec 21 '16 at 13:55
  • @virmaior it looks like personhood is closer to what I'm looking. The idea is to find what different authors have said about what makes a person. Then analyze the document that uses the concept (person-centred approach; but it doesn't gave a historical/philosophical background), and compare it to which definition/idea previously shown is similar, or what differs. – Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C. Dec 21 '16 at 14:01
  • Still not at all clear. Personhood with respect to what? What field are you in? – virmaior Dec 21 '16 at 14:57
  • this is a fascinating q. I'm sorry I can't give you a more specific answer, I have researched this but it's been a while. Google "discursive psychology " and look at Rom Harre (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Romano_Harré). There are a bunch of scholars who argue that "person" is an unstable, socially constructed amalgam, or sth along those lines. very fascinating topic. –  Dec 21 '16 at 22:02
  • @PabloOlmosdeAguileraC. What does that homonym clinical method consist of? If you can answer that, it may direct us to the relevant sense of the word 'person'. – Ram Tobolski Dec 21 '16 at 23:04
  • @virmaior the ministry of health published on 2013 a document that states the "inalienable principles" of the chilean primary care. One of them "person centered approach". But it's not explicitly defined anywhere. That's why we want to research first about "person", and then see how this document relates to those definitions. mobileink thanks, I'll look into that. – Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C. Dec 23 '16 at 01:47
  • @RamTobolski I was wrong, it is called "patient centered", not "person centered". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1395529/ – Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C. Dec 23 '16 at 02:15
  • @PabloOlmosdeAguileraC. So perhaps the question on the word 'person' is no longer relevant? – Ram Tobolski Dec 23 '16 at 15:01
  • @RamTobolski it is... that's what the document says, but only gives a small explanation (http://imgur.com/a/WWaGm). That's why we would like to research different definitions and then see what appears (implicit) in the text. – Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C. Dec 24 '16 at 00:06

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Oftentimes when doing research and I need a specific term, I use a dictionary definition to "set the groundwork" for the entire paper. Google "what is a person" (with or without quotation marks) comes up with some results. Filter for your use.

Jesse Cohoon
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  • Thanks, it seems that I'm looking into definitions of "personhood", as a non-native english speaker, it's a completely new concept. I'll look a bit more, but for the time being I'll upvote your answe. – Pablo Olmos de Aguilera C. Dec 20 '16 at 14:34