Bend But Don't Break

Crack Under Pressure

Fall Through The Cracks

Repay Attention

Slip Through The Cracks

person

banker

collective noun

barber

beggar

bureaucrat

businessman

is (like objects and the world as well) not an absolute thing, but a phenomenon of perception. It requires expounding all the time because each person perceives life and death for himself and has a curiosity about the perceptions of others.

The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception. . . If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, One poet would be enough. . . But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things. Wallace Stevens

is a certain sort of ape infested with idea memes, fashion memes, behaviour memes, skill memes, all of which which compete to replicate themselves from one brain to another.

Back in 1976 Richard Dawkins's best-selling book The Selfish Gene came out. I remember enjoying its explanation of genes as selfish 'replicators' competing to get into the next generation. But did I notice the last chapter' Perhaps I wrote it off as one of those speculative flings at the end of a great book. In any case I had forgotten all about it until Dennett reminded me. Dawkins had asked the provocative question are there any other replicators on the planet' and answered 'Yes'. Ideas, fashions, behaviours and skills are passed on by imitation and compete to replicate themselves from one brain to another. He called them 'memes'. A science of memetics has not yet become established, but Dennett took the idea seriously and applied Darwin's algorithm to the design of minds. A person, says Dennett, is a certain sort of ape infested with memes. So that is who I am.

is a complex of social relations, at one and the same time a citizen of england, a husband, a father, and a bricklayer. The 'individual' in contrast is a single biological organism.

Every human being living in society is two things: he is an individual and also a person. As an individual, he is a biological organism, a collection of a vast number of molecules organised in a complex structure, within which, as long as it persist, there occur physiological and psychological (193) actions and reactions, processes and changes. Human beings as individuals are objects of study for physiologist and psychologist. The human being as a person is a complex of social relationships. He is a citizen of England, a husband and a father, a bricklayer, a member of a particular Methodist congregation, a voter in a certain constituency, a member of his trade union, an adherent of the Labour Party, and so on. Note that each of these descriptions refers to a social relationship, or to a place in a social structure. Note also that a social personality is something that changes during the course of the life of the person. As a person, the human being is the object of study for the social anthropologist. We cannot study persons except in terms of social structure, nor can we study social structure except in terms of the persons who are the units of which it is composed.

is a matter of degree, not an all-or-nothing affair, something evenly distributed around the species. Slaves typically are less persons than their masters (because the former is made to think of his or her pain as fated and even somehow deserved, something to be borne rather than resisted).

For us pragmatist, however, it is not so easy to say that. For we see personhood as a matter of degree, not as an all-or-nothing affair, something evenly distributed around the species. W e see it as something that slaves typically have less of than their masters.This is not because there are such things as 'natural slaves' but because of the masters' control over the language spoken by the slaves their ability to make the slave think of his or her pain as fated and even somehow deserved, something to be borne rather than resisted. W e cannot countenance the notion of a deep reality which reposes unrecognized beneath the superficial appearances. (Rorty 'feminism and pragmatism' 25)

is a psychic system, .A bounded system that cannot communicated directly with each other or with social systems.

psychic systems..bounded systems that cannot communicated directly with each other or with social systems. . . ' (Gershon 2005:100)

is a subject whose actions can be imputed to him : A subject in possession of freedom and spontaneity, able to act according to principles... whereas a thing is that to which nothing can be imputed. A human being acting in response to inclinations is a thing, as is one used simply as a means to another's ends.

Object [Ding, Objekt, Gegenstand] Kant's concept of an object is extremely subtle, although its nuances are often lost in the indiscriminate and unsystematic translation of his terms Ding, Gegenstand, and Objekt. At the most general level in his practical philosophy, Kant follows the distinction in Roman law between persons and things (see Justinian's Institutes, books 1 and 2). A person 'is a subject whose actions can be imputed to him' while a thing is that 'to which nothing can be imputed'... the former is specified as a subject in possession of freedom and spontaneity, able to act according to principles, while the latter is without freedom and spontaneity. A human being acting in response to inclinations is a thing, as is one used simply as a means to another's ends. The thing is distinguished from the person in terms of its passivity and lack of autonomous, free agency, and these are features which broadly determine the character of the thing or object in theoretical philosophy. (caygill 'kant' 304)

is a system whose autopoiesis is accomplished by consciousness. This means they produce mental states from other mental states. In contrast, social systems use communication in their own autopoiesis.

Systems theory and network analysis dispense with 'actor' and 'agency' as basic sociological concepts. For Luhmann, persons are systems whose autopoiesis is accomplished by consciousness. This means they produce mental states from other mental states. In contrast, social systems use communication in their own autopoiesis. while there would be no communication without minds, communication does not 'follow' from minds and cannot be 'reduced to it, as if minds 'entailed' commuication. Persons cannot really communicate... they can say or write somehting, but what happens next, if anything, is decided by the behavior of communication, not by mental states and consciousness' (Fuchs 'beyond agency')

is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing at different times and places.

Locke defines person as 'a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing at different times and places' ( Essay II.xxvii.9).

person, n.All

person