Wokół definicji osoby. Problemy z definicją Boecjusza

Abstract

This article raises some reservations regarding Boethius’ traditional definition of the person. Using the phenomenological method, I first try to point out the tedious and complicated way by which basic anthropological concepts such as the person and linguistic articulation are reached. When coming up with his definition of the person, Boethius subjected knowledge and the way in which man speaks about himself to order. The main difficulty in man’s ability to know and speak about himself is his own logos about himself, meaning his own ontological structure. The nature and essence of man is such that his being a person manifests itself in many ways in the creative dynamism of his personal life and in the unity of his ontic structure. One cannot employ methods and language that are used in life and science in order to come to know man as a person. This is why it is difficult to use scientific methods to make the person a subject of research and analysis. The phenomenological method, however, makes it possible to capture the many ways in which man manifests his personhood in the unified sense of the humanity within himself. This method also explains why it is difficult to confine the person to a strictly defined system of ideas. While philosophers speak a lot about the person, it difficult to accurately and adequately express who and what the person is, and it is even more difficult to formulate a satisfactory theory of the person.