Person und Welt

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss various attempts to understand the concept of person presented by philosophical and theological anthropology. While many contemporary philosophical theories of personhood follow Kant and his focus on rationality and self-consciousness, Max Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg offer several interesting alternatives: For Scheler, the person has to be understood in correspondence with the world, which includes also the idea of opening to it and to other persons in our emotional life (especially in love and hatred), but this might culminate to the idealistic idea that the person creates their own world. Hartmann criticises this metaphysical view maintaining that the relational dimension of personhood is to be understood in relation to other persons and the sphere of objective spirit. In his theological anthropology, Wolfhart Pannenberg discusses the notions of the person proposed by philosophical anthropology. He also stresses the significance of the relation to other persons, but maintains that a dialogical relation to other persons must be founded in a relation to God