What kind of thing is a person? The nature of persons is a very complex concept which has not yet definitely resolved. Basically, there are two kind of views has been given scholarly considerable attention: Dualism vs Physicalism.
Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. (more)
On the physicalist view, a person is just body. In other words, you and me both are exactly no more and no less than material.
A conclusion reached in consideration of the following lecture by Professor Shelly Kagan is we are not a purely physical system;
- We have free will.
- Nothing subject to determinism has free will.
- All purely physical systems are subject to determinism.
So how do you think about this?
But this is not the end of argument, just beginning has done. The debate about Compatibilism (which is the belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent) and Incompatibilism (which is the opposite side of the former) has also been raised as to the nature of human being.
