HPP 2013 Jonathan Price, "Human Beings as "Persons" in Law"

Jonathan Price delivers his talk 'Human Beings as "Persons" in Law' for the 2013 Humane Philosophy Project Conference 'Being a Human, Being a Person'.

Human beings as “persons” in law – It seems that not so long ago something happened to the concept 'person' as the result o f which it has become difficult for it to connote what was legally and historically one of its most common senses: a corporate person (for instance, that of Hobbes's Leviathan). I shall trace some of the movement s of the concept of 'person', from its Greek theatrical beginnings, its Roman law days, its theological developments in Boethius and Thomas Aquinas, Grotius's and Hobbes's dealings with it and up to the present day . This sketch will identify certain ideas and concepts that have been rolled into what we now mean by 'person', as well as where they may have come from.

Jonathan Price is PhD fellow and lecturer at the Leiden University Law School, as well as tutor for Blackfriars Hall and Studium, University of Oxford. He is writing on the 'Philosophical Fundaments of Modern Law: the will, person, and equality', especially focusing the origins of the modern forms of those concepts within 16th and 17th century legal and theological debates (Hobbes, Grotius, Sal amancan School et al.). He has given tutorials and lectures in the philosophy of law, and ancient philosophy for both the University of Leiden and the University of Oxford.