David Walsh
Catholic University of America
"Who and What is a Person?"
Talk about the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of the human person is as commonplace today as the classic definition of the Trinity as Three-Persons-in-One, but can we explain what we mean when we use the term "person"? Prof. Walsh contends it is a great error of modern philosophy to diminish a "person" to mean only our biological body, our consciousness, our freedom, our autonomy, our identity, or our relation to others. A "person" can never be described fully in these terms for the person extends beyond the material, the limits of what we can think and feel, and even the sum of our past. This never-complete, nearly indefinable quality of each person is not a philosophical dead end or an ineffable theological mystery; rather, it reveals and points us toward a new perspective, one that allows us to glimpse who and what a person truly is: the Apocalypse of History.
All are invited to attend this public lecture.