Persons: Spiritedness and Coming to Be (Report‪)‬

1. Introduction What is involved in thinking or conceiving a human being as a person? Macmurray (1) suggests there are three types of being that one encounters in the world: inorganic matter, living creatures and persons and notes the capacity of persons for self-transcendence. However, affording exact philosophical clarity to self-transcendence is complex though I propose two characteristics within the rubric of emotions that may assist with conceiving whom to count as a person. Most individuals start life at the centre of the universe, being caressed, attended to and typically it is through this lived experience that the baby enters a web of relationships that links the individual to other individuals, nature and the universe. Indeed, how an individual experiences these links (creative, positive or twisted and broken) influences one's interpersonal relations and impacts upon one's thymos. Accordingly human existence is stimulated by and indeed can be limited by the extent of one's personal relations, which has the capacity to develop and influence one's concept of personal identity and personhood.