Persons in a posthuman world

Are we becoming ‘posthuman’, and, if so, what does that mean for our understanding of ourselves as persons? In this paper, I argue that we have good reasons to retain a notion of personhood despite posthuman claims, but that the science of psychology, which ought to be well-equipped to study and defend human personhood, has – with some notable exceptions – failed to develop illuminating ideas of what persons are and how they come into the world phylogenetically, ontogenetically, and sociogenetically. First, I articulate a short history of the concept of the person from antiquity and to the Enlightenment. Second, I describe four current challenges to these modern approaches to personhood. Third, I argue that personhood is inescapable in psychology and human life as such, and that a qualitative psychology should try to find a way of preserving the insights of posthuman thinking and its critiques without thereby abandoning personhood.