ABSTRACT
Bedrock concepts are both the tool of reasoning and the object of definitional inquiry. They are both for thinking with and thinking about, and as a consequence are in general ‘essentially contested.’ Many bedrock concepts express ontological, epistemological, moral, or analytical oppositions: concrete and abstract, self and other, body and soul, truth and falsity, fact and fiction, living and dead, good and evil, right and wrong, and same and different. The Western tradition moves between the extremes of animism (anthropomorphism) and either ontological idealism (immaterialism) or materialism. Person is a mundane linguistic category, a focus of theological and philosophical debate, and a legal term of art. It has two plurals, persons and people, with persons having a theological or legalistic ring to it. The doctrine of the Trinity and the Christian concept of person co-evolved in complex ways, given that the Christian mainstream described each member of the Trinity as a person.
