This collection of essays aims to explore analogous issues in classical and modern philosophy relating to the concepts of person and human being. A key question for the collection is whether there are such analogous issues, and whether we can find in ancient philosophy a notion which is comparable to `person`, as this figures in modern philosophy. This question is approached, on the modern side, by essays which reappraise the validity of the notion of person, and which ask whether this notion can be distinguished from our conception of what is essential to our existence as human beings. The essays on Classical philosophy take up the related questions of what being `human` entails in ancient ethics and psychology, and whether we should regard ourselves as essentially human or rational beings.

This is the first publication to offer extended examination of these questions about the relationship between Classical and modern thinking; and it merits the attention of all those who are interested in the substantial implications of philosophy, ethics, and the history of ideas.