On Dennett's Conditions Of Personhood

Dennett doubts whether we can ever come up with a satisfactory theory of personhood. He cautions: "In the end we may come to realize that the concept of a person is incoherent and obsolete." This is in spite of the fact that "it is difficult or even impossible to conceive of what it would be like if we abandoned the concept . . . 1 1 (p. 175). For Dennett, it turns out that we lack objective criteria for applying the notion, and accordingly, it may add nothing to our knowledge.