1 definition by madeggs
According to Wilfrid Sellars, inanimate objects are actually "truncated persons": "Nature became the locus of 'truncated persons' (...) not, however, because a *new* category of impersonal things and impersonal processes had been achieved, but because the category of *person* is now applied to these things in a pruned or truncated form" (Wilfrid Sellars _Science, Perception and Reality_ 13).
Another way of saying this is that, at some former time, everything in the environment---including what we now refer to as "inanimate objects" were once afforded the full range of qualities associated with "personhood."
Another way of saying this is that, at some former time, everything in the environment---including what we now refer to as "inanimate objects" were once afforded the full range of qualities associated with "personhood."
by madeggs April 4, 2010