Was wir grundlegend sind: Menschen unter anderen biologischen Einzeldingen

In its core, this book represents a defense of the thesis that we are essentially biological creatures of the species Homo sapiens - and not essentially persons. This thesis has consequences for the problem of personal identity. An important aspect of its defense – and the book's second central line of argumentation – is, therefore, to substantiate that ours are the diachronic identity conditions of biological beings. Attempting to reach both argumentation goals, one has to overcome some obstacles, from motivating an appropriate ontological framework via explaining the concept of the animate being to demonstrating that essentialism is still a viable option today. In this way, a picture gradually emerges which places us humans, as living beings among other living beings, in a biological world, without, however, playing down that we are, at least typically, also persons with a rich spiritual life.