Archer's theory of the person: a humanizing paradigm of socialization

Margaret Archer investigated the human person, and her relational constitution, like no other scholar before. This contribution briefly traces the development of Archerian theory on the person from her first to her last works. I distinguish two phases, theoretical and temporal. In the first phase, Archer investigates the physical human person, from birth to full social development. In the second phase, she expands the concept of ‘person’ to include artificial entities, such as AI robots, adhering to Lynne Rudder Baker’s vision, according to which every entity that can act in the first person, whatever its body, is a person. I raise some reservations about this turn, considering that a relational perspective on the human person requires not only the perspective of the first person but also of the second person. In the ensuing assessment of her work I argue that the theory should be made more relational.