Ancient Definitions of Personhood and Difficult Social Precedents: The Homunculus, the Golem, and Aristotle

This article discusses the basic philosophical and legal standards applied to defining the existential status of two artificial androids, the golem and the homunculus, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, when their creation was actually considered possible and often believed to be an accomplished fact. It will also show how the historical definition of personhood has generally coincided with Aristotle’s notions, which he provides mainly to determine who is worthy of slavery. These sorts of historical stances on personhood are important because they elucidate the difficult social precedents facing any redefinition of non-human personhood today.” This paper was given at the Conference on Personhood Beyond the Human, Yale University, Dec. 6-8, 2013. It is a somewhat revised excerpt from my book Androids and intelligent networks in early modern literature and culture: artificial slaves (New York: Routledge, 2013), and is used with permission of the publisher. Before deciding how to define and proceed with modern definitions of personhood beyond the human, it will help to see how personhood has been defined historically—especially with regard to several ancient androids, because in their day they presented the best case for individuals who might have had, by the time’s definitions, the chance to be considered fully human. So this presentation will discuss the basic philosophical and legal standards applied to defining the existential status of two artificial androids, the homunculus and the golem, during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, when their creation was actually considered possible and often believed to be an accomplished fact. It will also show how the historical