Daniel Dennett's "The self as a Narrative Center Gravity?" versus "person as an independent existence of rational substance"

Daniel Dennett’s concept of the self as a narrative center of gravity “has a deflationary theory of the self. Selves are not physically detectable. Instead, they are a kind of convenient fiction, like a center of gravity, which are convenient as a way of solving physics problems, although they need not correspond to anything tangible — the center of gravity of a hoop is a point in thin air. People constantly tell themselves stories to make sense of their world, and they feature in the stories as a character, and that convenient but fictional character is the self.”[1] Hence, when a person for example tries to make stories he tends to feature him “self” so that others would listen so there is that movement within (self) the person to attract others towards him “self.”

Dennett’s concept of the self is different from the popular understanding of the person which believes that in each person there is that rational substance—the capability to think and so each person is independent in as far as rational thinking is concerned—a person does not have to attract others towards him “self” in order to think although he can share the product of his thinking to others. Perhaps Boethius[2] can enlighten more about the popular understanding of a person:

“Person is an individual substance of rational nature. As individual it is material, since matter supplies the principle of individuation. The soul is not person, only the composite is. Man alone is among the material beings person, he alone having a rational nature. He is the highest of the material beings, endowed with particular dignity and rights.”[3]

Together with Boethius, the English Philosopher John Locke shares the same view about the person when he said that the person is "a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider it self as it self, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it"[4]

And this same concept of the person is also shared “In the fields of philosophy, theology, and bioethics, the definition of 'person' may exclude human beings who are incapable of certain kinds of thought (such as embryos, fetuses with incomplete brain development, or adult humans lacking higher brain functions).”[5]

Daniell Denette's view about the person is his own opinion. The Christian-biblical comprehesive view of the person is still worth upholding since it views the person with mind, body, soul and spirit.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_(philosophy)#Dennett:_The_self_as_a_narrative_center_of_gravity

[2] Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius[1] (480–524 or 525) was a Christian philosopher of the 6th century. He was born in Rome to an ancient and important family which included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and many consuls. His father, Flavius Manlius Boethius, was consul in 487 after Odoacer deposed the last Western Roman Emperor. Boethius himself was consul in 510 in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. In 522 he saw his two sons become consuls. Boethius was executed by King Theodoric the Great, who suspected him of conspiring with the Byzantine Empire.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person
[4] Essay on Humane Understanding, Book 2, Chapter 27, Section 9
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person