  According to Gyekye, however, these locutions should not be taken literally, but instead merely to reflect “status, habits, and personality or character traits” that one acquires over the course of the one's life, not personhood (Wiredu &amp; Gyekye 1992, 108).  For Gyekye, personhood is prior to and independent of such acquisitions. To conceive of personhood as a continuous property capable of degrees is to confuse conventional notions of status—a highly variable quantity—with the notion of personhood, a constant for all human persons.