Personalism
Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human
Overview
Writing in the
Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Many philosophical schools have at their core one particular thinker or even one central work which serves as a canonical touchstone. Personalism is a more diffused and eclectic movement and has no such common reference point. It is, in point of fact, more proper to speak of many personalisms than one personalism. In 1947 Jacques Maritain could write that there are at least "a dozen personalist doctrines, which at times have nothing more in common than the word 'person.'" Moreover, because of their emphasis on the subjectivity of the person, some of the more important exponents of personalism have not undertaken systematic treatises of their theories.
It is perhaps more proper to speak of personalism as a "current" or a broader "worldview", since it represents more than one school or one doctrine while at the same time the most important forms of personalism do display some central and essential commonalities. Most important of the latter is the general affirmation of the centrality of the person for philosophical thought. Personalism posits ultimate reality and value in personhood – human as well as (at least for most personalists) divine. It emphasizes the significance, uniqueness and inviolability of the person, as well as the person's essentially relational or social dimension. The title "personalism" can therefore legitimately be applied to any school of thought that focuses on the centrality of persons and their unique status among beings in general, and personalists normally acknowledge the indirect contributions of a wide range of thinkers throughout the history of philosophy who did not regard themselves as personalists. Personalists believe that the person should be the ontological and epistemological starting point of philosophical reflection. Many are concerned to investigate the experience, the status, and the dignity of the human being as person, and regard this as the starting-point for all subsequent philosophical analysis.[7][excessive quote]
Thus, according to Williams, one ought to keep in mind that although there may be dozens of theorists and social activists in the West adhering to the rubric "personalism," their particular foci may, in fact, be asymptotic, and even diverge at material junctures.
Variants
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev
Emmanuel Mounier
In France, philosopher
Catholic personalism
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Following on the writings of
This norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is the kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end. In its positive form the personalistic norm confirms this: the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love[9]
This brand of personalism has come to be known as "Thomistic" because of its efforts to square modern notions regarding the person with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.[10] Wojtyła was influenced by the ethical personalism of German phenomenologist Max Scheler.[11]
A first principle of Christian personalism is that persons are not to be used, but to be respected and loved. In Gaudium et spes, the Second Vatican Council formulated what has come to be considered the key expression of this personalism: "man is the only creature on earth that God willed for its own sake and he cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself".[12]
This formula for self-fulfillment offers a key for overcoming the dichotomy frequently felt between personal "realization" and the needs or demands of social life. Personalism also implies inter-personalism, as
As a spiritual being, the human creature is defined through interpersonal relations. The more authentically he or she lives these relations, the more his or her own personal identity matures. It is not by isolation that man establishes his worth, but by placing himself in relation with others and with God.[13]
Boston personalism
Personalism flourished in the early 20th century at
Bowne also held that persons have value (see
Georgia Harkness was a major Boston personalist theologian.[14][15][16][17] Francis John McConnell was a major second-generation advocate of Boston personalism who sought to apply the philosophy to social problems of his time.[18]
California personalism
George Holmes Howison taught a metaphysical theory called personal idealism[19] or California personalism. Howison maintained that both impersonal, monistic idealism and materialism run contrary to the moral freedom experienced by persons. To deny the freedom to pursue the ideals of truth, beauty, and "benignant love" is to undermine every profound human venture, including science, morality, and philosophy. Thus, even the personalistic idealism of Borden Parker Bowne and Edgar S. Brightman and the realistic personal theism of Thomas Aquinas are inadequate, for they make finite persons dependent for their existence upon an infinite Person and support this view by an unintelligible doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.[20]
The Personal Idealism of Howison was explained in his book The Limits of Evolution and Other Essays Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Idealism. Howison created a radically democratic notion of personal idealism that extended all the way to God, who was no more the ultimate monarch, no longer the only ruler and creator of the universe, but the ultimate democrat in eternal relation to other eternal persons. Howison found few disciples among the religious, for whom his thought was heretical; the non-religious, on the other hand, considered his proposals too religious; only
Critical personalism
Critical personalism is a German development. Based on humanistic considerations (e.g. Spaemann), African Theories on Personhood (e.g. Wiredu) receptions of communitarian theories (e.g. Taylor) and empirical findings of developmental, social and personality psychology it addresses the issue of the development of personhood in community. Each person does not only reach a certain position within community but also forms an individual personality over his or her life span. In doing so, they determine a relationship to their selves and to other people. The development of personality appears as a way to take responsibility in community. Communities are thought of as by nature are infinitely diverse associations, which are not characterised by fixed values, but rather by the fact that they constantly communicate about values as they constantly arise due to actual praxis. On the basis of discourse ethics (Habermas, Apel) and the methodology of critical mediation,[22] critical personalism in given social contexts reflects on communication practices and the societal conditions for personality development.
Antecedents and influence
Philosopher Immanuel Kant, though not formally considered a personalist, made an important contribution to the personalist cause by declaring that a person is not to be valued merely as a means to the ends of other people, but that he possesses dignity (an absolute inner worth) and is to be valued as an end in himself.
Catholic philosopher and theologian John Henry Newman, has been posited as a main proponent of personalism by John Crosby of Franciscan University in his book Personalist Papers. Crosby notes Newman's personal approach to faith, as outlined in Grammar of Assent as a main source of Newman's personalism.[23]
Martin Luther King Jr. was greatly influenced by personalism in his studies at Boston University. King came to agree with the position that only personality is real. It solidified his understanding of God as a personal god. It also gave him a metaphysical basis for his belief that all human personality has dignity and worth.[24]
Paul Ricœur explicitly sought to support personalist movement by developing its theoretical foundation and expanding it with a new personalist social ethic.[25]: 3 However, he later had significant disagreements with Mounier and criticized other personalist writers for insufficient conceptual clarity. Ricœur also disagreed with the other personalists in asserting the significance of justice as a value in its own right and gave this primary in the public sphere, whereas Mounier characterized all relationships including public and political ones in terms of love and friendship.[25]
Pope John Paul II was also influenced by the personalism advocated by Christian existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Before his election to the Roman papacy, he wrote Person and Act (sometimes mistranslated as The Acting Person), a philosophical work suffused with personalism.[26] Though he remained well within the traditional stream of Catholic social and individual morality, his explanation of the origins of moral norms, as expressed in his encyclicals on economics and on sexual morality, for instance, was largely drawn from a personalist perspective.[27] His writings as Roman pontiff, of course, influenced a generation of Catholic theologians since who have taken up personalist perspectives on the theology of the family and social order.
Notable personalists
This section needs additional citations for verification. (June 2018) |
"Start your work from where you live, with the small concrete needs right around you. Help ease tension in your workplace. Help feed the person right in front of you. Personalism holds that we each have a deep personal obligation to live simply, to look after the needs of our brothers and sisters, and to share in the happiness and misery they are suffering."
- Randall Auxier
- Willem Banning
- Edgar S. Brightman
- Borden Parker Bowne
- Bernard Charbonneau
- Dorothy Day[28][29]
- Jacques Ellul
- Ralph Tyler Flewelling
- George Holmes Howison
- Bogumil Gacka
- Albert C. Knudson
- Edvard Kocbek
- Milan Komar
- Feliks Koneczny
- Edwin Lewis
- Nikolay Lossky
- John Macmurray
- Gabriel Marcel
- Peter Maurin
- J. M. E. McTaggart
- Walter George Muelder
- A. J. Muste
- Ngô Đình Diệm[30]
- Ngô Đình Nhu[31][32]
- Madame Ngô Đình Nhu
- Michael O'Brien (Canadian author)[33]
- Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
- Charles Renouvier
- Herman Van Rompuy[a]
- Denis de Rougemont
- Francisco de Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal[38]
- Robert Spaemann
- F. C. S. Schiller
- William Stern
- Gustav Teichmüller
- Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada[39]
- Max Stirner[40]
- Dietrich von Hildebrand
- Karol Wojtyła aka Pope John Paul II[41][42][43][44][45][46]
See also
- Ngô Đình Diệm
- Charles Liebman on Jewish personalism
- Existential Thomism
- Francisco Rolão Preto
- Juan Manuel Burgos
- Christian and atheistic existentialism
- Speculative theism
- The Personalist, a journal dedicated to personalism from about 1920 to 1979, now the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
- Individualism
- Communitarianism
Notes
- ^ Herman Van Rompuy, former Prime Minister of Belgium and President of the European Council, frequently referred to personalism and wrote extensively about Catholic personalist philosophy.[34][35][36][37]
References
- ^ Williams, Thomas D. "Personalism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ISBN 3-7873-1690-6In the original German language: der Personalismus.
- ^ Thomas O. Buford, Personalism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ "Thomas D. Williams, PhD - Theologian, Author, Consultant - Scholarly Articles".
- ^ "Publications". 4 August 2010.
- ^ https://philpeople.org/profiles/jan-bengtsson
- ^ Williams, Thomas D.; Bengtsson, Jan Olof (2020). "Personalism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 ed.). Retrieved 3 August 2020.
- ^ Existentialism: A Personalist Philosophy of History, Berdyaev's Philosophy of History. An Existentialist Theory of Social Creativity and Eschatology, by David Bonner Richardson, pp 90-137
- ^ Love and Responsibility (Ignatius Press, 1993), pg. 41
- ^ Williams, Thomas D. "What Is Thomistic Personalism?" (PDF). Alpha Omega. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2013. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
- ^ Personalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- ^ Gaudium et spes, no. 24. This apparently paradoxical idea - if you seek your life selfishly, you will lose it; if you are generous in giving it, you will find it - is rooted in the gospel: cf. Mt. 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 17:33.
- ^ Caritas in veritate, #53
- ISBN 978-0-664-22667-1.[page needed]
- ISBN 978-0-8272-3055-2.[page needed]
- ISBN 978-0-86554-177-1.[page needed]
- hdl:2144/38009.[page needed]
- hdl:10516/5872.
- ^ "George Holmes Howison". Archived from the original on 2012-07-07. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
- ^ Research Howison, George Holmes (1834-1916) - Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 2012-10-02.
{{cite book}}
:|website=
ignored (help) - Project MUSE 209478.
- JSTOR j.ctv11vc913.12.
- ISBN 978-0-8132-1317-0.
- ^ "My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence". The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.
- ^ JSTOR 24488484.
- ISBN 978-90-277-0985-1.
- ISBN 0-8204-3071-4
- ^ Dorothy Day interviews on YouTube: Archived 2012-12-11 at the Wayback Machine with Christopher Closeup (1971) and Hubert Jessup/WCVB-TV Boston (1974) where she discusses her personalist views
- ^ Revolution of the Heart: The Dorthy Day Story. Maryland Public Television. March 6, 2020. (Personalism: minute 13:15+).
- ISBN 1-56584-218-9
- ^ Karnow, Stanley, Vietnam: A History p. 259
- ^ Nguyen, Duy Lap. The Unimagined Community: Imperialism and Culture in South Vietnam. Manchester University Press, 2020, pages 51-152
- ISBN 9780991583263.
- ISBN 978-0-203-80385-1.
- ^ Crosby, John F. (1 November 2006). "The Witness of Dietrich von Hildebrand". First Things. No. 168. pp. 7–9.
- S2CID 149688189.
- S2CID 144076453.
- ^ "X CONGRESSO da TSD - Trabalhadores Social Democratas (Social Democratic Workers)" (PDF) (in Portuguese). p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-10-21. Retrieved 2008-01-07.
- ISBN 978-0-676-97521-5.
- The False Principle of Our Education" I rather say, we need from now on a personal education (not the impressing of convictions). If one wants to call again those who follow this principle -ists, then, in my opinion, one may call them personalists."
- ProQuest 1438897603.
- ISBN 978-0-8132-0780-3.
- ^ Lawler, R. D. (1982). The Christian Personalism of Pope John Paul II (Vol. 1). Franciscan Pr.
- OCLC 567903880.[page needed]
- ^ Doran, K. (1996). Solidarity: a synthesis of personalism and communalism in the thought of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II (Vol. 190). Peter Lang Pub Inc.[page needed]
- ^ Cooper, J. W. (1995). Body, soul, and life everlasting: biblical anthropology and the monism-dualism debate. Vancouver: Regent College Bookstore.[page needed]
Further reading
- Bengtsson, Jan Olof (2006). The Worldview of Personalism. ISBN 978-0-19-929719-1.
- Bengtsson, Jan Olof (2008). "Reply to Phillip Ferreira". The Pluralist. 3 (2): 47–61. S2CID 254491996.
- Bengtsson, Jan Olof (2013). "Personalism". Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions. pp. 1626–1634. ISBN 978-1-4020-8264-1.
- Burrow, R. (1999). Afrikan American Contributions to Personalism. Encounter-Indianapolis-, 60, 145–168.
- De Tavernier, Johan (30 September 2009). "The Historical Roots of Personalism". Ethical Perspectives. 16 (3): 361–392. .
- Schmiesing, Kevin (December 2000). "A History of Personalism". SSRN 1851661.
- Williams, Thomas D. (2005). Who Is My Neighbor? Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights. ISBN 978-0-8132-1391-0.
External links
- "Personalism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Personalism: a critical introduction By Rufus Burrow
- Emmanuel Mounier and Personalism
- Personalism: A Brief Account. Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida, includes link to personalism bibliography
- Personalism Magazine (Lublin, Poland) Archived 2010-06-20 at the Wayback Machine
- History of Personalism - Acton Institute - also articles on Economic Personalism
- A Presentation of Personalism Archived 2012-03-06 at the Wayback Machine by Bogumił Gacka