Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human . Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement.[F. D. E. Schleiermacher Über die Religion (1799), Hrsg. v. Andreas Arndt. Meiner, Hamburg 2004, In the original German language: der Personalismus.] One can trace the concept back to earlier thinkers in various parts of the world.[
Thomas O. Buford, Personalism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
]
Overview
Writing in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Thomas D. Williams
and Jan Olof Bengtsson
cite a plurality of "schools" holding to a "personalist" ethic and "
Weltanschauung", arguing:
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 asymptote, and even diverge at material junctures.
Variants
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874–1948) was a Russian religious and political philosopher who emphasized human freedom,
subjectivity and
creativity.
Emmanuel Mounier
In France, philosopher
Emmanuel Mounier (1905–1950) was the leading proponent of personalism, around which he founded the review
Esprit, which exists to this day. Under Jean-Marie Domenach's direction, it criticized the use of torture during the Algerian War. Personalism was seen as an alternative to both
liberalism and
Marxism, which respected
human rights and the human personality without indulging in excessive collectivism. Mounier's personalism had an important influence in France, including in political movements, such as
Marc Sangnier's
Ligue de la jeune République (Young Republic League) founded in 1912.
Catholic personalism
Following on the writings of
Dorothy Day, a distinctively Christian personalism developed in the 20th century.
[McCook, Kathleen. “Social Justice, Personalism, and the Practice of Librarianship,” Catholic Library World
72 (Winter, 2001): 80-84.] Its main theorist was the Polish philosopher Karol Wojtyła (later Pope John Paul II). In his work,
Love and Responsibility, first published in 1960, Wojtyła proposed what he termed 'the personalistic norm':
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.[ Personalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]
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".[ 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.]
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 Benedict XVI stresses in Caritas in Veritate:
Renowned laity contribute significantly to the modern Catholic disposition on personalism as well. For example, Dietrich von Hildebrand noted:
Boston personalism
Personalism flourished in the early 20th century at Boston University in a movement known as
Boston personalism led by theologian Borden Parker Bowne. Bowne emphasized the person as the fundamental category for explaining reality and asserted that only persons are real. He stood in opposition to certain forms of
materialism which would describe persons as mere particles of matter. For example, against the argument that persons are insignificant specks of dust in the vast universe, Bowne would say that it is impossible for the entire universe to exist apart from a person to experience it. Ontologically speaking, the person is "larger" than the universe because the universe is but one small aspect of the person who experiences it. Personalism affirms the existence of the
soul. Most personalists assert that
God is real and that God is a person (or as in Christian
trinitarianism, three 'persons', although it is important to note that the nonstandard meaning of the word 'person' in this theological context is significantly different from Bowne's usage).
Bowne also held that persons have value (see axiology, value theory, and ethics). In declaring the absolute value of personhood, he stood firmly against certain forms of philosophical naturalism (including social Darwinism) which sought to reduce the value of persons. He also stood against certain forms of positivism which sought to render ethical and theological discourse meaningless and dismiss talk of God a priori.
Georgia Harkness was a major Boston personalist theologian.
California personalism
George Holmes Howison taught a metaphysical theory called
personal idealism 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.
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 J. M. E. McTaggart's idealist atheism or Thomas Davidson's apeirotheism seem to resemble Howison's personal idealism.
Critical personalism
Critical personalism is a German development. Based on humanistic considerations (e.g.
Robert Spaemann), African Theories on Personhood (e.g.
Kwasi 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 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,
Karl-Otto Apel) and the methodology of critical mediation,
critical personalism in given social contexts reflects on communication practices and the societal conditions for personality development.
Tartu school of personalism
German philosopher Gustav Teichmüller (1832–1888) founded the personalism school when he came to Tartu in 1871. The core of the group consisted of the first Latvian philosopher Jēkabs Osis (1860–1920),
the Russian philosopher Yevgeni Bobrov (1867–1933), the Lithuanian Włodzimierz Szyłkarski (1884–1960), and the Polish thinker Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954).
This group of philosophers came together to revise German idealism and fight materialistic tendencies. Teichmüller criticised Hegel and Kant’s followers. He believed in a new doctrine that would reveal and justify the importance of an individual personality as the only true source of existence. Teichmüller significantly influenced Russian and Latvian
philosophical thought.
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.
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
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Paul Ricœur explicitly sought to support personalist movement by developing its theoretical foundation and expanding it with a new personalist social ethic. 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.
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 The Acting Person (sometimes mistranslated as Person and Act), a philosophical work suffused with personalism.[see Doran, Kevin P. Solidarity: A Synthesis of Personalism and Communalism in the Thought of Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. ] His writings as Roman pontiff, of course, influenced a generation of Catholic theologians who have since taken up personalist perspectives on the theology of the family and social order.
Notable personalists
-
Randall Auxier
-
Willem Banning
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Martin Buber
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Edgar S. Brightman
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Borden Parker Bowne
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Bernard Charbonneau
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Dorothy Day
[ Dorothy Day interviews on YouTube: with Christopher Closeup (1971) and Hubert Jessup/WCVB-TV Boston (1974) where she discusses her personalist views]
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Jacques Ellul
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Ralph Tyler Flewelling
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George Holmes Howison
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Bogumil Gacka
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Albert C. Knudson
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Edvard Kocbek
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Milan Komar
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Feliks Koneczny
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Edwin Lewis
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Nikolay Lossky
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John Macmurray
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Gabriel Marcel
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Peter Maurin
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J. M. E. McTaggart
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Walter George Muelder
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A. J. Muste
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Ngô Đình Diệm
[Kolko, Gabriel, Anatomy of a War pages 83-84, ]
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Ngô Đình Nhu
[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]
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Madame Ngô Đình Nhu
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Michael O'Brien (Canadian author)
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Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
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Charles Renouvier
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Herman Van Rompuy
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Denis de Rougemont
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Francisco de Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal
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Robert Spaemann
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F. C. S. Schiller
-
William Stern
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Gustav Teichmüller
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Pierre Trudeau
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Max Stirner
[ 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."]
-
Dietrich von Hildebrand
-
Pope John Paul II
[Lawler, R. D. (1982). The Christian Personalism of Pope John Paul II (Vol. 1). Franciscan Pr.][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.][Cooper, J. W. (1995). Body, soul, and life everlasting: biblical anthropology and the monism-dualism debate. Vancouver: Regent College Bookstore.]
See also
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Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party (Can Lao Party), a party founded and led by Ngô Đình Nhu for use as an instrument of control for the presidency of his brother Ngô Đình Diệm
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Charles Liebman on Jewish personalism
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Existential Thomism
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Francisco Rolão Preto
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Juan Manuel Burgos
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Christian and atheistic existentialism
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Speculative theism
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The Personalist, a journal dedicated to personalism from about 1920 to 1979, now the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
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Individualism
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Communitarianism
Notes
Further reading
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Burrow, R. (1999). Afrikan American Contributions to Personalism. Encounter-Indianapolis-, 60, 145–168.
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Andris, Hiršs (2024) Influence of personalism on Latvian theory up to the early twentieth century: substantiality and panentheism. Studies in East European Thought
External links
