Self as Agent and Persons in Relation

499 Pages·2016·2.2 MB·English

by  John Macmurray

Faber and Faber Limited, London 1957

The Self as Agent is the first part of The Form of
the Personal being the written rendition of the
Gifford Lectures given by John Macmurray in 1953
to 1954 at the University of Glasgow.
John Macmurray asserts the primacy of the
practical over the theoretical in The Self as Agent,
demonstrating that philosophical analysis should
begin with the Self as an agent of action in the world.
In Persons in Relation, John Macmurray
extends his work in The Self as Agent, showing the
Self in proper existence within a community of
relational beings and asserting that ‘there can be no
man until there are at least two men in
communication.’

Macmurray’s primary criticism of the Western
philosophical tradition is that it begins from a
theoretical, rather from than a practical, standpoint.
In The Self as Agent, he critiques and corrects
Descartes’ ‘I think’ with the ‘I do’, a construction of
the Self existing first and foremost as an agent of
action in the world. In chapter 1, ‘The Crisis of the
Personal’, he expresses his concern that
philosophy’s emphasis on objectivity necessarily
results in an atheistic approach.

Summary
Macmurray’s primary criticism of the Western philosophical
tradition is that it begins from a theoretical, rather from than a
practical, standpoint. In The Self as Agent, he critiques and
corrects Descartes’ ‘I think’ with the ‘I do’, a construction of the
Self existing first and foremost as an agent of action in the world.
In chapter 1, ‘The Crisis of the Personal’, he expresses his
concern that philosophy’s emphasis on objectivity necessarily
results in an atheistic approach. Being unable to accept the
latter, he rejects the former in preference to the subjective or
personal. In chapter 2, ‘Kant and the Romantics’, and chapter
3, ‘The Rejection of Dualism’, Macmurray considers the critical
philosophy of Immanuel Kant, suggesting that we disregard
Kant’s limitation of knowledge to the empirical and reject the
resultant dualism between theory and practice.
He distinguishes between the egocentric and disembodied
Subject (as in Descartes and Kant) and his own notion of the
active, embodied and, most importantly, social agent in chapter
4, ‘Agent and Subject’. Chapter 5, ‘The Perception of the
Other’, seeks to give content to form by considering the
personal nature of the Self in perceiving the Other-than-Self.
Macmurray addresses the implications of his starting point of
the active agent as opposed to the knowing thinker in chapter 6,
‘Implications of Action’, leading toward a theory of action that
includes knowledge and concluding that the possibility of action
ultimately depends on the agency of the Other.
In chapter 7, ‘Causality and the Continuant’, he suggests that
the idea of a cause is problematic because it implies an agent
that does not function as an agent; Macmurray theorises instead
a Continuant that exists outside of time as a non-agent
responsible for natural laws. In chapter 8, ‘Reflective Activity’,
he asserts that all theoretical activities, or modes of reflection,

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derive from practical action by an intentional limitation of
attention. He extends this in chapter 9, ‘Modes of Reflection’,
focusing on this aspect of theoretical activity (which he calls
‘negative intention’) to consider the relationship of the two
reflective modes, one intellectual and the other emotional, to
action. In the final chapter, ‘The World as One Action’, having
clarified the limitations of his study in regard to purpose and
method, he argues the necessity of thinking of the world as a
unity of action or intention in which we act as personal,
relational agents.
Brannon Hancock, University of Glasgow

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Contents

Introductory 1
Chapter One: The Crisis of the Personal 7
Chapter Two: Kant and the Romantics 31
Chapter Three: The Rejection of Dualism 57
Chapter Four: Agent and Subject 81
Chapter Five: The Perception of the Other 103
Chapter Six: Implications of Action 129
Chapter Seven: Causality and the Continuant 149
Chapter Eight: Reflective Activity 169
Chapter Nine: Modes of Reflection 189
Chapter Ten: The World as One Action 209

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Introductory
This volume contains the substance of the Gifford Lectures
delivered in the University of Glasgow during the Spring term
of 1953. The second series of these lectures delivered the
following Spring under the title Persons in Relation will be
published in due course. The general subject of the lectures was
dictated by a double criticism of our philosophical tradition.
The traditional point of view is both theoretical and egocentric.
It is theoretical in that it proceeds as though the Self were a pure
subject for whom the world is object. This means that the point
of view adopted by our philosophy is that of the Self in its
moment of reflection when its activity is directed towards the
acquirement of knowledge. Since the Self in reflection is
withdrawn from action withdrawn into itself withdrawn from
participation in the life of the world into contemplation this
point of view is also egocentric. The Self in reflection is self-
isolated from the world which it knows. This theoretical and
egocentric character of our philosophy is not doctrinal. It is a
presupposition generally unconscious implicit in philosophical
procedures. It is quite compatible with voluntarism. Fichte for
instance begins from the assertion ‘In the beginning was the
Act’. But this ‘act’ turns out to be an act of consciousness and
its objective the theoretical and egocentric one of complete self-
consciousness.
My purpose has been to challenge both these presuppositions.
Against the assumption that the Self is at least primarily a
‘knowing subject’ I have maintained that its subjecthood is a
derivative and negative aspect of its agency. This corresponds to
the fact that most of our knowledge and all our primary
knowledge arises as an aspect of activities which have practical
not theoretical objectives; and that it is this knowledge itself an
aspect of action to which all reflective theory must refer. Against

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the assumption that the Self is an isolated individual I have set
the view that the Self is a person and that personal existence is
constituted by the relation of persons.
The present volume is concerned with the former of the two
issues and so with the Self as Agent. The question of the
interrelation of selves—the proposal to substitute the ‘You and
I’ for the solitary ‘I’ of the philosophical tradition—has been
reserved in order to facilitate exposition for the second volume.
This method has disadvantages and may even be misleading if
the incompleteness of the first volume is forgotten. It may
therefore be desirable to say at once that the agent-self which
will be the subject of our present discussions is a logical
abstraction and can exist only as a community of personal
agents.
The misunderstanding however against which it is most
important to guard touches the purpose or the philosophical
function of these lectures. Because they range in a systematic
fashion over every general aspect of human experience they
may suggest that what is offered is a new philosophical system.
This is not the case. Unlike many of my contemporaries I have
no objection to system-making; I consider it indeed in its proper
place a necessary part of the philosophical enterprise. Most
systems of philosophy indeed are the product not of the genius
of the original thinkers to whom they are ascribed but of the
industry of their commentators. But there are system-builders
among the great philosophers. Aristotle Aquinas Hegel are
examples. Their function is to give a definitive and systematic
expression to a process of thought which has been unfolding
itself over a period of history. At the beginning of such processes
stand the pioneers thinkers like Pythagoras or Descartes whose
function it is to reject current presuppositions and to establish a
new point of view with new assumptions. The process itself
which unites these two extremes consists in the gradual
discovery of the implications and consequences of the new

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