John Macmurray's Religious Philosophy

What it Means to be a Person

Esther McIntosh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754651635
• eBook ISBN: 9781317110613
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Recent dissatisfaction with individualism and the problems of religious pluralism make this an opportune time to reassess the way in which we define ourselves and conduct our relationships with others. The philosophical writings of John Macmurray are a useful resource for performing this examination, and recent interest in Macmurray's work has been growing steadily.

A full-scale critical examination of Macmurray's religious philosophy has not been published and this work fills this gap, sharing his insistence that we define ourselves through action and through person-to-person relationships, while critiquing his account of the ensuing political and religious issues. The key themes in this work are the concept of the person and the ethics of personal relations.

PART I
The Essence of the Person

Chapter 1
Agency Theory

Introduction

In this chapter, Macmurray’s theoretical understanding of the nature of the self is introduced, detailing his holistic approach and laying the groundwork for a subsequent examination of its practical ramifications. Primarily, Macmurray is engaging in a ‘pioneering venture’ (SA, p. 13), rejecting the widespread acceptance of substance dualism, as proposed by Descartes. He bases this renunciation on what he assumes is the common experience for every human; that is, the interaction of mind and body. Further, such interaction is most apparent, he holds, in action. Hence by asserting the reality of agency, Macmurray seeks to establish a new and radical foundation, from which a philosophy of the nature of the person can be built. Moreover, the impact of his enterprise is not merely the reconstruction of the mind and body association; in addition, this leads into a revision of the historical dualism of reason and emotion and, further, the reorganization of the relation of science and art. According to Macmurray, each of these activities is necessary for successful action and is capable of expressing objectivity. Through the assessment of these three areas of dualism, Macmurray raises the standing of the traditionally inferior aspect to equal that of the superior aspect. He does not embark upon a monist route for comprehending the possibility of simultaneous mental and physical or intellectual and emotional activity; rather, he retains a theoretical distinction between these categories of operation, while insisting on their practical indivisibility. Furthermore, although he realizes that his effort to overthrow substance dualism has been preceded, he still holds that his formulation is a revolutionary breakthrough, justified by its consequences. Initially, the effect of his preferred position, he alleges, is that ‘man recovers his body and becomes personal’ (PR, p. 12).¹

In Macmurray’s opinion, previous attempts to overcome the dualism of mind and matter have been unsuccessful; nevertheless, despite the futility of these attempts the underlying assumption that mind and matter dualism is unsound is accurate. From his earliest writings he maintains that such dualism is at odds with reality and, therefore, is without rational justification. In particular, Macmurray maintains that the categorical opposition inherent in mind-matter dualism fails to provide a satisfactory account of organic properties. He asks, ‘If the world consists exclusively of mental things and material things, where do cabbages come in?’ (a1935a, p. 267).

If science was taken as a guide, he suggests, the divisions of the physical, biological and psychological sciences would prompt a threefold classification of reality into ‘mind, life and matter’ (a1935a, p. 268). However, he further asserts that any attempt to replace a twofold division of reality with a threefold one would still be inaccurate, since it is not possible to place all things in just one of these categories. For example, organic life is partially comprised of matter and the person is partially comprised of both life and matter.

It is in traditional definitions of the human person, and the possibility of that human person possessing knowledge, especially self-knowledge, that the employment of the dualism of mind and matter is most apparent. When considering the nature of the person and attempting to differentiate between the human being and other animals, metaphysical dualism focuses on the self. In an early work, Macmurray expresses his dissatisfaction with the philosophical question ‘What is the self?’, preferring to ask ‘What am I?’, on the grounds that there is such a thing as me and there is such a thing as you, but there is no such thing as the self (a1935a, p. 269). Consequently, in later works, Macmurray replaces the language of the self with that of the person. Generally therefore, his use of the term ‘personal’ implies that which is of, or pertaining to persons, not that which is peculiar to a specific human being. He clarifies his use of this syntax by stating that the difference between particular persons is more properly referred to as personal individuality, while the term ‘personality’ implies ‘that quality or set of characteristics in virtue of which a person is a person; a property therefore which all persons share, and which distinguishes a person from all beings which are not personal’ (PR, p. 25).

Knowledge of the self, or rather the person who is me, issues from both internal and external consciousness, whereas knowledge of another person is only externally encountered. In addition, if ‘we are aware of our bodies in external perception and of our minds in introspection’ (a1935a, p. 271), this would seem to justify a dualistic perception of mind and body. However if the self knows the mind introspectively and has knowledge of the body from external experience, it seems that the self is neither mind nor body; as Macmurray states, ‘I cannot both be a body and have a body, nor can I be a mind and have a mind’ (a1935a, p. 272). In essence therefore, the dualism of mind and body fails to offer a wholly intelligible conception of the self.

By way of exposition of the widespread use of mind-body dualism, Macmurray explains that, in order to reflect on cognition, a distinction has to be drawn between the subject and the object of experience. While it is logical to contrast subject and object, since these terms have a systematic connection, to identify the subject – ‘that which knows’ (a1935a, p. 273) – with the mind, and the object – that which is known – with matter, so that the mental and the material are regarded as contrasting entities, is illogical. Not only does this opposition result in the identification of the self with the mind, failing to reflect the manner in which the self is experienced, it is fundamentally individualistic and solipsistic. The self as subject and knower has no certain knowledge of the existence of other selves, since other minds exist as objects rather than subjects. Solipsism can be avoided by assuming the existence of many selves, but in Macmurray’s opinion this is no more than a ‘pluralism of solipsisms’ (a1935a, p. 275), where there are several ‘Is’, but there is no ‘you’. However, if we accept that human nature is essentially relational, then cognitive experience is of an ‘I’ and a ‘you’ in relation.

Consequently, for Macmurray, the dualistic starting point results in a twofold ‘crisis of the personal’ (SA, p. 29). First, there is the problem of formally constructing the definition of the person so that it includes both mind and body. Secondly, there is the difficulty of confirming the existence of a multitude of persons. On this basis, Macmurray aims to understand the nature of the person ‘without assuming a dualistic classification’ (a1935a, p. 278). Primarily then, he is arguing against Descartes’ philosophy, which, he contends, is partly but not entirely overcome by Kant.

Rejecting Cartesian Dualism

In our everyday experiences as a human being, the body and the mind appear to be inseparable. While it might seem at times that the physical and mental are not equally active, the interrelation of these elements cannot be disputed. Hence the salient point of Descartes’ philosophical theory, for Macmurray’s purpose, is Descartes’ statement that ‘I [my soul] am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it’ (Descartes, 1984, p. 54). Descartes is confident in the reality of his own existence, chiefly in terms of his intellectual capacities; he claims: ‘I exist – that is certain … as long as I am thinking’ (ibid., p. 18). It follows, he alleges, that any functions presupposing a body can be dismissed as properties which do not indubitably belong to the essence of his existence, leading him to the conclusion that ‘I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; that is, I am a mind … I am not that structure of limbs called a human body’ (ibid., p. 18). Moreover, although Descartes’ comparison is between the soul and the body, these terms may be taken to mean mind and matter also, on the grounds that all corporeal substances, such as the body or matter, are held to have the same definable characteristics, and the mind or soul is held to be a non-corporeal substance. In essence, the mind (res cogitans) and the body (res extensa) are not only different substances, they are capable of independent existence.

As Cottingham attests, for Descartes, ‘Mind and body … are not merely distinct: they are defined in mutually exclusive terms’ (Cottingham, 1986, p. 116). Yet even without examining the problems of the method of doubt itself, Descartes’ use of the first person singular, or the particular properties he attributes to these two contrasting substances, it can still be argued, as Cottingham shows, that ‘even if one accepts the unitariness and indivisibility of consciousness, it remains possible that consciousness might be a … property of a physical system’ (ibid., p. 118). Of greater significance is the inability of the Cartesian system to explain both how interaction between opposing entities can occur and where it takes place.

Descartes is forced to outline a solution to this problem when considering sensory perception and the imagination. He accepts that these hybrid faculties do not fit the absolute criteria of either pure mental activity or simple physical functions. Subsequent to his identification of the self with the mind, he claims that ‘it is also the same “I” who has sensory perceptions, or is aware of bodily things as it were through the senses … I certainly seem to see, to hear and to be warmed … and in this restricted sense of the term it is simply thinking’ (Descartes, 1984, p. 19). Furthermore, Descartes acknowledges that these special modes of thinking involve physiological activity which, he suggests, is located in the brain or, more specifically, the pineal gland (ibid., p. 340).

It seems then that the brain fills the space between the disinterested, intellectual cognition and the interested, visualization of a situation. Nonetheless, Descartes still maintains that his method of doubting and pure thought require no such physiological activity. Far from solving the problem of interaction therefore, Descartes has only transferred the problem from mind and body to mind and pineal gland. Cottingham comically states that ‘The soul here seems to be reduced to a kind of homunculus – a little man inside the brain viewing a screen where the images from the optic nerves converge’ (Cottingham, 1986, p. 121). Or, as Ryle famously claims, the reader is left with the impression that, in relation to the body, the mind is nothing more than a ‘ghost in the machine’ (Ryle, 1990, p. 17). Consequently, Cartesian dualism is unable to account for the human experience of embodiment, and this is unacceptable to Macmurray, partly because the system itself is flawed, but also on the grounds that, in his opinion, ‘The task of the philosopher … is to express in coherent and meaningful terms what is usually only implicit in the way we live’ (IU, pp. 9–10). However, as we have already mentioned, Macmurray alleges that Kant’s philosophy, while still containing dualism, is more successful in this respect than Descartes’ theory.

Rejecting Kantian Dualism

Although Kant disagrees with much of Descartes’ philosophical description of self-knowledge, it is possible, Macmurray contends, to detect the use of Cartesian dualism in the Kantian system. According to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Descartes’ cogito ergo sum demonstrates the existence of thought, but it does not impart any knowledge ‘of the subject in itself’ (Kant, 1950, A 350); the I who possesses that thought. As Scruton demonstrates, in Kant’s opinion the only inference that can be drawn from the Cartesian theory is that ‘I can be immediately certain of my present mental states. But I cannot be immediately certain of what I am, or of whether, indeed, there is an “I” to whom these states belong’ (Scruton, 1982, p. 12).

On the contrary, Kant uses the concept of ‘transcendental idealism’ (Kant, 1950, A 28) to make the assertion that the individual only has subjective as opposed to objective knowledge of their present mental state; however, this does not rule out the possibility of objective knowledge per se. Furthermore, he insists that neither subjective nor objective knowledge are possible if reason or experience are taken in isolation from one another. While the division of subjective and objective knowledge issues in Kant’s well-known distinction between the world as it appears to be (the phenomenal world) and the world as it is in itself (the noumenal world), where only the former can be known, but knowledge of the former depends upon the existence of the latter (ibid., A 250–51). When considering self-consciousness in particular therefore, Kant alleges that it ‘includes in itself the existence of a subject; but it does not so include any knowledge of the subject’ (ibid., B 277). Consequently the ‘I’ does not represent an object of consciousness, rather it represents a specific point of view on the world, where the self is subject and the world is object.

Despite requiring experience as well as thought, and thus improving on Cartesian mind-body dualism, in essence Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception relies upon the intellect, since sensory apprehension of the self provides no definite knowledge of its real nature, although it presupposes it. Moreover, Kant’s schema is unable to offer any further solution to the problem of mind and body interaction as it appears in the Cartesian system. Kant merely asserts that it is impossible to know whether the noumenal self and noumenal objects or the phenomenal mind and the phenomenal body are alike or can react (ibid., A 384, B 427). Hence, not only does the exact nature of noumenal and phenomenal elements remain unclear, but, in spite of the critical treatment Descartes’ philosophy receives, Kant remains a dualist, inasmuch as he still speaks of the self as thinker and of the mind as an item that is not contingent on matter for its existence. Nevertheless, since he does not present mind and body as strictly separable substances, his system leans more towards the concept of an embodied mind than Descartes’.

On the basis of the first Critique, Macmurray criticizes Kant for conducting an investigation into human nature that relies on theoretical method and excludes the possibility of empirical verifiability (SA, p. 39). In this instance, he suggests that the dualism of mind and matter has led also to a dualism of theory and practice. Yet, despite the dualisms entailed, an extrapolation of Kant’s theory, Macmurray contends, points towards the uniting of these dualisms. For example, the Kantian insistence that noumena cannot be known implies that knowledge must be empirical; that is, drawn from phenomena. In fact, in his second Critique, Kant himself exposes these dualisms to a more advanced form of union. On the basis of his examination of the practical application of pure reason, he is forced to conclude that practical reason is indeed plausible and actually has primacy over pure reason (Kant, 1976, V 119). Before Macmurray can credibly allege that Kant has failed to establish a holistic notion of the self, he must consult the Critique of Practical Reason.

According to Macann, the impetus of the second Critique is the fact that ‘Originally, human being is not a self-conscious subject, but an active agent’ (Macann, 1981, p. 168). For Kant, the significance of this empirical nature of human beings lies in its reference to morality. Further, the principle that a person ought to do something is rendered nonsensical unless that person is able to do so. Hence when duty and desire conflict, the possibility of acting in agreement with duty exists only if reason has the capacity to override sensuous cravings. Consequently the existence of free will becomes a necessity and, in Kant’s system, proves ‘that pure reason can be practical’ (Kant, 1976, V 42). Thus the transcendent self is regarded as an embodied self by virtue of free will. Free will, as Macann explains, ‘is nothing but that mediating agency which puts into practice the principles first proposed by reason’ (Macann, 1981, p. 170). A rational being, for Kant, is both a self-conscious core of knowledge and an agent capable of intentional or willed action.

Positively therefore, Macmurray describes Kant’s improvement on the Cartesian schema as the realization that reason is not purely cognitive; rather, ‘It is only when we turn to consider our practical experience as agents, and not our theoretical experience as thinkers, that we discover the true character of reason’ (SA, p. 54). However, Macmurray further contends that this conclusion is in contradiction with Kant’s premise; in his first Critique Kant assumes that the theoretical is primary, but in his second Critique he asserts the primacy of the practical. Unless Kant were to rebuild his philosophy with the practical as primary, Macmurray argues, action remains ‘logically inconceivable – a mystery in which we necessarily believe, but which we can never comprehend’ (SA, p. 73). The persistence of theoretical primacy, therefore, leaves Kant with the peculiar division of an individual’s actions into noumenal and phenomenal elements, even though these two aspects of a person’s action are both part of the same act. In addition to this problem, the suggestion that a human being’s passions are to be overcome by reason constitutes a self internally at war. Fundamentally, Kant’s attempt to portray the self produces the empirical necessity of mind and body interaction, yet renders their relation theoretically incomprehensible.

On these grounds Macmurray proposes to develop a description of the human being as agent, which realizes Kant’s emphasis on unity and practicality, without his contrast of reason and desire or the subsequent need to introduce the notion of the will. As with Descartes, Kant’s depiction of the person as a rational and isolated agent receives sharp criticism from Macmurray (SA, pp. 63–73). In addition, he considers Kant’s analysis of the relation between theoretical and practical activity to be inadequate. By assuming that pure reason is possible, in abstraction from empirical encounter with the world, Kant implies that thought is separable from action and that the self is complete without requiring any other selves. Even when he is considering moral agency Kant is more concerned with the knowledge of what ought to be done than with the practicalities of actually doing it. Vexed by this, and by any theory that gives the impression that knowledge is a sufficient criterion for understanding body and mind association, Macmurray states: ‘The unity of experience as a whole is not a unity of knowledge, but a unity of personal activities of which knowledge is only one’ (SA, p. 66).

Macmurray’s Alternative to Dualism

A preliminary explanation is necessary before examining Macmurray’s particular alternative to the Cartesian and Kantian definitions of the self, since he does not address the mind-body problem in the usual way. When a scholar claims to be refuting dualism, as Macmurray does, this is usually followed by an engagement with the peculiar nature of mental phenomena and how these are capable of being related to physical phenomena. These studies stem from the acknowledgement that it is difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the inner awareness human beings have, even though there has been no satisfactory philosophical explanation of it. For this reason, as McGinn reveals, the monist attempt to represent this special consciousness as a purely physical phenomenon is insufficient (McGinn, C., 1997, pp. 18–20). Yet the opposing dualism, which insists on the distinction of the mental states from the physical to the extent that they are regarded as ethereal, is also inadequate, since it is unable to explain the possibility of interaction between contrasting substances; as we have seen with the Cartesian system for example.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Key to References
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I The Essence of the Person
• Part II Developing as a Person
• Part III Persons and Politics
• Part IV Persons and Religion
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index