Here I have attempted to capture the structure of Macmurray’s philosophical argument as concisely as I can (in little over a 1000 words!) without comment or context. I have taken a 'top down' approach, starting with three big ideas, and then examining which seven or eight ideas contribute to these. The result is necessarily rather abstract.

This summary is not in any sense definitive: it is intended to stimulate discussion amongst those already familiar with Macmurray, rather than to inform those new to his work. (See Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for an introduction to Macmurray's thinking)

There are three big ideas in Macmurray’s  thinking

• The universe is one: the universe is personal.
• Human beings are inherently rational
• The universe is structured by a unifying logical pattern.

These themes are explored throughout his work, but find their fullest expression in his 1953-4 Gifford Lectures (‘Self as Agent’ and ‘Persons in Relation’).  Let us explore them in turn.

The universe is one: the universe is personal

• Existence is rooted in action and relationship.  We do not exist primarily as solitary thinking egos. Our existence as persons is rooted in the personal world, that is in:

1)    Relationship.  (Mutuality, I-You relation)  Our existence is embedded in the mutual personal relationships in which we know one another directly as ‘You’.

2)    Action.   We exist primarily not as observers, but as participants in dynamic relation with the world. 

 

• The universe is personal.   Since mutual relationship and action cannot be inferred from organic or material reality, it is logical to conclude that they are ‘givens’.  It follows that the universe is not primarily organic or material, but personal.  Our distinctive nature as persons must be seen as an expression of the personal nature of the universe.

• The personal is inclusive.   Personal reality cannot be inferred from organic or material worlds since it is categorically more than either of them.  Organic and material nature can, however, be inferred from personal reality: they can be arrived at by abstraction from our experience as persons. The personal universe thus includes and is constituted by the organic and material worlds.

• The universe is one. The universe we occupy is seamless and continuous: reality is not cut into irreconcilable parts such as mind and body. Our difficulty in understanding this philosophically is a failure in philosophical thinking.  The failure arises in part because we have tried to understand reality by analogy to the organic and material worlds, rather than in terms of its own distinctive logical structure. (See below: ‘Form of the Personal’)

• The ‘Universal You’ is the field of the personal.   We exist in the field of the personal. We can know mutuality directly by entering into loving relationships and knowing the other as ‘You’.   But any particular ‘You’ is only one example of the field of the personal. The ‘Universal You’, or God, is the ground of our existence.  By entering into a relationship with God, we gain knowledge of ourselves as mutuality, as one element of ‘I and You’. This knowledge, however, remains incomplete – and essentially unreal – unless it directly informs our everyday living in the personal world.

Human beings are inherently rational

• Reason is primarily practical. Reason, or rationality, is an expression of our capacity both to know this world and also to live by that knowledge. Since our existence is rooted in action rather then thought, it is only when we live according to what we know that our capacity for rationality finds a full expression.

• We are inherently rational. Rational action is action disciplined by our knowledge of the world about us. We are inherently rational: the drive to be in touch with what is real, and to live by that knowledge, is part of our nature as persons.

• We know the world through thinking, feeling or loving.  We have three distinctive reflective capacities through which we can develop knowledge of the world.  In the process of thinking we can gain knowledge of the world as fact. Through feeling we have the opportunity to gain knowledge of the world as value. Through loving, that is through the effort to know other persons as persons, we gain knowledge of the world as mutual relationship.

• Thinking, feeling and loving can each be rational or irrational.  Reflecting, in any of its modes, is irrational when our approach is egocentric, that is, subjective. When we simply enjoy the thoughts and feelings the object arouses in us, rather than seeking to know the object through our thoughts and feeling, we are being irrational.  Irrational thinking and feeling is self-centred. Rational thinking and feeling is objective, that is, it seeks to be in touch with the reality of the object.  

• Loving, not thinking, is the key mode of rational reflection. Since our existence as persons is rooted in mutual personal relationships, loving, not thinking, is the key mode of rational reflection, for it is only through loving that we can know the world of mutuality.  Loving, that is entering into mutual personal relationships, is more than mere feeling: it is a way of knowing. Rational loving is other-centred: we love the other person for what they are, not simply for the feelings they arouse in us. As a culture, we know a great deal about rational thinking.  We have much to learn about rational feeling and loving.

• Human beings are innately religious. The impulse to be in touch with the personal nature of the universe by loving is (by definition) a religious impulse.  Religious understanding which has found its true nature is not merely, or even primarily, ‘spiritual’, but fully grounded in the practical world: it seeks a loving community on earth.

• Religion, art and science are each modes of reflection. The method of science is a mature expression of our ability to think rationally.  Art is an expression of our effort to feel rationally. Religion is an expression of our effort to know the world as mutuality, that is, to love rationally. At its current stage of development religion is largely irrational. This does not mean that religion is irrational by nature: it is merely immature.  Christianity, freed from idealism (and the sentimentality and hypocrisy which tend to go with it) has the seeds of the possibility of a rational religion, that is a religion which helps us to know and celebrate our personal existence in community.

• The chief obstacle to rationality is fear.  Fear is the biggest obstacle to rational reflection in any of its modes. Rationality requires us to give up certainty, because rational knowledge is always provisional and in a process of discovery through experience.  Rational reflection –whether scientific, artistic or religious - has to fight against the conservative forces of dogmatic belief and external authority.  

Universe is structured by a unifying logical pattern

• The personal universe is not chaotic.  The personal universe is not entirely random and chaotic. It hangs together. It has a pattern of unity, that is, an underlying logical structure.

• Dualism is a result of faulty thinking. Until we have found the logical pattern inherent in personal experience, any attempt to represent the personal universe in reflection, and so to try to think about our own nature, will lack coherence:  it will be tend to be either dualistic or reductionist.

• The logical structure of personal experience can be defined.  By examining personal experience from first principles, the embedded logical structure is discovered as one in which the positive contains and is constituted by its own negation. This logical structure – the form of the personal  - is simply a formal expression of our ordinary experience that in meeting the world (and being at one with it) we are also set apart from it. This logical pattern is found, for example, in the underlying structure of personal relationship
• Friendship (personal relationship) has a logical structure.  In the mutual loving of deep friendship, we are at one with one another: we experience the immediate and concrete reality of meeting in relationship. But we do not merge. It is a unity containing individuality. The positive ‘meeting’ in mutual relationship is constituted by its own logical negation – the ‘apartness’ of individuality.

• Action has the same logical structure. The same paradoxical pattern appears in the field of action. It is in action that we are at one with the material world: we are in direct and immediate contact with the existent. But in knowing that we act (and in so knowing the world), we are also set apart from it. Again the positive meeting with the real is constituted by a negation of that meeting.

• The ‘form of the personal’ models the personal world. Just as mathematics models in logical terms our experience of the material world, so the 'form of the persona'l provides the logical structure for representing in thought, our ordinary experience of the personal world. The logic of the form of the personal is found in every facet of personal experience.

• The form of the personal models the universe.  If the universe is personal, then it follows that the unity pattern of personal experience – the form of the personal - is also the unifying logical pattern of the universe. Organic logic (dialectic logic) and material logic (mathematics) can be derived from the form of the personal by a process of abstraction.

• Dualism is rooted in our practical lives. By revealing the logical form of personal experience, the theoretical problem of dualism is resolved. At the same time dualism is exposed with a new clarity as a practical problem. To gain wholeness in our practical lives, we must overcome our fear of one another and allow ourselves to be known.  It is only by living life with an attitude of trust that we can gain integrity. Such an effort – the effort to intend community - is (by definition) religious.