557 - The Self as Agent

The Self as Agent
By John Macmurray
230 pp. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1957. $3.75.

This is the first of two series of Gifford Lectures. Delivered at the University of Glasgow by John Macmurray of the University of Edinburgh in 1953, it is to be followed by the second series under the title "Persons in Relation." It contains a thoroughgoing criticism of our dominant philosophical tradition as too theoretical and egocentric. Against this tradition Macmurray argues that the self is primarily "agent" rather than "subject," that "most of our knowledge, all our primary knowledge, arises as an aspect of activities which have practical, not theoretical objectives," and that the self is personal and constituted by its relation to persons (p. 13). The present volume deals only with "the self as agent," abstracting from its relation to other persons. Its thesis is: "All meaningful knowledge is for the sake of action, and all meaningful action for the sake of friendship" (p. 16). Although there is not much discussion of religion, Macmurray is laying the foundation for a natural theology. "For it is characteristic of religion," he says, "that it behaves towards its object in ways that are suitable to personal intercourse; and the conception of a deity is the conception of a personal ground of all that we experience" (p. 17). Hence, "a philosophical analysis of the personal" should throw light upon the nature of this behavior and the validity of this conception.

Macmurray believes that the philosophical tradition starting with Descartes' "Cogito" and based upon the primacy of the theoretical reason has led more and more to atheism. By its emphasis upon categories derived from the physical and biological realms it has produced in our day a "crisis of the personal." This crisis is evidenced in philosophy by logical empiricism and existentialism, which agree in holding that the traditional method of philosophy cannot solve its traditional problems but disagree in that the former discards the problems while the latter abandons the method. Macmurray rejects both these "new modes" be use the problems are real and can only be dealt with by the philosophical method, but he proposes a radical reconstruction based upon "the primacy of the practical reason" and an analysis of "the form of the personal." The most adequate of modern philosophies, he thinks, was at of Kant because be sought to do justice to both science and morality.

But Kant's conclusion as to "the primacy of the practical reason" was inconsistent with his starting point, the "I think" of the theoretical reason; he was able to reconcile the determinism of science with the freedom of morality only by asserting a dualism between phenomena and things in-themselves; and he reduced religion to a mere adjunct of morality.

558 - The Self as Agent

Macmurray's starting-point for his reconstruction is the "I do" rather than the "I think." Although philosophy should be theoretical in its method, its thinking should be done "from the standpoint of action." For the sell is primarily "agent" rather than "subject," its action being a more concrete and complete activity than its thought. All the capacities of the self, of body as well as mind, are employed in action, while only the mind is active in thought. Pure thought is "secondary" and "derivative," for "thought, so far as it is actual falls within action, and depends upon action" (p. 89). Thought is "negative" in the sense that it occurs when there is a withdrawal from action into reflection. As Macmurray expresses it, "formally the Self as subject is the negation of the Self as agent, and since it is by its own activity that the Self withdraws from action into reflection, its subject-hood is its self-negation" (p. 96).

This results not merely in a subordination of thought to action but also (at times) in a depreciation of thought in its theoretical aspect. For example, we are told that, while action modifies the world and the self as agent is part of the world in which it acts, the self as subject is not a part of the world it knows, so that "the Self exists as agent but not as subject" (p. 91). This is very misleading, to say the least, since thinking is certainly a real activity of an existent self. Again, Macmurray says that "as an agent I am a body, operative, material and existent; as a subject I am a mind, causally ineffective, immaterial and non-existent" (p. 92), a statement which seems to reduce the mind and its thinking to unreality and impotence. Still further, he insists that the primary knowledge is that which "arises in action apart from any theoretical intention" and that "the question which a theoretical activity seeks to answer can only arise in practical experience, directly or indirectly, and the answer can be true or false only through a reference to action" (pp. 101, 102). This tendency to disparage theoretical activity may be a natural result of his attempt to correct the opposite tendency in the philosophical tradition, but it is questionable whether it avoids the errors of Instrumentalism with respect to thought. Also, one wonders whether it will not lead in the second series to an extremely one-sided natural theology based on the practical reason alone.

It must be said, however, that Macmurray's emphasis upon action and the practical is very fruitful, as his treatment of various problems makes clear. For example, in his analysis of perception, he argues that touch

559 - The Self as Agent

is prior to vision as a basis of knowledge of the "other," that vision functions primarily as a guide to action in that it anticipates contact by touch, and that knowledge of the "other" is "anthropomorphic" in that I attribute to it forms of activity that I attribute to myself. He also offers a brief but interesting analysis of time as "the form of action" and of its implications for freedom. The past is that which has been determined and is therefore completely determinate, the future that which is to be determined and is hence indeterminate. "To possess free-will is simply to be able co determine the indeterminate, that is, the future," and "the falsity of determinism lies simply in the dogma that the future is already determinate" (pp. 134, 135). Again, Macmurray distinguishes between acts" or "doings" for which there are "reasons" and "events" or "happenings" for which there are "causes." This is correlated with a distinction between "intentional" human acts which are done with a purpose and physical change or organic behavior which is "teleological" but not governed by purpose. These distinctions enable us to understand science as a description of recurrent "events" which abstracts from the presence of agents and their "acts" and which does not answer the real causal question, "What set the process going in the first instance?" (p. 163). Finally, there is an interesting contrast between science and art as modes of reflective activity. Science is the "intellectual mode" which is based on generalization and excludes valuation. Art is based on particularization and is the contemplative evaluation and enjoyment of "the World-as-end" or "intrinsic value." Although art is an "emotional mode," it is not inferior to science as knowledge, since our feelings and judgments of value are no more subjective in their nature and no less objective in their reference than our thoughts.

In the concluding chapter Macmurray looks forward to the second series of lectures by asserting the metaphysical thesis that "the only way in which we can conceive our experience as a whole is by thinking the world as one action" (p. 204). History which provides a common memory helps us to conceive "an intentional unity of actions in one action" and we can hardly do this without thinking "a supreme Agent whose act the world is" (p. 222). Macmurray believes that this metaphysical assertion can be verified by showing the practical grounds for believing it in preference to any known alternative. It will be interesting to see in detail how he does this in the second volume.

George F. Thomas
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey