John Macmurray

Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Edinburgh

The Form of the Personal

In his first series of lectures, Macmurray asserts the primacy of the practical over the theoretical, demonstrating that philosophical analysis should begin with the self as an agent of action in the world. In his second series, he shows the self in proper existence within a community of relational beings and asserts that ‘there can be no man until there are at least two men in communication’. He argues that an isolated agent is a self-contradiction because agency requires relationship.

Biography

John Macmurray was born on 16 February 1891 in Maxwelltown, Scotland. A moral philosopher, his ideas were considered ‘personalist’, focusing on the nature of human beings. During the First World War, Macmurray joined the medical corps and served as an officer in the Cameron Highlanders. Afterward, he held posts in philosophy at Manchester, Witwatersrand, and Balliol College, Oxford from 1919 to 1923. Appointed to the Grote Chair of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College, London in 1928, he became Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh in 1944, retiring in 1958.

Macmurray gained popularity as a BBC radio broadcaster during the 1930s. He remained outside institutional Christianity until 1958 when he took up residence in a Quaker community. Notable works include Freedom in the Modern World (1932), The Philosophy of Communism (1933), Interpreting the Universe (1933), The Structure of Religious Experience (1936), The Clue to History (1938), The Boundaries of Science: A Study in the Philosophy of Psychology (1939), A Challenge to the Churches: Religion and Democracy (1941), Constructive Democracy (1943), and Conditions of Freedom (1949).

Published/Archival Resources

Published as The Self as Agent, Persons in Relation.