About this ebook
That tradition is, perhaps, best known today in its American and European manifestations, although there remains a small but fiercely defended stronghold in Britain. Personalism is not an exclusively Western development, however; its roots are also found in India, China, and Japan.
What unites these disparate intellectual cultures may seem quite small. There is little, if any, methodological or doctrinal consensus among them. They are all, however, responses to the impersonal and depersonalising forces perceived to be at work in philosophy, theology, and, most recently, the natural and political sciences. Their common aim is to place persons at the heart of these discourses, to defend the idea that persons are the metaphysical, epistemological, and moral ‘bottom line’, the vital clue to knowledge of self, reality, and all conceivable values.
The authors in this collection do not simply reflect upon this tradition, they put it to work on a range of philosophical and theological problems, both classical and contemporary; problems of free will, personal identity, and the nature of reality, as well as the very current concerns of environmental philosophers, bio- and neuro-ethicists. Their perspectives, too, are many and varied, so offer profound insights into key debates among other philosophical traditions, such as the Kantian, Hegelian, phenomenological, and process schools.
About the author
Simon Smith fled the University of Sussex in 2007, his D.Phil. in Philosophy clutched in trembling hands. The philosophical theology of Austin Farrer was, and is, his primary subject matter; personalist metaphysics, his abiding interest. He has taught at the University of Southampton and the Modern College of Business and Science in Oman. He is now an independent scholar buried deep in the Surrey Downs. He is also Editor of Appraisal, journal of the British Personalist Forum, and writes an irregular blog for the Forum’s website. He is currently in pursuit of a more perfect alignment of science and religion through the diverse forms of personal analogy at work in modern physics and modern metaphysics. The effect of such language on the development of consciousness and on our understanding of the universe to which it belongs are his principle concerns.
Together, Beauregard and Smith are project managers and general editors of the forthcoming Internet Encyclopedia of Personalism, a peer-reviewed, open-access resource for scholars and students with an interest in the field of Personalism.
James Beauregard is a lecturer in the psychology doctoral program at Rivier University, Nashua, New Hampshire. He teaches neuropsychology and is developing courses in Ageing and the Biological Bases of Behaviour. He is also a clinical neuropsychologist with 20 years experience working with individuals with dementia and their families. He earned his graduate degrees at Northeastern University, Boston Massachusetts and completed neuropsychology Fellowship training at Fairlawn Rehabilitation Hospital and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and the departments of neurology and psychiatry. His research interests include Neuroethics and Personalist philosophy in both the British and continental traditions, including the intersection of these two fields in understanding personhood. He is a member of the British Personalist Forum, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and the International Neuroethics Society.
Together, Beauregard and Smith are project managers and general editors of the forthcoming Internet Encyclopedia of Personalism, a peer-reviewed, open-access resource for scholars and students with an interest in the field of Personalism.