Abstract

John Macmurray's philosophy of "the form of the personal" is examined with particular interest in his emphasis on persons as agents, his account of psychological development, his claim that our self-awareness as persons is acquired from the mutuality of personal relations, and his important contribution in placing personhood at the center of inquiries into the human condition. Subsequently, it is argued that the reality of psychologically capable personhood so construed is irreducible to physical, biological, or social categories frequently deemed by psychologists as more fundamental and, further, that psychological capacities and their development are best understood in terms of the personal. 2012 APA, all rights reserved)