Personalism

 Personalism is a philosophical school that emphasizes the person. It considers man as a relational being, essentially social and communal, a free, transcendent being with a value in itself that prevents him from becoming an object as such. A moral being, capable of loving, of acting based on updating his powers and finally of defining himself, always considering the nature that determines him.

 

Personalism as a current of thought takes place within an environment surrounded by various equal ideologies of the political situation that the world was going through during the first half of the 20th century.

 

Scientism and positivism were part of this context and were two of the ideologies that had the most repercussions on human thinking and acting at the time. The cause of the popularity of this new intellectual materialism lies in the success achieved by experimental science.

 

The scientific method was considered the only valid method of knowledge and the only dimensions that really existed were the physical and material ones since they could be controlled through this method. In this way, the transcendent dimensions of the person were rejected.

 

Capitalism, for its part, proclaimed the freedom of the individual and their right to private property but later did not establish solidarity mechanisms between the subjects, but each one had to solve their problems with their own strength and resources. However, through the free decision of the subjects, these solidarity mechanisms can be organically given from the consent.

 

In response to capitalism, Marxism as an ideology of great popularity in the old world offered a confrontation with the oppressor through the class struggle to reappropriate the means of production that the exploiters had usurped. The man was subordinated to the total humanity for what the so-called communist paradise was sought.

 

Together with Marxism, two totalitarian movements appeared with a very particular conception of the person. Nazism, on the one hand, advocated the supremacy of the Aryan race over all the others and from there it deduced its right to dominate over all peoples. Fascism, on the other hand, defined man as a concrete moment or manifestation that adopts an absolute Spirit that remains and that has to be put at his service.

 

Faced with the schools of thought that subordinated man to a superior entity and reduced his nature to specific dimensions that did not cover everything that being a person implies; the need arises for a response that would revalue it and defend its true identity.

 

This response should be contextualized in the reality of today's world and should be a means to facilitate proposals for action on man's problems. Highlighting the notion of person, the experience of his being, the encounter with others, his transcendence, subjectivity and freedom constituted a hallmark of the utmost importance  for Personalism.