Personalism and Value-Centered Historicism

Author(s): CLAES G. RYN

Source: The Pluralist, Vol. 3, No. 2, Focus on Jan Olof Bengtsson's The Worldview of
Personalism (SUMMER 2008), pp. 3-14
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Society for the Advancement of
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Personalism and Value-Centered Historicism
CLAES G. RYN
Catholic University ofAmerica

there has always been a powerful tendency inWestern to as

thought
sociate what is real and knowable with what is not only universal but pure
of the historical and particular?that is, to associate itwith what is abstract.
Even philosophers with much to contribute to wisdom have disparaged
the particular, creating a prejudice even against the individuality of human
more than any other thinker
beings. Plato, who generated this fondness
for ahistorical universality, is a curious mixture of insight and disdain for
concrete
individuality. In epistemology, the principle of de individuis nulla
scientia?that no knowledge is possible of the individual?has exemplified
the same unwillingness to embrace and really take account of concrete hu
man
experience.

Christianity moderated this taste for abstract universality. The notion

that theWord became flesh challenged the old idea that only as divorced
from the particular could the universal really show itself, but despite the
doctrine of the Incarnation, itproved difficult even forChristianity to free
itself from the ahistorical transcendence of Platonism. Though more aware
of the importance of individuality as such, Christian thinkers remained
prone to a somewhat disembodied transcendence. The best of German ide
a concrete human life,
alism made possible sharpened understanding of
but it presented new problems as well as solutions. Hegel's intellectualistic
bias and other weaknesses were bound to give Christians and others pause.
Still, because of the discovery of the concrete universal, Christians should
to draw out more of the implications of the Incarna
finally have been able
tion for understanding human existence in general. But, together with the
old prejudice in favor of ahistorical universality, Hegel's flaws stood in the
way of a philosophical breakthrough.

the pluralist Volume 3,Number 2 Summer 2008 : pp. 3-14 3

?2008 by theBoard ofTrustees of theUniversityof Illinois

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4 THE PLURALIST 3 : 2 20 8

Among those in themodern world who have treated actual human expe
rience respectfully and have resisted both materialism and abstract universal
ism are the personalista. They are called by that name because of theirmost
distinctive intellectual trait, that they regard personality as the key to reality.
Personalism is the subject of amajor new work of intellectual history,TheWorld
view ofPersonalism: Origins and Early Development, by JanOlof Bengtsson.1
a
Exhibiting the highest standards of scholarship, including truly impressive
erudition, Bengtsson surveys the emergence of a movement that in his view
EH. Jacobis criticism of pantheism,
originated in the 1780s, partly through
butwhich alsodrewon thelatework ofF.W J.Schelling.
While keepingthe
reader alert to the diversity of themovement as awhole and
locating particular
thinkerswithin their contemporary intellectual context, Bengtsson surveys and
sorts out salient and defining general themes of personalism. The book is at
once a person with a broad
richly informative and analytically incisive. Only
and advanced mastery of the history ofWestern thought could have written a
is able, for themost
study of such simultaneous scope and depth. Bengtsson
to detail and nuance that
part, to avoid the kind of specialistic attention might
have cluttered a less philosophical, more positivistic study.
not attempting an exhaustive history of personalism. He is
Bengtsson is
concerned primarily to identify and explain its "origins and early develop
ment," which is in itself a challenging task. Because the author argues care
comes to trust his
fully,methodically, and dispassionately, the reader judg
ment in deciding which thinkers aremost deserving of treatment and where
to place the philosophical emphasis. In the end, only experts on personalism
can assess whether this trust is me
justified, but itwould surprise greatly if
in years to come this book will not be regarded as the authoritative, standard
work on its subject and that scholars will declare: "Bengtsson says," and "ac
to Bengtsson."
cording
The author makes it clear that his purpose is not a systematic and gen
eral evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of personalism. Even less is
he trying to set forth his own personalist philosophy. But even an admirably
one that a critical distance to its must
scholarly work like this keeps subject
of necessity decide what isphilosophically important and unimportant, cen
tral and tangential. Its interpretations must reflect the authors philosophi
cal point of view. Though Bengtsson makes his own personalist and other
in the concluding chapter, the reader senses from the
leanings explicit only
that he is a sympathetic, if certainly not uncritical, expositor of
beginning
of issues, selections,
personalist ideas. Through his emphases, formulation
and comments Bengtsson conveys, without ever being heavy-handed, some

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RYN :Personalism and Value-Centered Historicism 5

of his own personalist outlook. His book contributes significantly to intel

lectual history but also to the continuing development of personalism. For
uses the ideas and
example, in interpretingpersonalists Bengtsson perspectives
of thinkers not as members of the movement,
usually regarded personalist
not discuss
including Irving Babbitt and Benedetto Croce, though he does
or mention them in the text. a
They appear only inconspicuously in couple
of footnotes that do not hint at their having influenced the author.

Value-centered Historicism

Personalist thinkers, as presented by Bengtssoni move partly within or in the

am accustomed to
vicinity of what I calling "value-centered historicism."
This kind of historicism accepts the notion ofmoral and other universality,
but it also opposes theories that neglect or minimize the importance of the
concrete, lived reality of human existence. While acknowledging the ines
sees life's
capable historicity of human existence, value-centered historicism
as if thatword too is used
highest manifestations shaped by universality, or,
with caution, by the transcendent. To the extent that universality enters hu
man
experience, it does
so in concrete
particulars?an idea that seems to
a to be a contradic
Platonists and long line of abstractionist philosophers
tion in terms.According to value-centered historicism, the good, the true,
and the beautiful do shun historical particularity thatmilitates against them,
but the universal also needs the particular truly to be itself.Most especially,
it needs particular persons. The particular is not, as for Plato, necessarily an
to The universal
impediment universality but is required for its instantiation.
becomes in this sense indistinguishable from the particular. The transcendent
becomes immanent. The universal and the particular aremutually implicated
in each other. They are synthesized. Between universality and particularity
there is, of course, tension as well as accommodation. The human search
for goodness, truth, and beauty is dialectical in thatwe simultaneously both
possess and do not posses these values. To realize what is universal we must
intellectually, and aesthetically. Due in part to perpetu
struggle?morally,
this Individuals must
ally changing circumstances, requires creativity. adapt
the universal to their unique historical situation. To the extent that they
succeed, goodness, truth, and beauty are brought into theworld of human
to the
experience. The concrete particulars range from the inconsequential
profound and indispensable. Though bearing always the imprint of unique
persons, these realizations of value can be assimilated by others though the
new creativity.
synthesis of

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6 THE PLURALIST 3 : 2 20 8

The source of value that is here called universality for short is never ex
hausted by human effort.To take the value of truth as an example, not even
themost profound truth articulated by a human being is the final, complete,
and unadulterated Truth?Truth with a capital "T." Truth is a matter ofmore
or less, a striving that is forever threatened by confusion, blindness, and pre
mature certainty and that never comes to rest in definitive clarity. People who
know more about God than I do assert thatGod
is omniscient. St. Augustine
seems to know quite well what sort of thing divine omniscience is. But what
is attributed toGod bears little resemblance to human knowing. The truths
known to human beings are truths, but they are truthswith a lower case "t"
that are held humbly and tentatively.2

Areas ofCongeniality

Much ofwhat Bengtsson describes as personalism coincides with what I call

value-centered historicism, though, on the whole, the latterway of think
some of whom may have
ing has been derived from other thinkers, only
influenced personalism as well. Itwould be possible to comment at great
on how value-centered historicism and personalism overlap. I have
length
taken note, for example, of personalismos rejection of what might be called
"radical transcendence," the notion that the transcendent represents some
kind of sharp, abrupt break with human life even at its noblest. The tran
scendent, in that view, is "wholly other," to use the theologian Karl Barths
seems
phrase about God. A.S. Pringle-Pattison rightwhen he argues that "the
transcendence which must be retained . . . refers to a distinction of value or
of quality, not to the ontological separateness of one being from another.
It refers ... to the infinite greatness and richness of the containing Life, as
as yet
compared with anything appropriated by the finite creature" (182).3
Universality is realized, I contend, through three different kinds of human
intellectual, and aesthetical?which instantiate goodness,
activity?moral,
truth, and beauty, respectively, by synthesizing universality and historical
in that it is
particularity. The moral value of goodness is first among equals
most important to the proper integration of the
ultimately normative and
life can
personality. Although the effort of elevating and refining human
have moments of special intensity and elevation, transcendence is not some

sudden, blinding illumination that renders history/individuality irrelevant or

to the inexhaustible source of
insignificant. The word "transcendence" refers
value in its relation to particular manifestations of universality.
was in exceptional
What just said does not exclude the possibility that

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RYN :Perso nalism and Value- Ceri teredH istorie ism 7

individual cases the experience of transcendence may be so overwhelming as

to a person in
temporarily disorient ordinary life.
The personalist way of associating higher values with the development
of the person overlaps with or runs parallel to that of value-centered histori
cism. I am curious about the extent towhich personalism can accept an idea
about universality that I formulated inA Common Human Ground, that it
is throughthepersons intensification
ofunique individuality?atthehighest
moral, aesthetical, and intellectual level?that universality is realized. At that
level personal uniqueness and universality are synthesized through creativity.
Different persons are harmonized with each other. Their ability to commu
nicate and interact is enhanced through the intensification of their unique
ness. The is not
community enriched by persons shedding their distinctive
at the level at which it can
individuality but by their cultivating it?again,
manifest universality.The possibility of unity throughdiversity is explained by
the idea of the concrete universal. The latter should, however, not be under
stood in the predominantly intellectualistic and monistic manner ofHegel but
should be seen as applying equally to necessary moral and aesthetical activity
and as compatible with recognizing the continuing reality of evil, ugliness,
and falsehood. The concrete universal thus conceived seems tome to render

accurately the living human experience of higher values.

As one who has always tried to approach questions of reality fromwithin
the concrete experience of human beings and who has been critical of ab
on actual
stractly constructed vantage points, I find the personalist emphasis
as to most
human experience the key reality agreeable. Personalism's respect
for the sphere inwhich will, freedom, and responsibility are indisputable facts
is tome a sign ofmoral-spiritual and intellectual health. Personalists seem to
me
justified in resisting abstract universalism and other forms of rationalism,
and they deserve much credit for giving particularity/individuality the kind
of attention that so many other thinkers have been unwilling to give it.
true
Pringle-Pattison argues, inmy view correctly, that philosophy "is,
and can be, nothing more than the critical interpretation of human experi
ence" (123). Precisely because I agree with this statement, some personalist
assertions about God make me uneasy. They seem too speculative, too tenu
to human experience. They appear to be at best conjecture on
ously related
the basis of experiential evidence, perhaps plausible guesswork. They are
not
"truly philosophical." I am the first to grant that inmatters like these
not the final word. Great poetry, for instance, can in itsway
philosophy is
seemore
deeply than philosophy. But the personalist claims about God that
I have inmind are stated prosaically, as if they articulated generally know

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 8 THE PLURALIST 3 : 2 20 8

able experiential facts. Personalista might, of course, claim that in theirmore

statements about God they are as
far-reaching elucidating human experience
or at times
expanded by revelation religiousfaith. Philosophy blends for them,
too with I that the line between
perhaps readily, theology. recognize philoso
cannot be drawn
phy and theology precisely and definitively, but those mak
claims seem more must address the
ing that theological than philosophical
that are not the
possible objection they articulating religious experience of
a
general humanity, which would offer proper basis for philosophical claims,
but experience that is exclusive to a certain group and perhaps idiosyncratic
and questionable. In this area it is also essential to be alert to the great dif
ference between genuine spirituality and what Irving Babbitt calls "sham"
spirituality, that is, imagination engendered by insufficientmoral and aes
thetical restraint and discrimination.4 Even more than other forms of alleged

experience of the universal, presumed religious experience needs to be checked

for romantic sentimentalism, personal conceit, wishful dreaming, egotism,
etc. The prominence of Schelling in Bengtssons account of the origins of
extent towhich
personalism raises the question of the personalism has been
prone to a dubious form of and emotionalism. For that reason, I
imagination
find it reassuring that, as portrayed by Bengtsson, personalism, startingwith
Jacobi, is strongly disinclined to pantheism. On the other hand, Jacobi was
strongly influenced by Rousseau.

A Puzzle

In reading Bengtssons book, I came across ideas not to

previously familiar
me in that particular form that I found
thought-provoking and worthy of
furtherconsideration. I kept seeing opportunities for themutual enrichment
of personalism and value-centered historicism. But rather than continuing to
detail points of agreement or possible synergy, I should like to turn towhat
a as well as hinder
might complicate rapprochement personalismos develop
ment in line with its own central concerns.
Let me begin by pointing to an intriguing puzzle that isfirst encountered
in Bengtssons introduction and that stayswith the reader to the end. The
to the author's
puzzle pertains perspective on his own subject. He indicates
that historicism in some of its forms has significantly advanced philosophy
and that historicism is also directly relevant to personalism. On the basis of
conversations and correspondence with him, I know that he
regardswhat I
call value-centered historicism as a plausible and fruitful form of historicism.
What should be noted is that, in his view, personalism is "closely related

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RYN :Perso rullimi and Value-Centered H istorieism 9

to the of historicism and the historical consciousness." That

development
means related is suggested by his also writing that
"closely related" integrally
to historicism and one of its
"personalism's relation philosophy of history is
comes as a
important aspects" (24). It therefore surprisewhen, regarding this
important aspect, Bengtsson announces that "I will not dwell on ithere." His
stated reason for not doing so is that "I aim primarily to study the origins
and early developments of personalism as it isdefined todaywith referenceto
theAmerican school" (emphasis added). As the latter school "did not distin
or to
guish itselfby assimilating developing this central aspect [the relation
'historicism and philosophy of history ]," he thinks that he can afford to deal
with it "only in passing" (25). Puzzling.
The philosophically inclined historian does not return to the past indis
an
criminately, like antiquarian interested in something merely because it is
old. The philosopher explores old ideas because theymay throw light,however
on unsolved more attention, the
indirectly, problems. Old ideas deserve the
more
they promise assistance with large and urgent quandaries. Bengtsson
does believe that personalism has much to offer our contemporary world,
but ifhistoricism is not merely intrinsically important but a "central aspect"
of personalism, should it not have a prominent place in his study?
cast thiswork on as an
Why personalism mainly exploration of the origins
of theAmerican school?Why privilege a school that has not been greatly af
fected by "a central aspect" of personalism? Is theAmerican school neverthe
less superior to other strains and thereforemost worthy of representing the
movement as a whole? not say.He states
Bengtsson does merely that "I will
not of theAmerican school as representa
challenge [the] practice regarding
tive" (32). Is, then, the reason for the emphasis of his study simply that today
theAmerican school ismost widely associated with the term and most likely
to show interest in a book on
personalism?
An in-depth consideration of personalism's relation to historicism would
have required some general rethinking of thewhole subject, a philosophically
cue fromAmerican person
daunting and time-consuming task. By taking his
alism, Bengtsson has been able to postpone demanding philosophical explora
tions. Yet his acquaintance with historicist thinking has probably
sharpened
his eye forwhat is original and fruitful in the evolution of personalism.

A Crucial Idea: Synthesis

In his discussion of personalism's notion of reason, Bengtsson points out

that themovement did not incorporate a dialectical conception of thought.

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 IO THE PLURALIST 3 : 2 20 8

means a non-schematic, humanistic intellectual dy

By "dialectical" he here
namic. He points out that "dialectical thought" and "the concrete universal"
were "imperfectly assimilated" in personalism (63). Itmay be suggested that
more
personalism could have been generally strengthened by absorbing his
toricist ideas.
Like other personalista, Pringle-Pattison reacts against what he sees as a
to become a "play of abstractions." It is,he writes, "as if
tendency of idealism
we took the concrete
personality of the individual?which may be described
in certain of its aspects as an instance of unity inmultiplicity or permanence
in change?and separated the unity from themultiplicity, assigning unity
to a universal or divine Self" (119). Although this statement would be unfair
as a it indicates a proper concern to protect
depiction of idealism in general,
the particularity and universality
genuine human individuality by holding
of the person together. But really explaining the possibility of real union of
the two would seem to cry out for the idea of synthesis.Without synthesis
in the historicist sense, how could the union of universality and particularity
be anything more than a tenuous, ultimately artificial coexistence?
in "the insistence on the
Bengtsson finds the originality of C. B. Upton
nature of God or the absolute" (193). Upton argues that
distinctly personal
"theAbsolute Presence which meets us face to face in themost momentous
of our life'sexperiences" is personal. "This word personal is too poor and car
rieswith it associations too human and too limited. . . .But we cannot spare
the word personal' in this connection, forwe have no higher term .... It
is quite possible ... to discern in the highest forms of human personality a
true, though not exhaustive, revelation of the nature of the Perfect Personality
of God" (194). I shall leave aside the difficulty thatUpton is here describing
and not subject to general verifi
religious experience thatmay be exceptional
cation and concentrate instead on the idea thatwhat is highest in individual
as itgoes, this idea comports
persons is amanifestation of the universal. As far
well with value-centered historicism. But in order to expkin and not merely to
assert the coincidence of personal uniqueness and absolute experience, again,
the idea of real union, of synthesis, is needed. That ideamoves us beyond an
inwhich the universal and the
abstractly conceived, compartmentalized world
are ultimately separate and can coexist only precariously. In that
particular
reifiedworld, man must ultimately choose between his individuality and his

universality.Without the notion of synthesis, theChristain notion of incarna

tion, too, must remain seem at least a paradox.
philosophically problematic,
I read Bengtsson's book looking especially for personalism's definition
of personhood. The philosophical characteristic most generally pointed to

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RYN :Perso nalisni arid Value-Centered H istorieism

as
personalistic is the belief that actual experience reveals reality. Since actual
a
experience is human experience, experience is personal. But such view is
held by many people who might not otherwise qualify as personalists?for
not prone to an intellectualistic and
example, idealists ultimately monistic
"absolute idealism." Bengtsson's discussions of personalist perspectives on

autonomy, reason, freedom, creativity, interpersonal relations, and especially

man's relation to a personal God elaborate on the personalist understand
as these discussions are, the
ing of personhood. Interesting and enlightening
historicist keeps looking for further elucidation of personality and the rela

tionship of the universal and the particular. The possibility of employing the
ideas of synthesis and dialectic comes repeatedly to mind. Explaining "the
new concept of the
person" in personalism, Warren Breckman explains how
itclashes with "absolute idealism." The person is "an irreducibly unique locus
of consciousness, rationality and will." Human personhood "suggests the total
lifeof an individual, defined not only by a universally shared human essence
but also by the contingent attributes of that particular individual" (44). To
the value-centered historicist, this account sounds most promising, but he
wants to know can be
just how thatwhich is distinctively personal, unique,
to the universal? In the end, iswhat Breckman calls "the contingent
joined
attributes" of the individual a help or a hindrance to the universal? Further,
what is the role of history in shaping personality and in creating the unique
circumstances inwhich individuals have to act?Most generally, what is the

relationship between history and universality?

as
Bengtsson says about Grubbe that "his notion of the person combining
in itselfuniversality and individuality was part of the long-standing tradition
ofWestern is said
thought about themeaning of personality" (229). Grubbe
to have renewed this tradition. But the oldWestern tradition had tended to

separate individuality from universality on the assumption that the particu

lar limited and soiled the universal. The pattern was set by Plato, and ithas
been stubborn indeed. It isLotze, a personalist, who says that "we have little

ground for speaking of the personality of finite beings." "Perfect personality

is inGod only," Lotze asserts, and he puts this personality in opposition to
human particularity. "The finiteness of the finite isnot a producing condition
of this personality, but a limiting hindrance of its development" (176). Back
to Plato? It seems that, in the end, the
"contingent attributes" of personhood
mentioned Breckman may be a detriment.
by
Full recognition that the finite need not stand in theway of universal

itybut may in factmanifest it requires absorption of the idea of the concrete

universal. It seems that the personalists have no firm grasp of the notions

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12 THE PLURALIST 3 : 2 20 8

of dialectic and synthesis and that, for this reason, they too are somewhat
prone to compartmentalize the person and his world. Starting with Jacobi,
this compartmentalization even includes a belief not only in an "external,"
in a human being
"objective" world ascertained by "sensory" experience but
of two parts, one of them criticizes idealists for
"empirical." Pringle-Pattison
two parts. They are in reality "inseparable," he insists (119). But
separating the
is the finite, "empirical" self ultimately a part of universality? For Upton, our
connection toGod is "the universal side of our nature." That side of our being
is "in continuous union with [the] Eternal Ground" (260). It is not clear ifor
how the individuality-particularity, the "contingent attributes," of persons are
or a part of
might become universality itself.Pringle-Pattison properly points
out that to "the very notion of a self or consciousness,"
"uniqueness" belongs
but he also considers itmeaningless to speak of "aMind which includes all
minds" (254). But how could there be reasoning that is just unique, wholly
to "the very notion of a self," thinking
idiosyncratic? If uniqueness belongs
to at once means that
by that selfwould have be unique and universal, which
the idea of "aMind which includes all minds" is anything but meaningless.
But recognizing that fact requires understanding the idea of synthesis.

Dialectical Universality

assurance of the existence of

Beginning with Jacobi, personalists look for
universality in immediate human experience. For Jacobi, Bengtsson writes,
there is a grasp of reality that is "introspective and intuitive, immediate,
underived, above demonstration, a consciousness of transcendent reality"
a
(75). A century later Pringle-Pattison asserts thatwhat is ultimately real is
matter of experience that carries "immediate assurance." "The existence of
God must either be an immediate certainty, or itmust be involved in the
facts of experience which do possess that certainty" (121). Putting aside the
meant or God, these statements
question of just what is by transcendence
seem as far as they go. Even short of specifically religious life,
unobjectionable
there is experience that persuades of itsown reality and supreme importance
own intrinsic and the beautiful compel
by its quality. The good, the true,
their own worth. Nevertheless, the notion of "im
allegiance by experiential
a not
mediate certainty" demands type of qualification that Bengtsson does
discuss, presumably because it is not stressed by his subjects.
Are we to understand that for personalists there is a kind of "immedi
ate certainty" that is pure, incontrovertible, definitive? For value-centered
historicism, it is important to balance any assertion of experientially based

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RYN :Personalism and Value- Centered H istorieism 13

certitude with the acknowledgment that universality enters human experi

ence
only in tension with what stillmilitates against it. In human experi
ence, "immediate certainty" is always to some extentmixed with uncertainty,

precariousness, tentativeness. Experience of the universal involves straining

and discriminating. This process contains high points, to be sure, but also
starts. The moral, aesthetical, and
interruptions, retrogressions, and false
intellectual activity that gives us "immediate assurance" is a matter ofmore
or less. It has to be described
dialectically. Never does it achieve the kind of
or illumination thatwould make further effortunnecessary. The
completion
"Absolute" both is and is not in our possession, which is not a contradiction
in terms but a description of the actual human predicament with regard to

universality.
It is essential?not area of
merely in the putatively religious experience?
not tomistake moments of sentimental euphoria for theAbsolute. The strong
romantic influence on early personalism ishere a reason for concern. Romanti
cism, I have argued, has opposite potentialities, but in itshistorically predomi
nant strains it has had disastrous effects on themoral-spiritual, aesthetical,
and intellectual life, engendering, among other things, a false certitude.5 Has
the aestheticizing philosophy and sentimentalism of Schelling, for example,

markedly colored the personalistic idea of "immediate assurance" and God?

seems not to think so. He draws attention to the influence on
Bengtsson
as a
personalism of the later Schelling, whom he regards having abandoned
"Promethean Romanticism." He also stresses the close association of early
a the author's expertise
personalism with rejection of pantheism. Though
is not in doubt, the reader wonders here and in other places to what extent

Bengtsson's genealogy and general portrait of personalism is guided by his

own to be. For
conception ofwhat personalism ought example, Bengtsson is
influenced by Babbitt and aware of the danger of "sham" spirituality.Were
the early and later personalista as aware of the danger as he is?

In the writes
concluding chapter of The Worldview ofPersonalism, Bengtsson
that his reason for not dealing with "personalism's relation to historicism" is
to out
that he wanted bring personalism's assertion of "the spiritual and quali
tative against the sensual and quantitative" and personalism's refutation of the

"impersonalistic presuppositions ofWestern modernity" (277). But far from

to these at its best shares
being unrelated personalist objectives, historicism
them and advances them.The concrete universal and the concomitant ideas of

synthesis and dialectic are essential to the task.Value-centered historicism can

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 THE PLURALIST 3 : 2 20 8

at itsvery core: its concern with personality. Itmay in

strengthen personalism
some ways be more so labeled.
deeply personalistic than the doctrine

NOTES

. JanOlof
Bengtsson, TheWorldview ofPersonalismiOrigins and EarlyDevehpment
(NewYork: Oxford UP, 2006).
2. For a elaboration of what I term value-centered historicism, which
philosophical
draws selectively from Benedetto Croce, Irving Babbitt, and others, see, in particular, my
booksA CommonHuman Ground: Universalityand ParticukrityinaMulticulturalWorld,
(Columbia and London: U ofMissouri P, 2003) andWill, Imaginationand Reason:Babbitt,
Croce and theProblem ofReality,2nd exp. ed. (New Brunswick and London: Transaction
Publishers, 1997);my articles"DefiningHistoricism,"Humanitas 11.2 (1998): 86-101 and
as Humanitas 13.1 (2000): 89-102; and Ryn, "The Common Good
"History Synthesis,"
and History,"Democracy and theEthical Life:A PhilosophyofPolitics and Community,
Chapter 132nd exp. ed. (Washington,D.C.: The Catholic U ofAmerica P, 1990).
3. Page numbers given in the text referthroughout to Bengtsson, TheWorldview of
Personalism.

4. Throughout hiswork IrvingBabbitt stressesthecrucial importanceof a distinction

between what he considers and sentimental, "sham" See, in
genuine spirituality. particular,
his essay on "Buddha and theOccident" inhis edition and translationof theBuddhist
holy textTheDhammapada (NewYork:New Directions, 1965).
5. For a discussion of the opposed of Romanticism, see, in particular,
potentialities
Ryn, Will, and Reason.
Imagination

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