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Appraisal Volume 14, No. 1, Special Issue, Spring 2024

​ISSN 2514-5584​​

​What is personalism? A dialogue on Juan Manuel Burgos’, An Introduction to Personalism

Introduction to the Special Issue

James Beauregard and Abigail Klassen, Eds.

The very definition and meaning of personalism as a philosophical area or position(s) is a debated issue. The scope of personalism undisputedly falls within the broad framework of appreciation for human beings and their dignity. Quite a few positions can be found under its umbrella. There are, for instance, those who focus on tracing personalism’s long past, if it does indeed have one, to those who consider personalism as a philosophical product limited to the last few centuries. This difference in focus naturally implies a different assessment of what constitute the appropriate categories, concepts, and representatives of philosophical personalism (herein, “personalism” will be understood to mean “philosophical personalism” unless otherwise stated).
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This special issue of Appraisal aims to reflect on above noted decisive questions based on the book by Juan Manuel Burgos, An Introduction to Personalism, translated into English a few years ago by Richard Allen with some collaboration from James Beauregard and Benjamin Wilkinson. We hope that the reader will find here a robust evaluations of Burgos’ work by personalists and philosophers of different orientation (Jose Seifert, Alfred Marek Wierbicki, James A. Harold, Weronika Janzczuk, and Diana Prokofyeva) as well as equally substantive responses from Juan Manuel Burgos. We believe that this dialogue, which continues the exchange of ideas started years ago between the Ibero-American Association of Personalism and the International Conference on Persons (with Auxier, Bengtsonn and others) may be of interest to the personalist community and to those curious about personalism more generally. We hope as well that, as the title of Burgos’ work suggests, this dialogue introduces those unfamiliar with personalism to the subject and area at hand.

James Beauregard and Abigail Klassen