‘The name (Personalism) was bom of a response to the expansion of the totalitarian drive, against this drive, in order to stress the defence of the person against the tyranny of apparatus.’

‘Just as, fundamentally, it is recollection and interiority, Personalism is at the other end of the scale from narcissism, individualism and egocentricity. It brings the whole of its weight to bear in the direction of the most obvious aspiration of modem man, whether this be called collectivist or communal.’

(E. Mounier What is Personalism? 1946. p 113 and p 176)

‘Insofar as man by his very nature stands completely in need of life in society, he is, and he ought to be, the beginning, the subject and the object of every social organisation ... There is a growing awareness of the sublime dignity of the human person, who stands above all things and whose rights and duties are universal and inviolable.’

(Vatican II. Decree on the Church in the Modem World.

Gaudium et Spes).

Thanks to the Gospel, the Church has the truth about man. This truth is found in an anthropology that the Church never ceases to fathom more thoroughly and to communicate to others. The primordial affirmation of this anthropology is that man is in God’s image and cannot be reduced to a mere portion of nature or a nameless element in the human city.... This complete truth about the human being constitutes the foundation of the Church’s social teaching and the basis also of true liberation. In the light of this truth, man is not a being subjected to economic or political processes.

The work of C. G. Jung, in particular his theory of female and male archetypes, has had a marked influence on the way women and men see themselves in modem society. This influence has been particularly noticeable among some feminist writers, especially those with religious interests. How much reliance should be placed on this theory of Jung’s is debatable in the light of modern philosophical and anthropological thought. There are, of course, serious difficulties in any discussion of archetypes. As Jung himself said, “The archetypal representations (images and ideas) — Should not be confused with the archetypes as such. . . Every archetype, when represented to the mind is already conscious and therefore differs to an indeterminate extent from that which caused the representation.” In view of the changes that have been taking place in human consciousness in recent years and the fact that there is the possibility that these changes may lead to changes in human understanding, it may be helpful to examine Jung’s writing on the Syzygy. Anima and Animus, in relation to present day philosophical and anthropological thinking.

A dictionary defines an archetype as “the original pattern from which copies are made — a prototype”; a stereotype is “something copied or constantly repeated without change”. It is in relation to the differences between these two concepts that Jung’s theory of male and female archetypal representations will be considered, for Jung claims that in his theory he has uncovered the original pattern of the female and male psyches i.e. archetypes.

If it’s magic to believe that merely saying something can make it so, then J. L. Austin’s account of the so-called ‘performative utterance’ is an account of a magical belief. For that, though not quite true without qualification, is what Austin maintains is the nature of a performative utterance. On the other hand Austin is not the first person one would think of as a believer in magic. And his undoubted credentials for unsuperstitiousness have given authority to the notion of the performative utterance which some theologians have thought to exploit for their own purposes. And some sociologists too. For these reasons respectively.

Theologians do not have a reputation so clear of superstition as Austin has. In particular, Roman Catholic theologians don’t and even more, among Roman Catholic theologians, those who concern themselves with rituals and sacraments don’t. And some of these have wanted to go along with the likes of Aquinas and the Tridentine formulae about sacraments and wish to legitimate propositions, such as that of Aquinas, that a sacrament is a sign which “effects what it signifies”. As this appears to mean that merely saying a thing, such as “This is my body” uttered over what is prima facie bread, or “I baptise you ...” said while pouring what is on any account water, is to make what it says so, and as such theologians are sensitive to the charge that this is mere magic-making, there is an evident temptation to exploit Austin on performatives in the prospect of de-mystifying such claims.

In his 1977 book The Eucharist and Human Liberation, Tissa Balasuriya reminds us that “the Eucharist has an extraordinary potential for being an agent of personal and global transformation. Every week about two hundred million persons meet all over the world in Christian communities”. Yet, while the worldwide eucharistic congregations every Sunday probably make up the largest global assembly for any shared purpose, the influence of the Eucharist on the creation of a more just, more loving and (in fine) more Christian world is almost minimal. The paradox, in Balasuriya’s words, “is that while the example of Jesus should make the eucharistic community a champion of social justice and a contestant of social evil, this happens very seldom” (op. cit. pp 85-6). Gustavo Gutiérrez has tried to emphasize this matter by directing a hard hit at the quality of the Eucharist as celebrated in some gatherings:

But Gutiérrez oversimplifies here. The search to help resolve the paradox has to take into account not only attitudes of indifference but also the theological schizophrenia — the great divorce between faith and life, or religion and everything else — which underlies and has helped to form them. This has led, on the one hand, to the ‘idealist’ and ‘spiritualist’ attitudes which (as Gutiérrez maintains) avoid the sharp realities; and, on the other hand, to the huge loss of credibility sustained by the Church in the present century and hence by the Eucharist which lies, or should lie, at the heart of the Church’s work.

When Wittgenstein chose St Augustine’s account of how an infant learns to speak, he was surely signalling his intention to interrogate the whole western way of thinking (and feeling) about the relation of body and soul. He was engaging in the Philosophy of Psychology, as they say. The hard thing, as he noted (Culture and Value, p 48), is to get hold of the difficulty deep down: “Because if it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way”. Merely to say that we no longer believe in the story of the soul’s exile in the body doesn’t mean that we have worked ourselves free of all the ramifications of that powerful ancient myth. On the contrary, quickly reached ‘results’ in philosophy, or easily ‘taught’ methods and theses, only leave the student more oblivious than ever to his or her own confusion. “The philosopher treats a question — like an illness” (Investigations, no 254). The sickness must run its natural course: “slow cure is all important” (Zettel, no 382). Wittgenstein held that the ‘solution’ to a problem in philosophy is no good unless it comes to you when you need it. The first step in philosophical work is thus to make us see that we really did need such an answer. In fact Wittgenstein “hoped to show that you had confusions you never thought you could have had”.