John Macmurray asserts the primacy of the practical over the theoretical in The Self as Agent, demonstrating that philosophical analysis should begin with the Self as an agent of action in the world. In Persons in Relation, John Macmurray extends his work in The Self as Agent, showing the Self in proper existence within a community of relational beings and asserting that ‘there can be no man until there are at least two men in communication.’

Professor Lewis’s book is a methodical defence of a traditional dualism against its contemporary opponents. He is thoroughly out of sympathy with many of the writers he examines – their arguments are ‘desperate, tortuous and unconvincing’ – and the general intimidating tone becomes somewhat wearisome after a while, even to one sympathetic to the position he defends.