PERSONALITÀ. — In the metaphysical sense, p. expresses person (v.), the foundation from which the possibilities and capacities of its actualization proceed. One may therefore distinguish a twofold moment in the real structure of p.: the first, initial, constituted by the rational, intelligent, and free nature of man; the second, terminal, which concerns and expresses the exercise of freedom in act as an operative process of means toward an end, and therefore as the unification and coordination of values.
In this second sense, to which modern thought has chiefly turned, p. indicates the person in act, or rather «the person who affirms the values toward which his being is directed» (Th. Steinbüchel, Die philosophische Grundlegung der katholischen Sittenlehre, I, 1, Düsseldorf 1938, p. 350). P. is therefore the synthesis of the static and dynamic aspects of spiritual being considered in the commitment to attaining its proper end; indeed, spirituality, which is independence in being, unfolds in independence of action with a view to choosing the end and the means corresponding to II. When Kant asserted that «man exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means», proposing his formula of the categorical imperative, «act in such a way as to treat humanity», both in your own person and in the person of every other, always and at the same time as an end and never merely as a means» (Einleitung in die Metaphysik der Sitten, § 4, ed. Cassirer, VII, Berlin 1916, p. 21 ff.), he stopped at the first moment in the constitution of p. and laid the foundation for that absolutization of human nature idealism (v.). principle (v.) of ultimate end (v.) of action, human freedom, and with it p., lacks content and meaning: human reason, elevated to the absolute by idealism, does not meet the requirement, because humanity is finite and contingent and cannot ground itself, but can only develop the possibilities it has received (cf. W. E. Hocking, Types of philosophy, New York 1929, especially p. 314 ff.; critique of Kant and idealism). SCHELER, MAX (v.), too, who rightly sees in p. the «center of the spirit» and understands p. as «a hierarchy (Anordnung) of acts», fails to indicate the absolute foundation, limiting himself to defining p. as the «active center in which the spirit appears within the sphere of finite being» (Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos, 2nd ed., Munich 1947, p. 35).
From the metaphysical concept of p. as independence in being and acting, one passes to the psychological concept as «formation, unity, and independence of character»: it presupposes a certain degree of intellectual and moral development, so that man may be designated as the subject of «responsibility» (cf. J. Laird, Problems of self, London 1917, p. 82). When the unity of the various spheres of consciousness (emotional and moral, individual and social) is no longer preserved, there arises the so-called «dissociation of p.», whose causes psychology has not yet explained by a satisfactory theory. Psychological p. arises from the «original dispositions» inherent in every individual and is constituted through the exercise of one’s capacities in accordance with the tastes, tendencies, and inclinations of each person and according to the particular conduct he adopts within his social environment (cf. A. Gemelli-G. Zunini, Introduzione alla psicologia, Milan 1947, p. 376 ff.). In this sense, p. encounters the new concept of «existence» (v.) dominant in contemporary philosophy, which emphasizes the factor of freedom in its historical becoming.