Jacques Maritain and the Many Ways of Knowing
Edited by Douglas A. Ollivant
Introduction by George Anastaplo
Book Overview
While some intellectuals at the end of the nineteenth century argued that scientific progress would eventually cause the demise of religion, it is evident that this has not been the case and that contemporary science is in fact not necessarily inimical to a religious worldview. So, a fruitful dialogue between science and religion has become a reality. But there is also a more fundamental question that arises, which is not simply the relationship of the sciences or of other disciplines to religion, but rather whether faith can and should have an impact on teaching and research.
The majority of the essays in this volume hold that the Christian faith provides definite cognitive advantages and that to leave one's faith at the entrance of the campus, thus separating faith from reason, leads to a schizophrenic view of the Christian's intellectual life. This volume thus shows how the religious faith of intellectuals―not all of whom are Christian―exercises a real influence on their scholarship.
In consonance with the thought of Pope John Paul II, it is the contention of the scholars whose essays make up this volume that a faith that imbues research and teaching will effect a transformation not only in themselves, but also in their students and eventually in society. Hence, a faith that is fully received, thought out and lived, will penetrate culture; and there is no doubt that present-day culture stands in need of transformation. In fact, the encyclical Fides et Ratio, from which a number of the essays draw inspiration, attributes the secularization of the West in great part to the separation of faith from culture. Jacques
Maritain himself, more than fifty years ago, recognized that modern and contemporary culture had severed its ties with the sacred and in so doing had turned its back on humanity. Now in the twenty-first century, as always, human beings have a profound need for meaning and transcendence, a need which scholarly reflection such as that found in this volume can help to satisfy.
To assist our continued work most fully, purchase directly from our distributor
Contents
Douglas A. Ollivant, “Editor's Preface”
George Anastaplo, “Introduction: The Forms of our Knowing: A Somewhat Socratic Introduction”
Joseph M. de Torre, “The Mysterious Value of the Human Person”
Catherine Green, “It Takes One to Know One: Connaturality - Knowledge or Prejudice?”
Gregory J. Kerr, “Knowing Our Knowings”
John F. X. Knasas, “Transcendental Thomist Methodology and Maritain's ‘Critical Realism’”
Matthew S. Pugh, “Ways of Knowing Metaphysical Being: Aquinas and Heidegger”
James G. Hanink, “Knowing Subjectivity: Jacques Maritain and John Crosby”
W. Matthews Grant, “Thomist or Relativist? Macintyre's Interpretation of adaequatio intellectus et rei”
Desmond FitzGerald, “Gilson and Maritain on the Principle of Sufficient Reason”
Raymond Dennehy, “The Loss of the Knowing Subject in Contemporary Epistemology”
Thomas F. Woods, “Combatting The Iron-Gloved Angel: Swift and Maritain v. Descartes”
Douglas A. Ollivant, “The Politics of Realism: Locke, Maritain, and Hallowell on Liberalism and Knowledge”
John G. Trapani, Jr., “The Air We Breathe: The Reality of Our Knowledge and Our Knowledge of Reality”
Henk E. S. Woldring, “Understanding Freedom as a Way of Knowing Social Life”
John F. Morris, “Known Invincible Ignorance and Moral Responsibility: When We Know That We Don't Know”
Christopher H. Toner, “Maritain and Macintyre on Moral Education”
Ralph Nelson, “Yves R. Simon on the Nature and Role of Moral Philosophy”
Robert A. Delfino, “Mystical Theology in Aquinas and Maritain”
James Arraj ,”Nonlocality and Maritain's Dream of a Philosophy of Nature”
William J. Fossati, “Out of the Shadow: Henri Bergson and Three French Philosophers”
Robert Fallon, “Knowledge and Subjectivity in Maritain, Stravinsky, and Messiaen”
Steven J. Schloeder, “The Recovery of the Symbolic”
John M. Dunaway, “Maritain on the Song of Songs”
Contributors
Index