Gilson or Maritain?

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Obviously the answer is probably “Both”-

Professor Rizzi’s book (The Science Before Science) has got me back into Thomas Aquinas. I’ve read the Summa more than a few times but haven’t read much by modern Thomists.

From what I gather there seem to be two main camps (sometimes at odds)-Gilson and Maritain. Rizzi, for example, seems to favor Maritain where Josef Pieper in his Introduction to Aquinas favors Gilson, barely referencing Maritain. I think that I remember hearing that Maritain went off the rails for a while but I’m not certain.

Anyone have a recommendation?? What was the main difference between the two?

Thanks!
 
Sorry I missed the thread. I don’t often post but I usually search for such threads!

Firstly it is important to note that the difference between Maritain and Gilson is not that great. Both would fall within the near extinct existential Thomist camp. Maritain actively pursued Thomistic/Aristotelean solutions to Hume’s epistemological problems while Gilson was more silent and often dismissed the problems as pseudo-problems.

The two men shared a friendship of sorts though after Maritain wrote Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism the two had a cooling off. Gilson said he couldn’t defend Maritain’s use of Aquinas “like a hammer” to pound away at Bergson. Personally I didn’t care for Stanley Jaki’s repeated attacks on transcendental thomism in The Saviour of Science and think that Gilson would have been similarly disgusted with that book. Ralph McInerny of NOtre Dame is another existential thomist.

In later life Gilson, through his friendship with Henri de Lubac, moved towards a moderate position which might be something like Norris Clarke (though Norris Clarke represents what is called the Transcendental Thomist school) where Thomism is seen more as a living philosophy in dialogue with other philosophies.

Maritain moved in a similar direction but emphasized the aristotelean aspects of Thomism to bring it into dialogue with modern philosophy.

Aonther author which might interest you is the Canadian Bernard Lonergan whose epistemological work is the greatest dividing factor amongst Thomists.

Personally, it depends on what aspect of Thomism interest you. Metaphysics and epistemology are the two big fields of contrversy. Marie-Dominique Chenu and Maritain disagree on metaphysic while Jaki and Clarke disagree on epistemology. Of course Maritain’s book on Aquinas (Angel of the Schools) is nothing but a long winded defense of Aristotelean existentialist thomism and Frederick Copleston’s book on Aquinas is good at presenting different interpretations and problems. Anthony Kenny also has a couple books on problems for Aquinas.
 
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MarkR:
Obviously the answer is probably “Both”-

Professor Rizzi’s book (The Science Before Science) has got me back into Thomas Aquinas. I’ve read the Summa more than a few times but haven’t read much by modern Thomists.

From what I gather there seem to be two main camps (sometimes at odds)-Gilson and Maritain. Rizzi, for example, seems to favor Maritain where Josef Pieper in his Introduction to Aquinas favors Gilson, barely referencing Maritain. I think that I remember hearing that Maritain went off the rails for a while but I’m not certain.

Anyone have a recommendation?? What was the main difference between the two?

Thanks!
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Read the Church Fathers.

Read Papal Encyclicals.

Read the lives of the Saints .

That enough, will take you the rest of your life!

P.S. When one Catholic Theologian sems to “differ” somewhat from what another equally respected (obedient) Catholic Theologian teaches …

Then we are obligated as Catholic to go to the Teachings of Holy Mother Church.

Otherwise, we might just get confused (theoligically AND philosophically), and then fall of the path of Truth towards that of the one’s taken by the Heretics.
 
FiremanFrank, I am flattered. I have posted in four threads in the last two weeks and when I logged on to my computer tonight you had managed to follow me from one thread to the next in all four cases spreading your anti-intellectual nonesense.

You obviously have no knowledge of Maritain, Gilson or even Catholicism’s relationship to philosophy. The difference between the two philosophers reminds me of what Marie-Dominique Chenu said ‘all concerning a matter which, even in its terminology, belongs clearly to the working out of technicalities and to the freedom of viewpoints found within an orthodox faith’ (Nature, Man and Society in the 12th Century, 289)
 
Maritan - Read the book: “Existence and the Existent” it is impressive. He is my favorite of the Neo-Thomists or the Existential brand.
 
Hey EG and all,

Read your posts and then went looking among all my accumulated but unread used books. Therein I found Gilson’s The Christian Philosophy of St. Tom, which I am now inspired to read. Look’s like it’s pretty tough sledding though. Could you suggest a more dumbed down introduction Thomas I could read first?

Thanks.

kordially

karl
 
It really depends on what your background is in/what you are week in.

I always prefer to start with history to set the scene. The best biography of Aquinas in *this * sense would be Josef Pieper’s book. Another great place to start would be Frederick Copleston’s book on Aquinas. You could also read the section on Aquinas in either Copleston’s 3rd volume of his History of Philosophy (or is it the 2nd edition…I don’t have it infront of me) or read the chapter on Albert Magnus and Aquinas in his history of Medieval Philosophy.

If you have a good grasp of the history and want a look at the surrounding scene, try Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages by Gilson or for something much deaper, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy by Gilson. Gilson’s book The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (not ot be confused with The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas) is a translation of Thomismand is much lighter on the philosophy side of things.

Of course Chesterton is always good.
 
Hey Eg,

thanks for the tips. I am not well read in philosphy an theology but like to become so. Am a small town lawyer by profession. Took one philosphy course many moons ago.

thanks for your help.

karl
 
A good book that is accessible on Metaphysics which I believe is a necessity o understanding the nuance of theology is the book, “The One and the Many” by Norris Clark, SJ. It was the text that we used in my course work and it is what I recommend to all. If one is going to read Gilson or Maritain it is necessary to understand the basics before one can understand them.
 
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mosher:
A good book that is accessible on Metaphysics which I believe is a necessity o understanding the nuance of theology is the book, “The One and the Many” by Norris Clark, SJ. It was the text that we used in my course work and it is what I recommend to all. If one is going to read Gilson or Maritain it is necessary to understand the basics before one can understand them.
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The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics

Author: Clarke, W. Norris
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Publish date: Jan 2001
ISBN: 0-268-03707-8
Format: Paperback, 324 pages
 
Matt16_18 said:
The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics

Author: Clarke, W. Norris
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Publish date: Jan 2001
ISBN: 0-268-03707-8
Format: Paperback, 324 pages
Click to expand...

That would be the one.
 
Though I would highly recommend The One and the Many by Fr. Clarke (along with his collection of essays published as Explorations in Metaphysics) I think it would be a big mistake to start there, either from a philosophical or historical perspective.

WIthout a prior knowledge of Hume and Kant ‘The One and the Many’ is only confusing. It is after all a DEFENSE of metaphysics but if you do not know the offense, how can you understand the defense?

Furthermore Fr. Clarke rightfully belongs to a different Thomistic camp than Gilson and Maritain and Fr. Clarke’s metaphysics is highly influenced by platonism, Heidegger and partially by Hegel. I believe that Fr; Clarke discusses his development away from the classical Aristotelean/Thomism of Maritain in the book New Themes in Christian Philosophy. Fr. Clarke calls himself a neo-Thomist, a title Maritain opposed in Preface to Metaphysics.

Karl, I am sorry to hear that you are a lawyer. Actually, good on you to want to delve beyond the ordinary level of intellectual activity. I find philosophy a branch of study which illuminates all other fields of study (though the Medieval’s thought Theology was the queen of sciences).

My four suggestions to you would be:

-Chesterton’s ‘Aquinas: The Dumb Ox’ (read it and reread it to understand the spirit of the relationship between Theology philôsophy. Both Pieper and Gilson complained that Chesterton had out-done them)

-Etienne Gilson’s ‘Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages’ (another fantastic and short book on the relationship between theology and philosophy but not properly about Aquinas)

-Josef Peiper ‘Guide to Aquinas’ (good for giving details about Aquinas and history of the era in a short easy to read book)

-Frederick Copleston’s ‘Aquinas’ (Slightly more indepth than any of the other books but easy to read and not requiring much background in the various fields of philosophy).

I am not sggesting these books in any particular order. It is up to you to choose depending on your interests, abilities and what happens to be infront of you. All four are rather short, rather interesting and rather easily/cheaply available. Another book I could add to the list but is much more difficult to find is Martin D’Arcy’s book on Aquinas. D’Arcy starts out slowly (unlike Gilson’s Christian Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas) and builds up into the philosophy.

Perhaps D’Arcy would be a good bridge between the more introductory books aforementioned and the heavy books like Gilson’s Christian Philosophy of T A or Maritain’s Degrees of Knowledge.

Good reading and god spead.

P.S. Used books are available at amazon, www.alibris.com, or www.abebooks.com
 
I have always found Gilson and Maritain equally difficult writers who, especially in the areas of metaphysics, never seemed too full of clarity.

If there was any rivalry between them, it had to be friendly. I knew Maritain through several years of letter-writing, and I can vouch that the man had no ill feeling toward anyone, surely least of all a fellow Thomist.

Maritain was certainly a liberal in social matters and a conservative in theology, somewhat miffed by the direction in which Vatican II was leading young theologians and Church leaders. This has become my own final (?) reaction to Vatican II.
 
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EtienneGilson:
Though I would highly recommend The One and the Many by Fr. Clarke (along with his collection of essays published as Explorations in Metaphysics) I think it would be a big mistake to start there, either from a philosophical or historical perspective.

WIthout a prior knowledge of Hume and Kant ‘The One and the Many’ is only confusing. It is after all a DEFENSE of metaphysics but if you do not know the offense, how can you understand the defense?
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Interesting, this was my introductory text and I felt that it was quite understandable concerning the basics. While of course you are right that he is an apologist against Hume and Kant however I don’t feel that it is exclusive to this but rather it does a great job of teaching the basics while at the same time defending against the modern errors. It is for this reason that I always recommend it as a beginning book for philosophy because I think it resonates naturally with the modern mind.

In all honesty I really think that the best introduction is the collected works of Plato and the two basics of Aristotle the Metaphysics and the Nicomachean Ethics. The Penguin Classics version of course are the best.
 
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