Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain (November 18th 1882 - April 28th 1973) is a French philosopher converted with the Catholicisme. Author of more than 60 works, it is generally regarded as one of the pillars of the revival of the Thomisme at the 20th century.

Its life

Born with Paris, he was the son of the lawyer Paul Maritain and Genevieve Favre, the girl of Jules Favre, and was high in a medium Protesting. Raise with the Lycée Henri-Iv, it studied thereafter chemistry, biology and physics with the Sorbonne. It met there Raissa Oumansoff, immigrant Jewish origin Russian, Ukrainian, which it was to marry in 1904. It was always associated with its impassioned search for Vérité.

The Scientisme then sails about it with the Sorbonne disappointed it rather quickly; he did not regard it as being able to answer existential questions of a vital nature. On the council of Charles Péguy, it followed with his wife the courses of Henri Bergson to the Collège de France. Parallel to its déconstruction of scientism, Bergson communicated the “direction of the absolute to them”. Thereafter, grace in particular to the influence of Leon Bloy, they converted both with the Foi Roman Catholique into 1906.

They moved with Heidelberg in 1907. Maritain studied there biology under the control of Hans Driesch. The néo-vitalistic theory of Driesch attracted it because it was connected with the designs of Bergson. Raissa fell sick, and during its convalescence, their spiritual adviser, the brother Dominicain Humbert Clérissac, made them discover the work of Saint Thomas d' Aquin. The enthusiasm of Raissa led Jacques to be interested in it in its turn. It found in Saint Thomas the confirmation of many ideas that it had already interviews. " Doctor Angélique" it passed soon to the philosopher whose this last had christianized the thought, Aristote. It turned thereafter to the works of the neo-scholasticism. In 1912, Maritain started to teach with the college Stanislas, then with the Catholic Institut of Paris. In 1916 - 1917, it made course with the Small Seminar of Versailles. In 1917, a group of French bishops charged Maritain with writing a series of handbooks intended to be used in the catholic universities and the seminars. It came to end from only one from these projects: they were the Éléments of Philosophy , published in 1920. It is since one of the reference books in many catholic seminars. In 1933, he became professor with the pontifical Institut of medieval studies of the Université of Toronto. He also taught with the Université Columbia, the Université of Chicago and Princeton.

Its conversion and the influence of RP Clérissac led it to have contacts with mediums close to the French Action. In 1920, it takes part, with Henri Massis, with the foundation of the universal Revue. In 1926, when intervene of the warning statements of the the Vatican with regard to the French Action, it sticks, after a test of mediation, to justify them, in particular by publishing " Primacy of the spirituel". Its philosophical and religious influence on certain intellectual young people close or having been close to the French Action like its encouragements with the initiatives to Emmanuel Mounier and with creation to the review Esprit will contribute, at the beginning of the Années 1930, to support the birth of the Personnalisme Non-conformistes of the Thirties. Itself will have to in parallel look further into the political and social reflection which is expressed in " Intégral" humanism; in 1936, by bringing it closer to the mediums of the democracy-Christian woman.

Blocked in North America by the declaration of war, it gives an opinion against the Régime of Vichy. Of 1945 with 1948, he was ambassador of France at the Vatican. It took part in the foundation, in 1950, of the Congrès for the freedom of the culture, after which it turned over to Princeton, where it became professor emeritus in 1956. Starting from 1961, Jacques Maritain lived at the Little brothers of Jesus to Toulouse. Since the creation of the order in 1933, it there exerted a certain influence, and became Little brother in 1970.

It is buried with his wife with Kolbsheim.

Its thought

The thought of Jacques Maritain was built according to Aristote and Saint Thomas d' Aquin. Like Thomas d' Aquin, Maritain is the craftsman and the defender of a Christian Philosophie founded on the experiment and the reason, independent of the faith, but in triad with the Revelation. Generally, Maritain is métaphysicien which defends design of philosophy as science - against those which would claim to déchoir it of its eminent role - and for it the statute of queen of sciences, charged asserts to correct the errors of other sciences, secondaries and treating matter.

Its work (about fifty works) approaches almost all the aspects of philosophy: Natural, Metaphysical, Logical, epistemology, Moral, Political, History and Art.

Metaphysics

He is the promoter of a critical realism and a philosophy to be it and exist it higher, according to him, with philosophies of the one, the Vrai, the well, the Liberté, the duration, the Existence (crossed gasoline). The principle founder of these doctrines of being it is the Identity principle which justifies in right an understandable “raison d'être” (Causalité, Finalité). Identity principle rises all the categories to be it (gasoline/existence; act/power; substance; quantity; quality; relation, etc), from where one deduces the being even remaining (God) that Heidegger confused wrongly with existing supreme.

Epistemology

In 1910, Maritain completed its first important contribution to contemporary philosophy, an article of 28 pages entitled " Reason and Science contemporaine" , which appeared in the June issue of of the Revue Philosophy . It denounced there the deification of science, and the confiscation by this one of the role of the reason and philosophy, and the addition of importance which science acquired on the letters. In fact, its epistemology is defensive. Against the Phenomenology and the Existentialisme S, it distinguishes various levels from abstraction (see Seven lessons on the being ). the degrees of the knowledge analyzes the forms of the scientific knowledge in the light of its theory thomist of the abstraction.

Ethics

Maritain is an enthusiastic defender of an ethical founded on the natural law. It conceives the ethical standards as enracinées in the human nature. For him, the knowledge of the natural law is first, and does not constitute itself by the philosophical debate or the demonstration, but rather through Co-naturalité. Co-natural knowledge is a type of knowledge obtained by confrontation with reality. Thus, we know the natural law while there being directly confronted within the framework of the human experiment. Maritain also defends the idea according to which the natural rights are based on the natural law. Its morals pleinière takes part of theology by subalternation of the reason in the data of the Christian faith, or else, it would be unfinished for lack of information on fine the last.

Of its work, in which it constantly got busy to denounce the recovery of certain spiritual values by doctrines, policies or others, the Christian posterity retained the distinction which it makes between the action “as a Christian”, which consists with obedience with the rites and the dogmas of the Church, and the action “as a Christian”, which consists of the implementation, individually, of the Christian ideas in “temporal” fields, laic organizations where the Church does not have to be involved.

Its combat against the anti-semitism

Jacques Maritain, who was married with Jewish, fought the Antisémitisme a long time, in spite of his relations with the French Action. He gave an opinion in favor of Dreyfus. During the Second world war, Maritain protested against the policy of the Régime of Vichy; he taught at the time with the pontifical Institut of medieval studies of Canada. After the war, it tried without success to lead Pie XII to be expressed about the Antisémitisme and of the Holocauste. But its action in the Vatican on the anti-semitism ends up bearing its fruits. The mention “pro perfidis judaeis”, who appeared since the 9th century in the Liturgie of the Good Friday, and meant " for the Jews infidèles" was replaced then removed by Jean XXIII in 1962.

Generally, the rise of the Communism and the Fascisme directs its reflection in the direction of the defense of the rights of the human person. integral Humanisme , which is the fruit, will give to its thought a world radiation.

See also: Jews and association at the end " deicide ".

Works

Art and scholastic , 1920
Théonas or talks of wise and two philosophers on various matters unequally current , Paris, New national bookstore, 1921
Antimoderne , Paris, Edition of the Review of the Young people, 1922
Reflections on the intelligence and its own life , Paris, New national bookstore, 1924.
Three reformers: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau, with six portraits , Paris, Plon, 1925
Answer to Jean Cocteau , 1926
an opinion on Charles Maurras and the duty of the catholics , Paris, Plon, 1926
Primacy of spiritual the , 1927
Why Rome spoke (coll), Paris, Spes, 1927
Clairvoyance of Rome (coll), Paris, Spes, 1929
the doctor angelica , Paris, Paul Hartmann, 1929
Religion and culture , Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1930
To distinguish to link or degrees of the knowledge , 1932
Of Christian philosophy , Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1933
Of the temporal mode and freedom , Paris, DDB, 1933
Letter on independence , Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1935.
integral Humanism , Paris, Fernand Sapwood, 1936
Jews among the nations , Paris, Stag, 1938
Questions of conscience: tests and short speeches, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1938
the twilight of civilization , Paris, ED. New Letters, 1939
the Man and the State , Paris, University Presses of France, 1953
Notebook , Paris, DDB, 1965
the peasant of the Garonne. A laic old man questions in connection with time present , Paris, DDB, 1966
the creative intuition in art and poetry , Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1966

Two works were republished in 2007 by Editions AD Solem:

" Liturgy and contemplation" Jacques and Raissa Maritain
" fire Nouveau" republication of the " peasant of Garonne" accompanied by a critical file of Michel Fourcade.

The majority of its manuscripts are preserved at the Circle of Jacques studies and Raissa Maritain with Kolbsheim (the Low-Rhine, France), association rested by the philosopher himself. Maritain Center of the Notre-Dame University, where it had settled in 1957, preserves an important part of the American files of the philosopher. The objective of these centers is to encourage the study and research about the thought of Maritain, but also to develop its reflections.

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