Etienne Gilson Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages, first delivered as the Richard Lectures in 1937, was published in 1938 and became an immediate success. Not only does it contribute to a major question of debate in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic philosophy and religion in the medieval period but it also insists on the validity of truth obtainable through reason as well as revelation, on rational argument alongside religious faith. This message is as important in the twenty-first century (...) as it was in the fourth century of the young Augustine, the thirteenth of St Thomas Aquinas, and the twentieth of the mature Gilson. (shrink)

Excerpt from An Etienne Gilson Tribute: Presented by His North American Students With a Response by Etienne Gilson The statement of these basic positions does not, of course, sweep away the special difficulties of predicating science or scientific of God. And these difficulties we ought now to gather together from St. Thomas' various Statements of them. There is the argument, for example, that science shares the lot of all intellectual k'nowledges in the accidentality of its being; whereas God (...) is Without accidents. Moreover, since science is the fruit of a certain process from principles to conclusions,6 it necessarily signifies something caused. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The members of the Medieval Academy of America are happy to be holding this year's annual meeting — its sixtieth and a kind of Golden Anniversary — at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. Although this is the first time the Academy has met in this university, relations between the two institutions have been personal and warm. Four years ago your Talbot Donaldson was the Academy's President, and a beloved one he was to be sure. In the tradition of institutional (...) and personal friendship, it seems fitting that my address today should focus on a remarkable event that took place in 1940 when Etienne Gilson, a Corresponding Fellow of the Academy since its second annual meeting in 1927, delivered here, under the auspices of the Mahlon Powell Foundation, his memorable lectures on God and Philosophy. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se expone la crítica que Lawrence Dewan hizo de Étienne Gilson en torno a la fórmula quidditas Dei est ipsum suum esse, en la que el canadiense entiende que el medievalista francés ha errado interpretando que santo Tomás despoja a Dios de su esencia. Para ambos autores, el auténtico tomismo pasa necesariamente por la comprensión adecuada de esta fórmula en la que el ser y la esencia, a diferencia de los entes, se identifican. A través de (...) este estudio trataremos de llegar a una respuesta sobre qué explicación es más cercana a la metafísica del Aquinate. (shrink)

Lo storico della filosofia e filosofo francese Étienne Gilson (1884-1978) ha notoriamente offerto una lettura innovativa di importanti figure del pensiero medievale, da Tommaso d’Aquino a Duns Scoto e Bonaventura, includendo in questa lista anche Agostino di Ippona. L’originalità della lettura offerta da Gilson si esprime per lo meno in due modi. In primo luogo, Gilson ha argomentato a sostegno dell’effettiva caratura filosofica, e non semplicemente teologica, del pensiero di quei pensatori. Contro un pesante pregiudizio che all’epoca in cui egli (...) iniziava le sue ricerche, e specialmente nella sua Francia, gravava nei confronti della cultura medioevale – di non aver espresso alcuna filosofia ma solo una teologia – egli acquisì «il merito di aver non solo iniziato genialmente la riscoperta della filosofia medievale, ma di aver decisamente contribuito a riportarne la storia ai livelli della scientificità e della dignità accademica». In secondo luogo, Gilson ha sostenuto che la filosofia in questione si caratterizza di uno «spirito cristiano» che, come aveva caratterizzato l’epoca medievale sotto ogni altro aspetto, ne aveva informato il pensiero filosofico, dando vita a una vera e propria «filosofia cristiana». Ma se questo significa che, per il filosofo francese, si dava un elemento di caratterizzazione unitaria del pensiero medievale, va anche rilevato che, per lo stesso autore, questo pensiero andava indagato nella sua notevole varietà. Con competenza e lettura fedele dei testi, Gilson valorizzò le differenze tra le filosofie dei vari autori presi in considerazione. In questo articolo, intendo mostrare che queste due caratteristiche dell’interpretazione gilsoniana del pensiero medievale si applicano entrambe all’interpretazione che il filosofo francese offrì del pensiero di Dante Alighieri. In primo luogo, Gilson ha riconosciuto anche a Dante, come al pensiero medievale tutto, una caratura specificamente filosofica. In secondo luogo, della filosofia del sommo poeta (che Gilson riteneva anch’essa ‘cristiana’) ha evidenziato la peculiarità, sganciandola dalle classificazioni che la volevano ridurre a qualcuna delle correnti filosofiche del Duecento. Il fine che mi propongo è quello di mostrare (nella prima sezione) in che cosa consista questa peculiarità, per poi procedere (nelle successive tre sezioni) a rilevare che essa conduce Gilson a una coerente interpretazione di Dante filosofo secondo tre direttrici: quella etica, quella politica e quella filosofico-storica. (shrink)

: In this paper, the author will demarcate three main stages of the development of Étienne Gilson’s doctrine on Christian philosophy through an examination of some of Gilson’s key works, treated in chronological order. Thus, he proceeds to explicate how Gilson’s doctrine developed from its gestational stage in the 1920s through the first Christian philosophy debate of the 1930s, into its 2nd stage of birth and infancy from the 1930s through the early 1950s, ending with the 3rd stage of maturity (...) in the later 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore, he notes that implicit throughout those three stages are notions of Christian philosophy as existing in two modes: one as the philosophical component present within theology and the second properly speaking outside of theology though by no means outside of the influence of Christianity. Additionally, Gilson’s influence upon St. John Paul II’s treatment of Christian philosophy in Fides et Ratio is addressed. The paper culminates in showing how Gilson’s mature doctrine on Christian philosophy is relevant as a guide for doing Christian philosophy in this Third Christian Millennium. (shrink)

Gilson became familiar with American academic life and language during the summer of 1926 when he first visited the United States and taught two summer courses at the University of Virginia. His international renown as well as his popularity at the University of Virginia resulted in a second visit in 1937 to present the Richard Lectures on Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages, which focused on the challenging theme of attempting to bring faith and knowledge into an organic unity. (...) His dissection of three main philosophical traditions in the Middle Ages constituted an important step in Gilson reaching a satisfactory understanding of the relationship between philosophy and theology within the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

When Etienne Gilson died in 1978 at the age of 94 he was regarded as one of the twentieth century's most distinguished historians of medieval philosophy. It was his scholarship and his reputation as a great teacher that attracted hundreds of students to the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies which he founded in 1929 as part of St. Michael's College of the University of Toronto. A Gilson school emerged as students of the Institute carried his thought to many parts (...) of the globe. Gilson's intellectual biography is well known. A student of Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, he found that he could only understand Descartes against the backdrop of medieval philosophy. Once enmeshed in medieval scholarship he found it hard to leave. He produced major studies of Augustine, Bonaventure, Scotus, Aquinas, and Dante. Though he remained always a historian of medieval philosophy, Gilson was eventually to adopt the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, making it the basis of his own. Being and Some Philosophers established Gilson as a metaphysician in his own right. It was said by a student that Gilson would do research on anything at the drop of a hat. Some of his most charming work was the seemingly philosophically irrelevant studies he made and published under titles such as Choir of Muses, Heloise and Abelard and Dante et Béatrice. The Gifford Lectures given at the University of Aberdeen in 1932 and published as The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy and the William James Lectures given at Harvard University in 1936-37 and published as The Unity of Philosophical Experience remain, perhaps, Gilson's best known and most frequently translated works. His Painting and Reality, the 1955 A. W. Mellon Lectures of the National Gallery of Art, is still a widely used volume. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1103, Page 36-61, January 2022.

In a few texts, Thomas Aquinas says that the first operation of the intellect pertains to (respicit) “the quiddity of a thing” whereas the second operation pertains to “the to be itself of a thing” (esse). But Aquinas also says that quiddities are to the intellect as color is to the power of sight. Statements such as these seem to have led Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson to see esse as the proper object of the intellect’s second operation. Against this (...) conclusion, Fr Régis and Ralph McInerny have argued—using Aquinas’s In I Peryermenias, lecture 5—that since ‘is’ is a verb and ‘is’ signifies existence, but all verbs signify the first operation of the intellect, we must be able to form a concept of existence in the first operation of the intellect. This paper does three things. First, it analyzes the nature of the claim made by Maritain and Gilson. Second, it shows from internal textual evidence that “respicit ipsum esse rei” cannot mean what Maritain and Gilson take it to mean. The second operation of the intellect cannot have a proper object distinct from the object of the first operation, which is quiddities. Finally, this paper provides an alternative interpretation of In I Peryermenias, lecture 5, to the one given by McInerny. In that text, Aquinas does not speak about a particular concept of existence in the first operation of the intellect and signified by the verbs ‘is’ or ‘exists.’ Rather, he uses the word ‘esse’ in indirect speech to include generally any form or act joined to a subject by the copula, ‘is.’ Aquinas’s focus is not on what ‘esse’ or ‘est’ signifies, but on the mode in which it signifies (per modum actualitas) absent additional qualifying terms. The conclusion of this paper is that, although the esse contrasted with essence in Aquinas’s metaphysics corresponds to a concept in the intellect’s first operation, nevertheless, like the notions of blindness and of genus, this esse cannot fall properly within the intellect’s object. (shrink)