Abstract

The clear distinctions that Maritain makes of knowledge in general and of human activities in particular do not prevent his unity of thought. In fact, Maritain believes that "no one truly knows unity who does not also know distinction." Maritain distinguishes in order to unite. This dissertation is an attempt to establish the unity of knowledge by connaturality in the thought of Jacques Maritain. ;Maritain believes in the mind's capacity to know reality, and for him every knowledge is knowledge of being. But knowledge by connaturality with its non-conceptual but experiential character, shows that man is not merely a passive knower; he acts and is acted upon by what he knows. Knowledge by connaturality, therefore, "plays an immense part in human existence, especially in that knowing of the singular which comes about in everyday life and in our relationship of person to person." The relational or interactional nature of man is creative and man himself is a being created by these interactions. This dissertation shows that the phenomenon of culture is the manifestation of human creativity and human development. This is because the human nature is "progressive" and "mysterious," for "we are men, each containing within himself the ontological mystery of personality and freedom: and it is in this very freedom and personality that genuine tolerance or fellowship takes root." The mystery of the human person is played out in the characteristic nature of man, who is material as well as spiritual, individual as well as communal, lives in time but for eternity, incommunicable but with the greatest tendency to communicate. ;Thus, the lively connection among connatural knowledge, human relations and culture form a pattern in Maritain's works. This pattern, however, is not explicit in his writings. This dissertation investigates and brings out the connection as well as the distinctive kind of relationships that are effected between man as a knowing being and other beings as known by him through knowledge by connaturality. It investigates connaturality as the basis of human relations and culture. Above all, the dissertation examines and shows the possibility of genuine unity in the rich diversity of cultures