To confront the Modernist challenge to traditional Catholic theology, a number of neoscholastic thinkers proposed various schemes for the grounding of metaphysics and the defense of the analogy of being. The specific tack Joseph Maréchal chose was epistemological: justification of the cognitive grounds for the science of metaphysics and for the analogous knowledge of God emphasized by Thomistic theology.

The paper was read at the Colloquium ‘Après Maréchal’ , organised in memory of the philosopher J. Maréchal. In the first half of the paper the author develops the fundamental tenet of Maréchal’s philosophy: an attempt to go beyond the philosophy of Kant by using the transcendental method. The author bears witness of this attempt by criticising and transforming the transcendental method itself. For unavoidably the question arises in what way transcendental philosophy can justify a philosophical reflection. (...) In the second half of the paper experiences are described which suggest that other ways than the transcendental method and reflection are to be explored if philosophical research is to be fruitful: the experiences of faith, evil, culture, art and of the individual person. A new kind of reflection seems necessary, less intellectual and more “biological”, where thinking and life are linked together, allowing us to talk about such a thing as a “physical faith”. (shrink)

The paper was read at the Colloquium ‘Après Maréchal’ , organised in memory of the philosopher J. Maréchal. In the first half of the paper the author develops the fundamental tenet of Maréchal’s philosophy: an attempt to go beyond the philosophy of Kant by using the transcendental method. The author bears witness of this attempt by criticising and transforming the transcendental method itself. For unavoidably the question arises in what way transcendental philosophy can justify a philosophical reflection. (...) In the second half of the paper experiences are described which suggest that other ways than the transcendental method and reflection are to be explored if philosophical research is to be fruitful: the experiences of faith, evil, culture, art and of the individual person. A new kind of reflection seems necessary, less intellectual and more “biological”, where thinking and life are linked together, allowing us to talk about such a thing as a “physical faith”. (shrink)

Bernard Lonergan não menciona Joseph Maréchal nos seus escritos, apesar de ter sido por ele influenciado no que respeita à estrutura dinâmica do conhecimento. Apesar disso, há que reconhecer que a intenção de Maréchal não era a de Lonergan. Maréchal, formado em biologia e em psicologia, desejava participar no movimento de renovação do tomismo, o qual na sua época era fortemente intelectualista. O seu esforço juntou-se ao do Maurice Blondel afirmando os direitos do acto comprometido nos (...) processos cognitivos. O desejo natural de conhecer Deus não se dá sem um desejo vital que dinamiza também a vontade em que ele se exprime de forma mais pura e genuína. Lonergan, cujo objectivo era a construção de uma epistemologia da teologia, ocupou-se primordialmente dos procedimentos próprios das ciências. Para ele, o desejo de conhecer leva o sujeito cognoscente a ultrapassar todas as ciências particulares, proporcionadas às nossas funções cognitivas, em direcção ao ser, concebido este de forma adequada como a totalidade presente e futura dos conteúdos do saber. Segundo o autor do artigo, Lonergan estaria, assim, mais próximo de Maréchal do que este de Suárez. /// Bernard Lonergan does not mention Joseph Maréchal in his writings, even though he received his influence regarding the dynamic structure of knowledge. However, the intention of Maréchal was not the intention of Lonergan. Maréchal, who had studied biology and psychology, wanted to participate in the movement of renewal of Thomism, which at the time was strongly intellectualist. His effort conjoined with the effort of Maurice Blondel in the recognition of the rights of the act inherent to the cognitive processes. The natural desire to know God does not come to be without a vital desire that also animates the will in which it comes to a better expression of itself. Lonergan, whose aim was the elaboration of an epistemology of theology, occupied himself primordially with the scientific processes. The desire to know leads the knowing subject beyond all the particular sciences, proportioned to our cognitive functions, toward being, which is adequately conceived as the present and future totality of the contents of knowledge. Hence, according to the author or the article, we might think that Lonergan was closer to Marechal than Marechal was to Suárez. (shrink)

The philosophy of language pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, far from being inimical to the metaphysical concerns of philosophy, can be understood as complementing and perhaps even deepening the approach to metaphysics first employed by the Belgian Jesuit philosopher Joseph Marèchal: a ‘metaphysics of knowledge’ illuminating the deeper‐than‐conceptualist movement in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The relationship of words and reality was radically reconfigured in the linguistic turn inaugurated in the work of Wittgenstein, but that work itself still presupposes what (...) might be called the existential act of judgement, which was the foundation of Marèchal's Thomistic retrieval. (shrink)

This book collects nine papers on Kant’s philosophical theology written between 1975 and 1992 by Aloysius Winter, who teaches fundamental theology and philosophy of religion at Fulda’s Catholic Theological Faculty. Its object is clear and important. It aims at presenting a different reading of several Kantian texts in order to refute the common interpretation of Kant as an agnostic and highlight instead an overall theological orientation of his philosophy. As remarked by Norbert Hinske in his foreword to this volume, Winter (...) has been looking for “another Kant,” which eventually turns out to be the more authentic one. Indeed, Kant had been considered by most Catholic thinkers to be despicable, momentous, and dangerous. A wholesale evaluation took place that began with the two volumes of Benedikt Sattler’s Antikant, which appeared in 1788, and was sealed by the insertion of the Critique of Pure Reason in the Index librorum prohibitorum in 1827. The reason for this rejection, argues Winter, probably lies in certain formulations of the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason that superficial readers may have regarded as offensive. However, this is not enough, says Winter, to dismiss a philosopher at once. In fact, Kant offers a number of positive suggestions and reflections that can, especially today, be of great help also to Catholic theology. The first essay deals with Kant and the confessions. One should not forget the cautious Renaissance of Kant’s transcendental philosophy initiated in the first half of the twentieth century by Joseph Maréchal, Emmerich Coreth, Bernard Lonergan, Johannes B. Lotz, André Marc, and Karl Rahner. It is true that Kant understood himself first and foremost as a scholar of “rational religion,” by this implying the legitimacy of his taking distance from all confessions, and it is also true that Kant’s positions on free will and God’s grace can be considered pelagian. Yet, this is Winter’s point, the fact of the matter is not so simple. We should rather remember that Kant, when dealing with free will, speaks only for the aspect of quoad nos, and that he does not deny that effects of grace could precede our efforts. The second essay proposes a reconstruction of the theological sources Kant was acquainted with from his student years to his mature age. The third essay deals with Kant’s elaborations on prayer and mass. The forth delves into the soul seen as a problem of transcendental philosophy. The fifth investigates the proof of God’s existence from the standpoint of practical reason. The sixth essay reads the Critique of Judgment from the perspective of Kant’s philosophy of religion. The seventh, entitled “Transcendental Theology of Cognition,” is dedicated to theological receptions of Kant’s Critiques, first and foremost to Rahner’s understanding of transcendental theology as a systematic doctrine that makes use of the tools of transcendental philosophy and thematizes the a priori conditions the believer refers to by the cognition of important truth of faith. Finally, the eighth and ninth essays propose a list of the sources of Kant’s philosophy of religion from the history of theology and from religious literature. (shrink)

In Quod animi mores, Galen says both that there is an identity between the capacities of the soul and the mixtures of the body, and that the soul’s capacities ‘follow upon’ the bodily mixtures. The seeming tension in this text can be resolved by noting that the soul’s capacities are constituted by, and hence are nothing over and above, bodily mixtures, but bodily mixtures explain the soul’s capacities and not the other way around. Galen’s proposal represents a distinctive position in (...) the Ancient debate on the relationship between soul and body. (shrink)