This eagerly awaited study brings to completion Louis Dupré's planned trilogy on European culture during the modern epoch. Demonstrating remarkable erudition and sweeping breadth, _The Quest of the Absolute_ analyzes Romanticism as a unique cultural phenomenon and a spiritual revolution. Dupré philosophically reflects on its attempts to recapture the past and transform the present in a movement that is partly a return to premodern culture and partly a violent protest against it. Following an introduction on the historical origins of the (...) Romantic Movement, Dupré examines the principal Romantic poets of England, Germany, and France, all of whom, from different perspectives, pursued an absolute ideal. In the chapters of the second part, he concentrates on the critical principles of Romantic aesthetics, the Romantic image of the person as reflected in the novel, and Romantic ethical and political theories. In the chapters of the third, more speculative, part, he investigates the comprehensive syntheses of romantic thought in history, philosophy, and theology. _The Quest of the Absolute_ is an important work both as the culmination of Dupré's ongoing project and as a classic in its own right. The book will meet the expectations of the specialist as well as appeal to more general readers with philosophical, cultural, and religious interests. "_The Quest of the Absolute _is the third volume in Louis Dupré's trilogy dealing with the origins and development of modernity and the major cultural currents defining its history. It follows _Passage to Modernity_ and _The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture_. This third volume deals with the Romantic movement. Dupré's account is concerned to restore something of the full dimensionalities to Romanticism as a whole, to acknowledge something of the immense intellectual, political, and spiritual ambitions at work in it, without reneging on a reflective critical relation to it." —_William Desmond, Catholic University Louvain and Villanova University_. (shrink)

Did modernity begin with the Renaissance and end with post-modernity? In this book a distinguished scholar challenges both these assumptions. Louis Dupré discusses the roots, development, and impact of modern thought, tracing the fundamental principles of modernity to the late fourteenth century and affirming that modernity is still an influential force in contemporary culture. The combination of late medieval theology and early Italian humanism shattered the traditional synthesis that had united cosmic, human, and transcendent components in a comprehensive idea of (...) nature. Early Italian humanism transformed the traditional worldview by its unprecedented emphasis on human creativity. The person emerged as the sole source of meaning while nature was reduced to an object and transcendence withdrew into a "supernatural" realm. Dupré analyzes this fragmentation as well as the writings of those who reacted against it—philosophers like Cusanus and Bruno, humanists like Ficino and Erasmus, theologians like Baius and Jansenius, mystics like Ignatius Loyola and Francis de Sales, and theosophists like Weigel and Boehme. Baroque culture briefly reunited the human, cosmic, and transcendent components, but since that time the disintegrating forces have increased in strength. Despite post-modern criticism, the principles of early modernity continue to dominate the climate of our time. _Passage to Modernity_ is not so much a critique as a search for the philosophical meaning of the epochal change achieved by those principles. (shrink)

_Religion and the Rise of Modern Culture_ describes and analyzes changing attitudes toward religion during three stages of modern European culture: the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Romantic period. Louis Dupré is an expert guide to the complex historical and intellectual relation between religion and modern culture. Dupré begins by tracing the weakening of the Christian synthesis. At the end of the Middle Ages intellectual attitudes toward religion began to change. Theology, once the dominant science that had integrated all others, (...) lost its commanding position. After the French Revolution, religion once again played a role in intellectual life, but not as the dominant force. Religion became transformed by intellectual and moral principles conceived independently of faith. Dupré explores this new situation in three areas: the literature of Romanticism ; idealist philosophy ; and theology itself. Dupré argues that contemporary religion has not yet met the challenge presented by Romantic thought. “This beautifully crafted essay by Louis Dupré makes an original contribution to our understanding of the emergence and development of modernity, which dispensing with religion as a governing discourse and form of life, nonetheless attempts to find a place for it in a world sufficiently depleted of meaning and value as to require reenchantment. It supplements Dupré’s two magisterial texts on the topic of the modernity covering the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, and whets the appetite for the forthcoming volume on Romanticism. Deep learning is worn lightly in this marvelously readable book.” —_Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame_ “A stunning synthesis of Dupré's magisterial intellectual history of modernity and his distinctive and important philosophy of religion.” —_David Tracy, emeritus, The University of Chicago Divinity School_ “Louis Dupre's literate and sweeping review of the fate of religious faith in modern culture will help contemporary readers, who share his closing yearning for ways in which ‘transcendence can be recognized again,’ to appreciate why many of us find a postmodern climate—for better or worse—more conducive to fulfilling that desire. For his dramatic depictions of modernity teach us how different is the culture in which we now live.” —_David Burrell, CSC, Hesburgh Professor Emeritus in Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame_. (shrink)

It is stated that husserl's theory of truth is ambiguous. When husserl attacked psychological interpretations of truth, A logicism seemed to be predominant; later he inclined toward intuitionism, Where truth is constituted by the real presence of the object. Purely logical relations in an eternal order of truth, Independent of things, Seems to conflict with the idea of evidence, Which is a psychological experience. It is concluded that truth is the result of an intuition in which the thing itself is (...) given. Finally, Parallels are drawn between husserl's double truth and leibniz's truths of reason and truths of fact. (staff). (shrink)

Major problems in modern theodicy derive from a rationalist conception of God---alien to living faith---and from an abstract, theologically neutral definition of good and evil. The alternative model here proposed rests on a more intimate union of finite with infinite Being which, on the one hand, allows the creature a greater autonomy and responsibility, and, on the other hand, enables the Creator to share in the suffering of his creatures and thereby to redeem them.

Is it possible to reflect on religious truth from a position outside faith without seriously distorting what faith itself understands by its truth? As long as philosophy and theology remained united---until the end of the middle ages---such a reflection was neither needed nor attempted. The standpoint which an independent philosophy in the modern age has taken with respect to the problem of truth, where the knowing subject becomes the source of truth, would appear to render such an effort suspect. Nevertheless, (...) this essay argues, we are justified in approaching the truth of religion through the models available in present philosophy: correspondence, coherence, disclosure. In all three cases, however, the application of the models needs to be qualified if it is to account for truth as faith itself understands it. (shrink)

Philosophical reflection claims a permanent quality that makes the knowledge of its past a vital concern to present philosophy. Yet each system, Being culturally conditioned, Belongs to a particular epoch. The permanence of the time-Bound can be explained only if the succession of history itself possesses an ontological significance that survives the passing of culture. This in turn presupposes the existence of genuine ontological novelty. The history of philosophy shows how the "new" introduced by each epoch acquires a permanent, Ontological (...) meaning in philosophical reflection. (shrink)