Neo-Thomism
from 1879
A thirteenth-century philosophy revived by papal decree and turned, unexpectedly, into a live twentieth-century position.
- Active
- from 1879
- Where
- Rome, Louvain, Paris and Toronto
- Status
- living
- Tradition
- Christian
The claim
Aquinas is not a historical figure to be studied but a philosopher to be used, and his metaphysics of being answers problems that modern philosophy has failed to solve.
What it held
Leo XIII's encyclical of 1879 instructed Catholic institutions to teach Aquinas, and what could have produced a century of dutiful commentary produced something more interesting.
The Louvain school under Mercier took the instruction as licence to engage modern science on Thomist terms rather than to retreat from it. Maritain and Gilson in France turned the revival outward: Gilson argued that medieval philosophy was philosophy rather than theology in disguise, and largely won that argument in the academy; Maritain worked on aesthetics, politics and human rights, and had a hand in drafting the Universal Declaration.
Transcendental Thomism, from Maréchal through Rahner and Lonergan, went the other way and read Aquinas through Kant, arguing that the dynamism of the intellect toward being is what Kant's critique had missed.
The movement's institutional dominance ended with the Second Vatican Council, which stopped mandating it. What survived is Thomism as one live philosophical position among others — arguably a healthier condition than being required.
How it argued
Historical scholarship establishing what Aquinas actually said, combined with the application of his metaphysics to contemporary problems.
What it was arguing against
Kantian idealism, positivism, and the assumption that medieval philosophy is of antiquarian interest only.
Where it disagreed with itself
Whether Aquinas can be read through Kant without distortion, which divides transcendental Thomists from the rest. Whether the revival's historical work was distorted by its apologetic purpose.
Common misconceptions
That it is defensive traditionalism. Gilson's historical scholarship changed the field permanently, and Maritain's political philosophy was liberal enough to be attacked from the right.
How it began
Aeterni Patris in 1879, in a church that felt intellectually outflanked and reached for the most systematic thing it had.
What became of it
Living. Deprived of its official status after 1965 and now one position among several, with analytical Thomism a going concern in English-language philosophy.
Lasting influence
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, through Maritain. The academic study of medieval philosophy, through Gilson. Anscombe and MacIntyre's virtue ethics, which reopened the field.
Why it still matters
Analytical Thomism is active in metaphysics and philosophy of religion, and natural law arguments in bioethics come largely from here.
Put another way
A cathedral reopened, and found to be structurally sound.
Where to start
Gilson. He writes well and the historical argument is the movement's most durable achievement.
The surprising bit
Jacques Maritain, who did as much as anyone to shape the language of universal human rights, was a convert who had made a suicide pact with his wife in their twenties if they could not find a philosophy worth living by.
In their own words
The philosophy of the Middle Ages is not a theology in disguise.
We agree about the rights, provided no one asks us why.
Connections
- Answers
- Thomism
- Opposed by
- Neo-Kantianism
- Influenced
- Natural Law
The verdict
A revival commanded from above that produced better work than commanded revivals usually do.