Scholasticism in Our Times
The Neo-Scholastic revival: Leo XIII and Aeterni Patris, the Louvain school, Mercier, Maritain, and the renewal of Thomistic philosophy as a living intellectual tradition.
The Neo-Scholastic revival was officially launched by Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris (1879), which called for the renewal of scholastic philosophy — especially Thomism — as the authentic philosophical tradition of the Catholic Church and as the adequate response to the errors of modern thought. The Louvain School (Cardinal Mercier, 1851–1926) pioneered the engagement of Thomism with modern science, epistemology, and psychology, demonstrating that the perennial philosophy is not historically fossilised but capable of genuine development in dialogue with contemporary thought. Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) developed Thomism in creative dialogue with modern art, politics, anthropology, and democracy. Etienne Gilson (1884–1978) recovered the historical Aquinas through rigorous scholarship, demonstrating the profound originality and contemporary relevance of Thomistic metaphysics, especially the doctrine of esse (the act of being) as the core of Thomas's metaphysical vision. The Neo-Scholastic movement established Thomism as a genuinely live option in 20th-century philosophical debate.
Article 4. Scholasticism in Our Times Scholasticism, which was almost completely submerged during the 17 and 18 centuries, emerged again in the early 19. Notable among the Scholastics of the restoration period were : i. Matteo Liberatore, S.J. (1810-1872); ii. Thomas Zigliara, O.P. (1833-1893); iii. Caietano Sanseverino (1811-1865); iv. Annunzio Signoriello (1821-1889); v. Z. Gonzalez (1831-1895); vi. Joseph Kleutgen, S.J. (1811-1883); vii. Karl Werner (1828-1888). By 1870 there was almost unanimous agreement among philosophers of the Catholic Faith in the acceptance of Scholasticism, yet there was much controversy among them as to the manner of conciliating Scholastic Psychology and Cosmology with the data of modern science. Involved in this controversy were the following, who opposed Scholastic physics at least in part : i. Salvatore Tongiorgi, S.J. (1820-1865); ii. Angelo Secchi, S.J. (1818-1878); iii. Pietro Tedeschini, S.J. (died 1876); iv. Domenico Palmieri, S.J. (1829-1909). Pius IX had favored the return to Scholasticism on the part of Catholic philosophers. His successor, Leo XIII, had scarcely assumed the duties of the Supreme Pontificate (1878) when he issued (1879) the Encyclical Aeterni Patris, in which he prescribed the teaching of Scholastic and Thomistic philosophy in Catholic schools. The Encyclical orders Catholic teachers of philosophy to augment and perfect the body of Thomistic doctrine by the addition of all certainly established truths and discoveries in the fields of philosophy and science. On the advice of Cardinal Joseph Pecci, Pope Leo founded the “Roman Academy of St. Thomas” in the very year of the issuance of the famous Encyclical (1879). He promoted the movement which established such Academies elsewhere, and founded a chair of Thomistic Philosophy in the University of Louvain in 1880, and later a School or Institute there, which he committed to the charge of Professor Désiré Mercier (1851- 1926). Cardinal Mercier, with Désiré Nys, and Maurice De Wulf, edited a Course of Philosophy which meets the requirements of the Encyclical of Leo XIII, and marks the beginning of larger achievements by the so called Neo-Scholastics. Scholasticism is making rapid progress in our day. Its name has been amended to Neo-Scholasticism to indicate that it is no mere revival of a medieval system, but that it takes into account the established data of all sciences. As a body of principles, Scholasticism was completed once and for all by Thomas Aquinas in the 13 century; it is for modern Scholastics, or Neo-Scholastics, to apply these principles in the interpretation of the data of physical science. The work is being done, and done well, in Catholic colleges and universities the world over, not least among which are our American institutions. But the work progresses slowly, if surely, and a complete account of the 20 century achievements of Scholasticism can only be written at some time in the distant future.
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