Maritain, Jacques [addendum]
Jacques Maritain died in Toulouse on April 28, 1973, as a professed religious of the Petits Frères de Jesus. His wife Raissa had died in 1959 when the couple was visiting France and from that point on Maritain's center of gravity was once again Europe. In Toulouse, he taught the brothers of his community and the published works that resulted are almost exclusively theological. Thus, Maritain continued to surprise: the quintessential layman became a professed religious, the philosopher became a theologian.
His reputation with many suffered when he published The Peasant of the Garonne in 1966. In the immediate wake of the ecumenical council dubbed Vatican II, Maritain was severely critical of developing trends in the Catholic Church. Teilhard de Chardin and phenomenology were major targets of his criticism. Some saw in this a retrogression, remembering Antimoderne. It helps to distinguish Maritain's political views from his Catholic faith. He held the latter with unswerving orthodoxy from the time of his conversion. It was otherwise with his political views. His long association with Action Francaise, so difficult to reconcile with his earlier socialism, was followed by a resurgence of his natural liberalism in political matters. The conservatism of the Peasant is theological, not political.
Negative reactions to the Peasant are eclipsed by the upsurge of interest in Maritain during the latter part of the twentieth century. The Jacques Maritain Center at Notre Dame was founded in 1958 and seemed destined to become the repository of Maritain's papers. The bulk of his papers are to be found in Kolbsheim, the home of the Cercle d'études Jacques et Raissa Maritain. Under the general direction of René Mougel a magnificent sixteen volume Oeuvres complètes has appeared. There is another International Maritain Association centered in Rome under the aegis of Roberto Papini which has sponsored a score of publications and conferences, as well as a periodical, Notes et Documents. There are flourishing Maritain associations in Canada, the United States, and Latin America. Biographies have been written, collections of letters published, various monographs have appeared. A projected twenty volume set of Maritain's work in English is under way from the Jacques Maritain Center, whose web site at nd.edu can be consulted for other relevant materials.
Perhaps interest is strongest in his political, social, and aesthetic views. Given the contingency of the practical order this is surprising, perhaps, but would seem to attest to Maritain's knack of finding permanent values in the changing cultural landscape. His metaphysical views have their adherents still and there is a quickened interest on the part of physicists in Maritain's views of natural philosophy and natural science, as is evident in the institute founded by the physicist-philosopher Anthony Rizzi. Far from waning, interest in Maritain's thought seems to be increasing. For all that, it is perhaps not too much to say that it is his personality that continues to attract. Leon Bloy's line, "There is only one tragedy, not to be a saint," may seem a counter-cultural motto for a philosopher, but perhaps that is due to the all too exiguous character of recent philosophizing. In any case, as person as well as thinker, Jacques Maritain's influence is still strongly felt in the twenty-first century.
Aesthetics, History Of; Liberalism; Phenomenology; Socialism; Teilhard De Chardin, Pierre.
Bibliography
Works by Maritain
Jacques et Raissa Maritain Oeuvres Complétes, edited by René Mougel et. al. Strasbourg: Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 16 volumes, 1986–1999.
The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain, edited by Ralph McInerny, Bernard Doering, Fred Crosson. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1997.
Works About Maritain
Barré, Jean-Luc. Jacques et Raissa Maritain: Les Mendiants du Ciel. Paris: Stock, 1995.
Doering, Bernard. Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
McInerny, Ralph. The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain: A Spiritual Life. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.
Schall, James V. Jacques Maritain, The Philosopher in Society. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998.
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