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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Scholasticism and Politics, first published in 1940, is a collection of nine lectures Maritain delivered at the University of Chicago in 1938. Maritain championed the cause of what he called personalist democracy--a regime committed to popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, limited government, and individual freedom. He believed a personalist democracy offered the modern world the possibility of a political order most in keeping with the demands of human dignity, Christian values, and the common good.
Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) was a French political thinker and philosopher and is widely recognized as one of the most influential interpreters of Thomistic thought to modern culture.
Few political philosophers have laid such stress upon the organic and dynamic characters of human rights, rooted as they are in natural law, as did the great 20th century philosopher, Jacques Maritain.
As this important work reveals, the philosophy of Maritain on natural law and human rights is complemented by and can only be properly understood in the light of his teaching on Christianity and democracy and their relationship. Maritain shows that Christi-anity cannot be made subservient to any political form or regime, that democracy is linked to Christianity, and that in order for democracy to thrive, it must reflect certain values historically derived from the Gospel.
He also argues that personalist or organic democracy provides a fuller measure of freedom and fulfillment, and that it takes shape under the inspiration of the Gospel. Even the modern democracies we have, with all their weaknesses, represent an historic gain for the person and they spring, he urges, from the very Gospel they so wantonly repudiate!
In the words of a 1944 review, written well in advance of twenty-first-century outcomes of educational malpractice: It is for man that education must exist. Such a statement may seem too obvious to make at all. Yet its meaning is rarely understood today. Education at the Crossroads fully com-prehends that meaning. Bringing to bear the full weight of his wisdom, Jacques Maritain argues for education as objectively ordered toward man in his personal life and spiritual progress, not in his relationship to the social environment. Concise and comprehensive, Maritain dispels the major misconceptions about education; examines educational dynamics and the rules which ought to govern them; surveys the spheres of knowledge across the three main stages of education; and considers the challenges of educating properly in the post-war world, wherein power so mightily threatens to wholly supersede truth.
A touchstone of educational philosophy since 1943, Education at the Crossroads eloquently articulates the nature and place of education, especially liberal learning, in democratic society, and argues for the necessary grounding of any decent educational system on the firm foundation of Christian anthropology-not because it is relevant, but because it is true.
The education of man is a human awakening. (Jacques Maritain)The classic work on the sublime interplay between the arts and poetics
This book explores the rich and complex relationship between art and poetry, shedding invaluable light on what makes each art form unique yet wholly interdependent. Jacques Maritain insists on the part played by the intellect as well as the imagination, showing how poetry has its source in the preconceptual activity of the rational mind. As Maritain argues, intellect is not merely logical and conceptual reason. Rather, it carries on an exceedingly more profound and obscure life, one that is revealed to us as we seek to penetrate the hidden recesses of poetic and artistic activity. Incisive and authoritative, this illuminating book is the product of a lifelong reflection on the meaning of artistic expression in all its varied forms.Maritain argues that there are different 'kinds' and 'orders' of knowledge and, within them, different 'degrees' determined by the nature of the thing to be known and the 'degree of abstraction' involved. The book is divided into two parts: Part one discusses the degrees of knowledge for science and philosophy - or 'rational knowledge, ' and part two discusses the degrees of knowledge for religious faith and mysticism - or 'super-rational knowledge.'