1001Philosophers

Etienne Gilson Quotes

Etienne Gilson was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy, the leading figure of twentieth-century neo-Thomism. He devoted his career to recovering medieval philosophy as a serious philosophical interlocutor and not merely as a historical curiosity, producing monographs on Augustine, Anselm, Bonaventure, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Bernard of Clairvaux. The quotes below are attributed to Etienne Gilson, organized by topic.

Etienne Gilson on God

  • Attributed to Etienne Gilson:

    “Faith without reason is fanaticism; reason without faith is rationalism.”

Etienne Gilson on Knowledge

  • Attributed to Etienne Gilson:

    “Philosophy always buries its undertakers.”

  • Attributed to Etienne Gilson:

    “An unmetaphysical age is at one and the same time both incompetent in metaphysics and in need of metaphysics.”

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Etienne Gilson on Truth

  • Attributed to Etienne Gilson:

    “There are not two truths, scientific and theological. There is but one truth.”

  • Attributed to Etienne Gilson:

    “The philosophy of being is open and accommodates the entirety of reality.”

Read all Etienne Gilson quotes on Truth