Jacques Maritain Quotes on Knowledge
Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) is the principal twentieth-century neo-Thomist philosopher and the most sustained French Catholic engagement with the analytic and phenomenological currents of his lifetime. The Degrees of Knowledge (1932) supplies the central epistemological work — a hierarchical analysis of the distinct modes of knowledge available to the human intellect, ascending from the empirical-mathematical knowledge of the natural sciences through the philosophical knowledge of metaphysics and natural theology to the supernatural knowledge of revealed theology and the mystical knowledge of the saints. The framework draws on Aquinas, John of Saint Thomas (Poinsot), and the Carmelite mystical tradition, and grounds Maritain's parallel work in political philosophy (Integral Humanism), aesthetics (Art and Scholasticism), and the philosophy of religion.
Quotes
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Attributed to Jacques Maritain:
“Distinguish in order to unite.”
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Attributed to Jacques Maritain:
“The philosopher is the friend of being.”
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Attributed to Jacques Maritain:
“The whole man must enter into philosophy, but only the intellect must do philosophy.”
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“In each of us there dwells a mystery, and that mystery is the human personality.”
The Rights of Man and Natural Law (1943), p. 2. -
“The truth of practical intellect is understood not as conformity to an extramental being but as conformity to a right desire; the end is no longer to know what is, but to bring into existence that which is not yet.”
Action: the Perfection of Human Life,” Sewanee Review , LVI (Winter, 1948), pp. 3-4. -
“The philosopher says that God's knowledge is the measure of things, and that things are the measure of man's knowledge.”
Theonas: Conversations of a Sage(1921) [Sheed & Ward, 1933] | p. 77. -
“It is not possible to escape from the results of the irruption of faith into the structures of our knowledge.”
Science and Wisdom(1954) | p. 109. -
“When one's function is to teach the loftiest wisdom, it is difficult to resist the temptation to believe that until you have spoken, nothing has been said.”
The Peasant of the Garonne(1968) | pp. 147-148.