The Degrees of Knowledge

by Jacques Maritain, Gerald B. Phelan (Translator), Ralph M. McInerny (Editor)

Distinguer pour unir, ou Les degrés du savoir was first published in 1932 by Jacques Maritain. In this new translation of The Degrees of Knowledge, Ralph McInerny attempts a more careful expression of Maritain's original masterpiece than previous translations. Maritain proposes a hierarchy of the forms of knowledge by discussing the degrees of rational and suprarational understanding. Nine appendices, some longer than the chapters of the book, advance Maritain's thought, often by taking on criticism of earlier editions of the work. Rightly called Maritain's cardinal work, The Degrees of Knowledge is a magnificent and sagacious achievement. Jacques Maritain's masterpiece proposes a hierarchy of forms of knowledge that culminate in mystical experience and wisdom, which is a gift of the Holy Ghost. Maritain argues that the intellectual life is meant to be complemented by the spiritual life and should culminate in sanctity.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, Theology, Nonfiction, Classics, Science, Mysticism

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

T. S. Eliot once called Jacques Maritain "the most conspicuous figure and probably the most powerful force in contemporary philosophy." His wife and devoted intellectual companion, Raissa Maritain, was of Jewish descent but joined the Catholic church with him in 1906. Maritain studied under Henri Bergson but was dissatisfied with his teacher's philosophy, eventually finding certainty in the system of St. Thomas Aquinas. He lectured widely in Europe and in North and South America, and lived and taught in New York during World War II. Appointed French ambassador to the Vatican in 1945, he resigned in 1948 to teach philosophy at Princeton University, where he remained until his retirement in 1953. He was prominent in the Catholic intellectual resurgence, with a keen perception of modern French literature. Although Maritain regarded metaphysics as central to civilization and metaphysically his position was Thomism, he took full measure of the intellectual currents of his time and articulated a resilient and vital Thomism, applying the principles of scholasticism to contemporary issues. In 1963, Maritain was honored by the French literary world with the national Grand Prize for letters. He learned of the award at his retreat in a small monastery near Toulouse where he had been living in ascetic retirement for some years. In 1967, the publication of "The Peasant of the Garonne" disturbed the French Roman Catholic world. In it, Maritain attacked the "neo-modernism" that he had seen developing in the church in recent decades, especially since the Second Vatican Council. According to Jaroslav Pelikan, writing in the Saturday Review of Literature, "He laments that in avant-garde Roman Catholic theology today he can 'read nothing about the redeeming sacrifice or the merits of the Passion.' In his interpretation, the whole of the Christian tradition has identified redemption with the sacrifice of the cross. But now, all of that is being discarded, along with the idea of hell, the doctrine of creation out of nothing, the infancy narratives of the Gospels, and belief in the immortality of the human soul." Maritain's wife, Raissa, also distinguished herself as a philosophical author and poet. The project of publishing Oeuvres Completes of Jacques and Raissa Maritain has been in progress since 1982, with seven volumes now in print.

Reviews

[Robert Tessmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the following review online and I agree with it wholeheartedly.

KIRKUS REVIEW

The shorter works of Jacques Maritain have been so enthusiastically received that this, his first long work, should be even more welcome. Undoubtedly one of the greatest 20th century philosophers this book will have a wide field. Philosophers and theologians cannot miss it and to add to its importance it bears the imprimatur so that Catholics as well as Protestants will consider it required reading. While it is not easy reading it is amazing how clearly the author cuts his way through the maze of problems and subjects that face him. Equally at home in the field of science of theology, in physics or mysticism, mathematics or philosophy, we find ourselves following our surefooted guide with an amazing but delightful sense of achievement. This is a book to own, read, reread and study, not to be digested in one reading. It contains a lifetime of knowledge.

[Caleb Burdine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dazzling foray into scholastic thought by one of the foremost Thomists of the 20th century. Stylistically, the book is nearly flawless. Maritain writes with the technical precision of a philosopher and the elegance of a poet. The work ascends slowly through the various levels of knowledge, following the classical division of the speculative sciences (natural philosophy, mathematics, metaphysics) before culminating in the suprarational knowledge of theology and the infused wisdom of mystical experience. Perhaps my favorite section of the book was the chapter titled "Critical Realism", in which Maritain provides a thorough defense of the principles of Thomistic realism. The historical controversy surrounding such a defense, namely, the criticism leveled by Étienne Gilson that any defense of Thomistic realism is already a capitulation to idealist principles, is answered cogently by Maritain before he turns his analysis to the order of knowledge. He is careful to situate his defense of knowledge within the boundaries of metaphysics instead of following the modern division in which epistemology and metaphysics are separate sciences with their own distinct principles. In good Scholastic fashion, Maritain teaches that knowledge is primarily a mode of being in which the known comes to exist intentionally within the knower. Much more could be said in praise of this book, but the value of the work would be best promoted by Maritain's own pen, from the opening chapter entitled "The Majesty and Poverty of Metaphysics": "There is a sort of grace in the natural order presiding over the birth of a metaphysician just as there is over the birth of a poet. The latter thrusts his heart into things like a dart or rocket and, by divination, sees, within the very sensible itself and inseparable from it, the flash of a spiritual light in which a glimpse of God is revealed to him. The former turns away from the sensible, and through knowledge sees within the intelligible, detached from perishable things, this very spiritual light itself, captured in some conception. The metaphysician breathes an atmosphere of abstraction which is death for the artist. Imagination, the discontinuous, the unverifiable, in which the metaphysician perishes, is life itself to the artist. While both absorb rays that come down from creative Night, the artist finds nourishment in a bound intelligibility which is as multiform as God's reflections upon earth, the metaphysician finds it in a naked intelligibility that is as determined as the proper being of things. They are playing seesaw, each in turn rising up to the sky. Spectators make fun of their game; they sit upon solid ground." (p.2)

[Leonardo]

Citado en He buscado y he encontrado.

[S]

Extremely deep account of Neo-Thomistic thought. It would take a good deal of time and concerted attention to read this. This is not a conversation I am as of now totally prepared to engage in. It is likely, though, that I'll arrive here eventually.

[sch]

I tried. Will try again someday.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Thomistic account of "ways of knowing".