Maritain’s Theory of Subsistence: The Basis of His “Existentialism”

MARITAIN'S THEORY OF SUBSISTENCE: THE BASIS OF HIS "EXISTENTIALISM" MARITAIN INTENDED his final metaphysical work, Court Traite de l'Existerwe et de l'Existant (Eng. trans. Existence and the Existent)/ as an answer to contemporary existentialists, such as Sartre,2 who maintain that the doctrine of essence, with its emphasis on necessity and universality, is incompatible with the contingency , uniqueness, and freedom of the existential realm. Maritain 's reply was that an existentialism which denies essence is really " apocryphal existentialism." 3 Such an existentialism is self-destroying because an existent must exist as a specific entity and, hence, must possess an intelligible structure. An existence without essence is unthinkable.4 Conversely, he insisted that Thomism is an " authentic existentialism,"" for it not only affirms the primacy of the existent over essence but also accounts for the possibility of the existential realm by maintaining that the existent possesses an essence or intelligible .structure. But is Thomism-as Maritain interpreted it-really an " existentialism "? Or is this merely an effort to make Thomism appear fashionable? Can Maritain's position on essence be reconciled with genuine contingency, uniqueness, and freedom? It is true that over the years Maritain developed a socio-political philosophy which, although based on the immutability of the 1 J. Maritain, Court Traite de l'Existence et de l'Existant (Paris: Paul Hartmann , 1947). Eng trans!.: Existence and the Existent, tr. by Lewis Galantiere and Gerald B. Phelan (New York: Doubleday and Company Inc. Paperback, 1957). 2 Existence and the Existent, pp. 15-16. 3 Ibid., p. 13. ' Ibid., p. 15. 5 Ibid., p. 13. 54~ MAlifTAIN's THEORY d:i!' SUBSfS'I':ENCE Natural Law and the universality of human essence,6 nevertheless focused on the uniqueness and freedom of each person,7 the creativity of the moral act,8 and on the demand that political society progressively adapt its socio-political institutions te the individual person's capacity for self-expression and "freedom of personal expansion." 9 The question, however, is whether this dynamic, libertarian view follows from a metaphysical view of the universe which emphasizes these things or is simply coincidental to a static and basically essentialist view. Existence and the Existent does contain a metaphysics which purports to justify Thomistic existentialism. On a preliminary level Maritain does there distinguish the manner in which things exist in our minds-the manner in which they are represented to us via concepts-from the manner in which they exist outside our minds in their existential state. We know things by grasping their essences through simple apprehension. This, to be sure, affords us a genuine knowledge of what is intelligible in them, i.e., of that by which they are what they are. But, in apprehending the essences of things, we know them as objects, which, for Maritain,10 is to be recipients of action, not sources of action. It is in the act of affirmation or judgment that we apprehend, by intuition, beings as individual existents or subjects.11 The existence (esse) of things, far from being a static something that is received by essence or a mere actualization of essence, is primarily an act that is exercised.12 It is the being (ens) which exists, and it does so by exercising its own act of existing (esse) according to the specifications 6 Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Paperback , 1956), pp. 84-89. 7 Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law, tr. by Doris C. Anson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943), pp. 4 & 7. 8 Maritain, Neuf Lecons sur les Notions Premieres de la Philosophie Morale (Paris: Pierre Tequi, 1951), pp. 31 and 165; Existence and the Existent, p. 60. 9 Maritain, Scholasticism and Politics, translation edited by Mortimer J. Adler, (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc. Paperback., 1960), p. 84. 10 Existent and the Existent, pp. 23-24 & 74. ''Ibid. 10 Ibid., pp. 82-88. 544 RAYMOND })ENNEH"£" of its essence. But only a subject can exercise an act, £or to do something requires a central organization whence the activity flows. Hence, Maritain states 13 that " . . . only subjects exist, with the accidents which inhere in them, the action which emanates from them...