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MARITAIN'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCIENCES By YVEs R. SIMoN T HE upholders of the Thomistic revival which began late in the nineteenth century were soon confronted with the following challenge: Because the philosophical principles of Thomism had been established at a time when positive science was in its infancy, it was asserted that Thomism was forbidden ever to deal successfully with the problems of our time. There could be no provision made in the system of St. Thomas for the interpretation of either the results or the spirit of modern science, both of which influence so deeply the very statement of our philosophical problems. The collapse of Aristotelian physics had entailed the general ruin of the Thomistic philosophy; against this verdict, rendered at the time of Galileo and Descartes, there could be no appeal. Thomism was at best a remarkable phase in the development of Western thought. If something of it could be revived, it was a certain inspiration, a certain aspiration, a certain frame of mjnd, but not any part of the systematic synthesis actually known under the name of Thomism. Such was the only possible attitude for those who did not believe that any part of philosophy is independent of the data of positive science. Less radical-minded persons were willing to make an exception for metaphysics, considering that our knowledge of the one, the true, and the good is little affected by what happens in physics and mathematics. But when there is a question of cosmology, psychology, even of logic, the restoration of a philosophy conceived in the Middle Ages was deemed plainly impossible. The result was a number of eclectic constructions in which St. Thomas was permitted to supply a few general truths but not any refined and detailed achievement On the other hand, scholars convinced of the perennial truth of St. Thomas's philosophy were engaging in an ambiguous task: that of finding points of agreement between the teaching of St. Thomas and that of modern sciences. In the domain of 85 86 YVES R. SIMON psychology in particular, there is quite a literature about St. Thomas co:rroborated by the most modern and positive research . As a matter of fact, in order to know how far Thomism was affected by modern developments in the positive sciences, a group of preliminary questions had to be investigated. What about the object of philosophy? Has philosophy any distinct object? What about the unity of philosophy? Is philosophy a science or not? One science or several? What is the significance of the distinction between philosophical and positive knowledge? Is it a necessary and everlastingly indispensable distinction, or a merely provisional one? What about the kind of truth that belongs to philosophy? To positive knowledge? Is it the same or not? All these questions have received invaluable elaboration from the critical research whose climax was the publication , in 193~, of The Degrees of Knowledge.1 The pioneers of the Thomistic revival had rather vague ideas about the nature of the disciplines which some of them practiced with great ability. It seems that they were not particularly interested in problems pertaining to the specification of philosophical sciences. Today we consider it a paradox that Thomists have ever accepted a division' of philosophy which was initiated by Wolff, consolidated by Kant, popularized by the Eclectics of the school of Cousin, and was fundamentally at variance with that upheld by St. Thomas. Our old masters undertook the restoration of the Thomistic philosophy without having asked themselves what conception of philosophy and of its divisions a philosophy must adopt in order to be consistently Thomistic. Rediscovering the genuine Thomistic concept of philosophy, reasserting it against many sorts of eclectic combinations -this is a task that l\!Iaritain has carried out with an uncompromising spirit of exactness and accuracy. * * * * * 1 Main writings of Maritain concerning the philosophy of sciences: Ref!exions sur ['intelligence, Paris, 1924, Ch. 6 and 7; Distinguer pour unir ou les Degres du savoir, Paris, 1982 (English translation, The Degrees of Knowledge, Scribner's, New York, 1988); La Philosophie de la nature, Paris, 1985; Science and Wisdom, Scribner 's, New York, 1940; Scholasticism and Politics, Macmillan, New York, 1940, Ch...

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