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  • A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Etienne Gilson
  • R. James Long (bio)
Peter Redpath, editor. A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Etienne Gilson. Value Inquiry Book Series 142. Rodopi. xix, 244. US $62.00

I presume that the title of this collection of essays, namely A Thomistic Tapestry, is meant to convey the fact that the studies contained therein are not all of a kind. The explanatory subtitle is Essays in Memory of Etienne Gilson, and indeed six of the eleven studies celebrate a thinker who has gone into eclipse as rapidly as the Institute in Toronto which he founded and directed so capably for a glorious generation. Two of the essays, however, focus instead on the achievements of Armand Maurer, the person to whom the book is dedicated, the first featuring his work on the division and methods of the sciences, the other on his aesthetics; yet another takes its starting point from a seminar on intentionality conducted by Anton Pegis; two others, finally, have more to do with Jacques Maritain, with whom Gilson had at times a testy relationship. All three are certainly Thomists - one might even say (with all due respect to Maritain) Toronto Thomists in the Gilsonian tradition - and each deserves a Festschrift of his own, but their inclusion in this volume can be justified only under the rubric of tapestry. Perhaps patchwork quilt would have been a more appropriate metaphor.

As with all such collections, moreover, the quality of the essays varies. [End Page 308] One of the best is the lead study by Jorge Gracia that addresses Gilson's distinctive reading of the history of philosophy. Gracia coins the expression 'enlightening gloss' to characterize the Gilsonian approach, and argues - quite correctly I think - that Gilson placed less emphasis on cultural and historical context than on the text itself, which for him was always primary. This emphasis was reflected in the curriculum at the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, where the Latin language and the tools of paleography and textual criticism played central roles. Gracia's study also reminds those of us who were fortunate to have been students there in its Golden Age of the sad fact that the program we knew, which served us so well, is, in the words of the editor, Peter Redpath, 'in its twilight years.' Sadder still is the realization that nowhere else in North America are scholars of the next generation being prepared to edit texts, which in turn will invite and lend support to the enlightening glosses. The Franciscan Institute at St Bonaventure University has fallen victim to the prejudices of a religious superior; Notre Dame has the means but apparently lacks the will to pick up the torch; Catholic University has the will but lacks the means, although it is currently hosting not only the Scotus project, rescued from the Franciscan Institute, but also the American branch of the Leonine Commission, after the latter lost its lease at Yale.

There are other essays that explore Gilson's relationships with other scholars. Richard Fafara's study of the diverse interpretations of Malebranche taken by Gilson and his former student Henry Gouhier sheds further light on the former's characteristic approach to philosophy in general. Gouhier refused to separate Malebranche's thought from his life, especially the lived Christian life; Gilson ever regarded Christianity's influence as exterior to one's philosophical thinking. Gilson himself dismissed these differences on the grounds that while he was primarily interested in philosophy, his former student was primarily interested in the philosophers. Notwithstanding their differences, Gouhier's final book, written shortly before his death in 1994, was aimed explicitly at enticing people 'to want to read Gilson.'

A study by Francesca Murphy looks at the often prickly association between the two men most responsible for illuminating the thought of St Thomas Aquinas in the twentieth century, Gilson and Maritain. Here in the context of aesthetic theory, Murphy concludes that their differences were in part psychological: Maritain was a convert who began with reason and worked his way from philosophy to a rationally coherent religion which was reason's natural complement; Gilson's Catholicism, on the other hand, was...

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