Etienne Gilson and the Concept of Existence

ETIENNE GILSON AND THE CONCEPT OF EXISTENCE I N 1952 the second edition of Etienne Gilson's Being and Some Philosophers was published.1 This is a remarkable book in that the position maintained in the body of the work is apparently contradicted by the appendix written especially for the second edition. Throughout the book Gilson builds a case for the position that there is no concept of existence .2 But in the appendix where he cites the criticisms of Fathers Louis-Marie Regis and Jean Isaac, Gilson admits that "No Thomist ... should write that existence (esse) is not known by a concept." 3 1 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies) For the purposes of this study, L'etre et l'essence (Paris: Vrin, 1948) and Being and Some Philosophers will, for the most part, be considered as one work. L'etre et l'essence contains a series of lectures which Gilson gave as a course of study at the College de France, probably from the Fall of 1945 until the early part of 1948; cf. L.-B. Geiger, "Existentialisme, essentialisme et ontologie existentielle." In Etienne Gilson, philo .oophe de la Chretiente (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1949) p. 252; (note 2 should read: "Voir supra p. 227, n. 3 "); N. Picard, [Review of L'etre], Antonianum, XXVI (1951) 169. Picard states that these lectures were given at the "Lutetiae Parisiorum" (on the lie de la Cite) and thus must have been given between 1945 and 1948, since Gilson was in Vermenton from 1941 to 1944; cf. below n. 17. While Gilson presents substantially the same material in Being and L'etre, the English version constitutes a more summary treatment based on the French; cf. Being, pp. x-xi. For some points of interest to this project, one or the other work may be more explicit and therefore reference to it is more appropriate. Several sources mention a 1948 edition of Being published by Declan X. McMullen, Garden City, N. Y. However, according to a letter received by this writer from Mr. McMnllen, "We had scheduled but never did publish this book." 2 Op. cit., pp. 3-4, 176-7, 193, 198, 202, 209, 214, 215. "The problem of the knowledge of existence is the alpha and omega of our author's book." (Reproduced by Gilson from an article by L.-M. Regis; cf. ibid., p. 217 and Modem Schoolman, XXVITI [1950-1] 121. 3 Being and Some Philosophers, p. 221; cf. ibid., pp. 222-3, 225-6, 228, 230. Fr. Regis reviewed Being, whereas Fr. Isaac reviewed that work as well as L'etre et l'essence; see Bulletin thomiste VIII (1947-53) 39-59. Georges Van Riet's study is limited to an examination of chapters 9 and 10 of L'etre; those chapters deal with SOft ETIENNE GILSON AND THE CONCEPT OF EXISTENCE 303 In the light of this change one is naturally quite startled to find the following statements in Gilson's Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas published in 1956: 4 ... we have an abstract concept for essence but not for the act of existing.5 We understand now why judgment alone can penetrate to existence .6 A pure est is unthinkable/ It is quite impossible to come to the act-of-being by an intellectual intuition which grasps it directly, and grasps nothing more.8 This study proposes to show how Gilson came to deny in the first edition of Being and Some Philosophers in 1949 9 that there is a concept of existence, and to show in what way he reversed his position in the appendix written for the second edition of that work in 1952. It will also be seen why Gilson made the above statements from The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas even though they seem to contradict what he said just four years before in the appendix to Being and Some Philosophers. Finally, Elements of Christian Philosophy /0 one of Gilson's most recent works, will be examined to discover whether he has resolved these difficulties. the knowledge of existence; see " Philosophie et existence," Revue philosophique de Louvain, XLVI (1948) 352-76. For some reason Gilson does not mention Van...