Seeking the Truth: An Orestes Brownson Anthology ed. by Richard M. Reinsch, II (review)

From 1852, when Orestes Brownson published an anthology of his own essays, until Reinsch’s recent work, at least a dozen anthologies of Brownson’s works have been published. Selections of his works have also been published in anthologies of American literature, Transcendentalism, politics, religion in America, philosophy, and American Catholic history. Brownson was one of those public intellectuals who commented on various facets of American intellectual, social, and political issues. Scholars continued to be fascinated with his independent mind and his changing and developing intellectual life.

Reinsch’s text is the latest and one of the best of these anthologies. After a brief, but very insightful introduction to Brownson’s developing philosophy, Reinsch includes a judicious selection of Brownson’s works from 1827 to 1873. Many of the selections are some of Brownson’s most important contributions: e.g., New Views, Emerson’s Divinity School Address, Laboring Classes, Mediatorial Life, Catholicity Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty, Liberalism and Socialism, Civil and Religious Freedom, and The American Republic. These selections reveal no ivory-tower intellectual, but a man in search of the best way to understand and articulate the philosophical and religious foundations that can direct American public life.

Reinsch’s introduction outlines the dialectical development of Brownson’s thought, focusing in particular on his religious and political philosophy. “To study Brownson,” Reinsch argues, “is to learn from a man whose first concern was to be open to the truth about what it means to be a human person” (3). In 1887, Isaac Thomas Hecker wrote a series of articles on Brownson in The Catholic World, saying that his one passion was seeking the truth. Reinsch’s introduction focuses on this passion, indicating the twists and turns his thought took in response to various intellectual and social movements.

In light of the most recent presidential political campaigns and election, it will be of some interest to readers of this anthology to focus on how Brownson’s thought changed rather dramatically after the 1840 presidential election of Harrison, which Brownson considered a disaster and caused him to reconsider much of the political philosophy he had held prior to the election. In the aftermath of the election, he began to develop his doctrine of life by communion, a doctrine that culminated in The American Republic (1865) at the end of the Civil War. Reading the essays between the Mediatorial Life (1842) and the The American Republic reveals his critique of much American political philosophy stemming from a contract view of government that he considered at the root of American individualism. That individualism at the heart of American politics neglects the common good, genuine liberty, and authentic authority—all of which, in Brownson’s view, were grounded in a doctrine of communion. Reading Reinsch’s introduction to these years and the essays of those years is a refreshing respite from the recent campaigns—so devoid of any serious political philosophical inclinations or intellectual substance. Brownson’s philosophy of communion, based on the divine creative act and the doctrine of the Incarnation, challenges the current failures to think seriously about the origins and purposes of government.

I hope the text is widely distributed, but I have a few things to nitpick. The selected essays and texts are simply reproduced without specific historical introductions to their context. The texts, moreover, need critical explanatory notes especially for Brownson’s occasional obscure references and sources. The specific selections from The American Republic, too, have no ellipsis marks to indicate the materials omitted. This is not the kind of critical-analytical edition that would help readers to understand Brownson within his historical context. The introduction is helpful in this regard, but not the texts themselves. There is, too, no index.

Seeking the Truth is recommended reading for all interested in the state of politics and religion in the United States. The introduction is well written, documented, and a fine piece...