Gratry’s Philosophy: Julián Marías’ La Filosofía del Padre Gratry

277 Pages·2020·4.136 MB·English

by  Julián Marías, Mary L. O’Hara (translator), Catherine T. McNamee (translator)

Alphonse-Joseph-Auguste Gratry (1805–1872) was born in Lille, northern France, of irreligious
parents and lived during a time of endless revolution. G Gratry’s Philosophy
As a young man, he underwent a powerful conversion in which he experienced a mystical r
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vision of a world based on truth and justice. This determined the course of his future life. A t
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classically educated scholar, he studied engineering at the outstanding Ėcole Polytechnique, ’
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completed a doctorate on the scientific method in Strasbourg (1840), was ordained a priest, A Translation of
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and later obtained a doctorate in letters and a licentiate in theology. h
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Moved by the events of 1848, he published his first book in the form of a social catechism on o
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the necessity for a systematic response to the needs of society. o
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In a parallel initiative to that of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman in England, he h
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relaunched the Congregation of the Oratory in Paris (1852) with Pierre Pėtėtot to raise
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intellectual standards among the clergy after the Revolution. A charismatic individual, well
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known as a distinguished logician, theologian, social thinker, and outstanding educator, r Padre Gratry
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preacher, and spiritual director, his major philosophical works appeared in the 1850s. The n
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French Academy recognized his genius with election to the chair held by Voltaire a century la
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earlier. i
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Gratry fell into disfavor for his adhesion to the International Peace League on the eve of n

France’s war with Germany, and for his stand in regard to papal infallibility before Vatican I o
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(a position largely vindicated in Vatican II), but he accepted the much narrower declaration J
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once it was made. l
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His most famous work, Les Sources, widely published until World War II, offers a plan of á
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studies and a plan of life which reflect Gratry’s philosophy of the person.
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The Christian Democratic Parties, the French lay movement Le Sillon, the Young Christian a
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Workers (YCW), and the writings of Peter Maurin, mentor to today’s Catholic Worker í
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movement, witness to his foundational and comprehensive influence. s
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For the first time in English, we have Julián Marías’s (1914–2005) clear and accessible study o
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(5th ed.) on the core of Alphonse Gratry’s philosophy. Although he lived more than a century o
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ago (1805–1872), Gratry addresses issues of concern today: the ontology of the human person i
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with its body/soul unity; the intrinsic relationship of individuals to society and nature; and the d
problem of God. e
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Recognized as a master in his lifetime with the rapid reprinting of his Logic, The Knowledge P
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of God, and The Knowledge of the Soul, Gratry was relegated to near oblivion less than seventy d
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years later with the rejection of metaphysics and the rise of Positivism. e

Marías reclaims Gratry’s place in the history of philosophy and thoroughly explains Gratry’s G
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original logic “written from the point of view of the juncture of philosophy and the human a
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spirit.” He shows how Gratry’s theory of induction, in Plato’s original and foundational sense r
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(Rep. VI), forms the heart of his metaphysics of knowledge—the science of transcendence by
which the mind intellectually apprehends all reality: corporeal, psychic, and divine.
Gratry thus establishes a complete ontology of the human person—rational, free, and
endowed with a three-fold sense: external, intimate (sens intime), and divine—dependent on M
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unlimited being or God. r
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Gratry’s original logic and metaphysics stands on its own philosophical basis, but in Chapter L

6, “Five Interior Adventures,” Marías includes a parallel, existential foundation drawn from O
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Gratry’s private journal. This reveals how the young atheist underwent a series of near mystical H
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experiences which gave him an inescapable awareness of God and confronted him with the r
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moral choice for or against this reality.
In this extraordinarily lucid study, we now have access to
the complete thought of Gratry, giving scholar and student,
Translated from the Fifth Spanish Edition by
as Marías observes, a seemingly providential body of work
needed in our time.

www.atfpress.com Mary L O’Hara, CSJ, Phd
THEOLOGY making a lasting impact
THEOLOGY
Gratry’s Philosophy
Julián Marías’ La Filosofía del Padre Gratry

Gratry’s Philosophy
Julián Marías’ La Filosofía del Padre Gratry
Translated from the fifth Spanish edition by
Mary L O’Hara, CSJ
with the assistance of
Catherine T McNamee, CSJ
Adelaide
2020
Originally published as La Filosofía del Padre Gratry
Copyright Julián Marías 1972
Madrid: Ediciones de la Revista de Occidente
Colección El Alción
(The above is the fifth Spanish edition.)
Gratry’s Philosophy
Translated by Mary L O’Hara from the fifth Spanish edition
Translation copyright 1991 by Mary L O’Hara
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-925679-52-6 soft
978-1-925679-53-3 hard
978-1-925679-54-0 epub
978-1-925679-55-7 pdf
Published by:
An imprint of the ATF Press Publishing
Group owned by ATF (Australia) Ltd.
PO Box 504
Hindmarsh, SA 5007
ABN 90 116 359 963
www.atfpress.com
Making a lasting impact
In the middle of winter,
season of storms and tempests,
the winds cease to blow and it becomes calm.
These are the days in which, according to the old myth,
the halcyon calmly builds its nest
so that life will continue.

Table of Contents
Translator’s Preface xi
Prologue xv
Introduction xvii
Chapter One
Gratry’s Place in the History of Philosophy
1. Gratry’s Personality 1
2. Gratry’s Philosophical Tradition 7
3. The Turn to Metaphysics 13
Chapter Two
The Historical Point of View in Gratry’s Philosophy
1. The History of Philosophy at the Beginning of the
Nineteenth Century 21
2. The History of Philosophy in Gratry’s System 29
Chapter Three
The History of the Problem of God
1. The Meaning of Theodicy 43
2. Plato 46
3. Aristotle 53
4. Saint Augustine 58
5. Saint Anselm 65
6. Saint Thomas Aquinas 70
7. Descartes 75
8. Pascal 81
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viii Gratry’s Philosophy
9. Malebranche 84
10. Fénelon 87
11. Petevius and Thomassin 90
12. Bossuet 93
13. Leibniz 97
Chapter Four
Ontology of the Person
1. Man and God 101
2. The Sense 107
3. Reason and Liberty 113
Chapter Five
Logic
1. Two Procedures of Reason 117
2. Pantheistic Logic 120
3. The Theory of Induction or Dialectic 126
Chapter Six
Five Interior Adventures
1. The Journey to God 149
2. Gratry’s World 149
3. The Horizon of Life 154
4. The Threat of Annihilation 157
5. The Free Will 158
6. The Reality of the Good 159
Chapter Seven
The Problem of God
1. The Radical Relation of Man with God 161
2. Atheism 164
3. The Knowledge of God 168
Bibliographical Appendix 179
The Interpretation of Aristotelian Induction by WD Ross 183
Table of Contents ix
Appendices to the English Edition 187
1. Peter Maurin (includes sample of Easy Essays) 187
2. Selections from Gratry’s La Morale et la loi de l’histoire 191
3. Part Two of The Well-Springs by Alphonse Gratry 193