Etienne Gilson Books

The Middle Ages witnessed tremendous strides in the development of Western philosophical thought, culminating in the arrival of Aristotelianism, the installation of Scholasticism, and the great triumph of Thomism. Conventional wisdom on the topic, however, often elides an essential element of the Medieval philosophical project: namely, in Étienne Gilson’s powerful phrasing, that it was “crowned by mysticism, [as] numberless living souls were on the watch, seeking an order of ideas and things ...

In the teaching of Augustine of Hippo—as in that of the Common Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas—philosophy is recognized as the most complete expression of rational knowledge regarding the highest objects of the human mind. Attending to the data of divine revelation, Augustine recognizes that philosophia, love of wisdom, begins with faith and then moves gradually and by grace into an understanding of that faith. Following the genesis and development of Augustine’s profound understanding a...

Discover the modern relevance of Pope Leo XIII's encyclicals in The Church Speaks to the Modern World by Etienne Gilson. This powerful book presents the papal pronouncements of Leo XIII as arranged and indicated by the pope himself – with each one clearly explained by Gilson's insightful introduction, notes, summarization and study. For individuals of all faiths seeking valuable spiritual instruction and guidance, this unique volume provides insights into topics including social justice, edu...

Those new to Gilson can get a sense of the theme that dominated most of his life’s work in the central essay on the historical significance of Thomism. Those familiar with him will perhaps be surprised by the sympathy with which he treats the more traditional theologians who resisted Aquinas and the Latin Averroists alike. Gilson prolongs his seminal demonstration of Scholastic influence on Descartes’s philosophy by showing that there is also some unfortunate Scholastic influence in what we w...

A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution Darwin's theory of evolution remains controversial, even though most scientists, philosophers, and even theologians accept it, in some form, as an explanation for the variety of organisms. The controversy erupts when the theory is used to try to explain everything, including every aspect of human life, and to deny the role of a Creator or a purpose to life. The overreaching of many scientists into matters beyond the self-imposed limits of s...

Augustine's Quest for Wisdom, originally published in 1945, is a veritable encyclopedia of Augustinian thought. Meticulously tracing the saint's intellectual and spiritual conversions toward God, Vernon J. Bourke develops a rich study of Augustine as the original Christian philosopher--a man wholly devoted to the love of wisdom. This study has two parts: first, the scholarly career of one of the brightest intellects the Western world has ever known; second, the ecclesial and pastoral ministry...

Per Étienne Gilson, "philosophy is a collective enterprise in which no one can pretend to take part unless he is first properly introduced." To provide that proper introduction vis-à-vis the modern period, Gilson and Langan move systematically through the landmark figures and ideas of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Beginning with the vestiges of medievalism in Montaigne and Bacon, they then cover the interplay of science and philosophy (Descartes, Newton, and Vico); the emergen...

The highly regarded French philosopher, Etienne Gilson, brilliantly plumbs the depths of Thomistic Realism, and false Thomisms as well, in this answer to Kantian modernism. The important work, exquisitely translated by Mark Wauck, brings the essential elements of philosophy into view as a cohesive, readily understandable, and erudite structure, and does so rigorously in the best tradition of St. Thomas. Written as the definitive answer to those philosophers who sought to reconcile critical ph...