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Jacques Maritain was one of the most profound and far-ranging thinkers in the wave of Thomism that gained momentum after World War I and crested just before Vatican II. His career makes manifest the intellectual, cultural, and spiritual liveliness of the pre-Conciliar period, and his thought is crucial to our understanding of the Church today. Art and Prudence highlights the social, political, and aesthetic achievements of the great French Catholic intellectual.
In this collection of essays Ralph McInerny portrays Maritain as a devoted Thomist, convinced that faith could never be divorced from reason and that reason without faith was shallow and devoid of meaning. His eclectic tastes and penetrating intellect led him to scrutinize many topics, and although McInerny concedes that he cannot discuss all of Maritain 's ideas, he shows their inherent unity and underlying current of devotion.
Taking as a starting point Maritain's Art and Scholasticism, Mclnerny investigates a number of Maritain's ideas. He explicates Maritain's paradoxical defense of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, as well as the philosophical ramifications of the dispute over the common good. In addition, Mclnemy discusses Maritain's deployment of Thomistic doctrines into surprising new applications and pays tribute to the man as the best Thomistic writer on art in this century.
"This collection of essays by Ralph McInerny reminds one not only of Maritain's extraordinary range of philosophical, poetic, and theological interests, but of what the intellectual life meant for that generation of Catholics." —Reflections
Ralph McInerny (d. 2010) was Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of numerous works in philosophy, literature, and journalism, including The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain and Characters in Search of Their Author, both published by the University of Notre Dame Press.