In Search of Harmony:
Metaphysics and Politics
Edited by James G. Hanink
Book Overview
Two of Jacques Maritain's enduring classics are Existence and the Existent and The Person and the Common Good. In the first he explores the key themes of his constructive Thomism while engaging broad currents of existentialist thought. In the second he proposes a personalist-communitarian vision that illuminates the common good. Maritain's paired concerns of metaphysics and politics, and their often-surprising connections, set the stage for this new volume. In Search of Harmony: Metaphysics and Politics is comprised of original essays by twenty scholars. Some contributors are well-established, while others bring fresh voices to the perennial philosophy. The authors trace the metaphysical commitments of political thought and highlight the political implications of metaphysical perspectives. Of special note are the essays that examine the roots of our political predicaments and how we might heal our cultural confusions. Still other essays examine the sources of conscience in the context of a secular liberal polity that seems unable to recognize them.
To be sure, the interplay of metaphysics and politics has a rich historical background. History tells us that there have always been implications for conscience. We need only think of Plato and Aristotle and Augustine for classical antecedents, of Hobbes and Locke and Kant for early modern antecedents, of Hegel and Marx in the nineteenth century, of Buber and Mounier and Arendt in the twentieth century. In their reflections the contributors to this volume explore many of these figures. Nonetheless, this work has its own distinct purpose and perspective. Drawing these essays together is the tradition of The American Maritain Association and its signature commitment to the work of Jacques and Raïssa Maritain and of other Thomists who clarify our "interesting times" and challenge the established disorder.
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Contents
James G. Hanink, “Introduction: In Search of Harmony”
Eleonore Stump, “The Personal God of Classical Theism”
Stephen L. Brock, “Aquinas the Conservationist”
Mark Moes, “Intimations in Plato's Republic of Some Doctrines of Maritain's The Person and the Common Good”
Hannah Woldum Ragusa, “Plato and Maritain on the Role of Art in Society: Obscuring or Revealing the Truth?”
John J. Conley, S.J., “Critical Engagement: Maritain's Encounter with Existentialism”
Denis A. Scrandis, “The Existential Metaphysics of Maritain's Existence and the Existent”
John Froula, “Maritain's Christological Metaphysics: Unity of Person, Primacy of Esse, Integrity of Essence”
Heather M. Erb, “Existents Seeking the Kingdom of God: Esse and the Mystical Ascent in Maritain and Aquinas”
Thomas L. Mammoser, “A Metaphor Gone Mad: Jacques Maritain and the Separation of Church and State”
Joshua Schulz, “Towards a More Perfect Liberalism”
Joshua D. Brumfield, “Pure Means for Yesterday and Tomorrow: The Catholic Worker's Embodiment of Maritain's Prophetic Shock-Minorities”
Robert Delaney, “Consumerism and Secular Statism: Two Political Forces Opposing the Person and the Common Good”
James M. Jacobs, “Intensive Subjectivity and the Paradoxical Need for Society”
Kathryn Rombs, “Thomistic Personalists in Dialogue with Atheists: Defending the Dignity of the Human Person”
Francisco E. Plaza, “Maritain's Philosophy of Culture: A Bridge between Metaphysics and Politics”
Rose Mary Hoyden Lemmons, “Unity and Diversity in Maritain's Stages of Civilization: Reconsiderations”
Gregory Kerr, “A Faustian Bargain: Jacques Maritain, C. S. Lewis, and the Loss of Reason”
Alice M. Ramos, “Shame, Honor, and Conscience”
Nikolaj Zunic, “Conscience and Responsibility: Maritain contra Arendt”
Mary Katerina Masek, R.S.M., “Enraptured with Being: Preconscious and Connatural Habits as Sources of Conscience”