The Writings of Charles De Koninck

Charles De Koninck

Description

Volume 2 of The Writings of Charles De Koninck carries on the project begun by volume 1 of presenting the first English edition of the collected works of the Catholic Thomist philosopher Charles De Koninck (1906–1965). Ralph McInerny (1929–2010) was the project editor and prepared the excellent translations.

This volume begins with two works published in 1943: Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary, De Koninck's first study in Mariology, and The Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists (with The Principle of the New Order), which generated a strong critical reaction. Included in this volume are two reviews of The Primacy of the Common Good, by Yves R. Simon and I. Thomas Eschmann, O.P., and De Koninck's substantial response to Eschmann in his lengthy “In Defence of St. Thomas.” The volume concludes with a group of short essays: “The Dialectic of Limits as Critique of Reason,” “Notes on Marxism,” “This Is a Hard Saying,” “[Review of] Between Heaven and Earth,” and “Concept, Process, and Reality.”

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Philosophie de la religion
• Religious
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• Leslie Armour
• Nature (philosophy)
• Catholic University of Leuven
• General officer
• Metaphysics
• General

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780268077921
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Charles De Koninck, University of Laval, Quebec.
The Writings of
CHARLES D E KONINCK
VOLUME TWO
Edited and Translated by
Ralph McInerny
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2009 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-268-07792-1
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] Paperback edition published in 2016 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Koninck, Charles de, d. 1965. [Works. English. 2008] The writings of Charles De Koninck / edited and translated by Ralph McInerny; with a biography by Thomas De Koninck; and an introduction by Leslie Armour. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn -13: 978-0-268-02597-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn -10: 0-268-02597-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn -13: 978-0-268-02623-3 (pbk : alk. paper) — isbn -10: 0-268-02623-8 (pbk : alk. paper) 1. Koninck, Charles de, d. 1965. 2. Science—Philosophy. I. McInerny, Ralph M. II. Title. q 175.k664  2008 149’.91—dc22 2008010161 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. -->
Contents
Preface
Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary (1943)
The Primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists; The Principle of the New Order (1943)
On the Common Good
(Review of The Primacy of the Common Good, 1944)
Yves R. Simon
In Defense of Jacques Maritain
(Attack on The Primacy of the Common Good, 1945)
I. Thomas Eschmann, O.P.
In Defence of St. Thomas: A Reply to Father Eschmann’s Attack on The Primacy of the Common Good, 1945
The Dialectic of Limits as Critique of Reason (1945)
Notes on Marxism (1945)
This Is a Hard Saying (1945)
Review of Between Heaven and Earth (1946)
Concept, Process, and Reality (1946) Index -->
Preface
This second volume of the Writings of Charles De Koninck begins with two short works published in 1943, Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary, and The Primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists. The former is De Koninck’s first work in Mariology and is self-effacing in that it is made up in great part of citations from the Fathers and the saints on the role of Mary. And there is the pronounced influence of Marie Grignion de Montfort, then Blessed, since Saint, whose teaching on true devotion to the Blessed Virgin is often invoked. The serenity and edifying character of this work provides vivid stylistic contrast with The Primacy.
The lengthy preface to the latter work by Cardinal Villeneuve sets the tone for what follows. What follows is not a single work, but two essays, that on the primacy of the common good and another called “The Principle of the New Order.” They are of course related: the second might be said to put historical clothing on the argument of the first, somewhat as Kierkegaard’s Postscript pays off in historical coin on the argument of the Philosophical Fragments. The personalism criticized in the Primacy is shown to have been exemplified in the history of western thought, beginning with Renaissance Humanism and culminating—that is, reaching its nadir—in Marxism and Fascism.
The Primacy of the Common Good stirred up a surprising reaction, something manifest in the reviews of it by Yves Simon and Father Eschmann. While praising the book, Simon has a number of critical things to say. Among them is the danger that the Personalists attacked might be thought to include in their number Jacques Maritain. Any such assumption, he says, would be libelous. That is, Simon holds that the positive doctrine of De Koninck’s little treatise is not at odds with that of Maritain and that Maritain would share his criticisms of the “personalists.” Father Eschmann, on the other hand, rejects what De Koninck has to say of the primacy of the common good and takes the position he is attacking to be that of Jacques Maritain. His essay is called “In Defense of Jacques Maritain,” but it is characterized by the almost total absence of Maritain. Very far along in the essay, Father Eschmann finally turns to Maritain, but only to give the reader his own brief paraphrase of what he takes Martain’s personalism to be. Maritain is almost as absent from this defense as he is from De Koninck’s little book. 1
It seemed well to include in this volume both Simon’s and Eschmann’s reviews. Without Eschmann’s review before him, no reader of De Koninck’s response, In Defence of St. Thomas, could possibly understand the length and tone of the work. That there were personal undercurrents at work, that relations between Eschmann and Cardinal Villeneuve were thought to motivate the Dominican’s attempted put-down of De Koninck, is true enough. De Koninck certainly rose in defense of the man who had written the preface to his book and notes that Eschmann attributes to De Koninck himself (laudatory) things the cardinal had said of him in his preface. No more need be known in order to appreciate the two defenses, one allegedly of Maritain, the other of St. Thomas. What galvanized De Koninck was the suggestion that he had misrepresented the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Since he felt that it was Eschmann who misrepresented that thought, a long and detailed refutation was called for. Many of the lacunae Simon noted in the Primacy are filled in by the lengthy Defence.
Ralph McInerny, Notre Dame
The originals of the texts included in this volume are:

1. Ego Sapientia . . . La Sagesse qui est Marie, Laval-Fides, 1943, 176 pp.
2. De la primauté du bien commun contre les personnalistes; le principe de l’ordre nouveau. Quebec, 1943, xxiii–195 pp.
3. Yves Simon, “On the Common Good.” Review of 2 in The Review of Politics 6, no. 4 (1944): 530–33.
4. I. Thomas Eschmann, “In Defense of Jacques Maritain,” The Modern Schoolman 22, no. 4 (May 1945): 183–208.
5. “In Defence of Saint Thomas: A Reply to Father Eschmann’s Attack on the Primacy of the Common Good,” Laval théologique et philosophique 1, no. 2 (1945): 8–109.
6. “La dialectique des limites comme critique de la raison,” Laval théologique et philosophique 1, no. 1 (1945): 177–85
7. “Notes sur le marxisme,” Laval théologique et philosophique 1, no. 1 (1945): 192–99.
8. “Cette parole est dure,” Revue Dominicaine 51, no. 1 (1945): 65–73.
9. “Between Heaven and Earth,” Laval théologique et philosophique 2, no. 2 (1946): 131–33.
10. “Concept, Process, and Reality,” Laval théologique et philosophique 2, no. 2 (1946): 141–46.
NOTE


1. In The Person and the Common Good, Maritain alludes to Eschmann’s review and thanks him for it. He does not mention the review by Simon. One cannot conclude from this that Maritain accepts Eschmann’s identification of his position with that attacked in The Primacy. For all that, it is a mystifying footnote.
E GO S APIENTIA
The Wisdom That Is Mary
Charles De Koninck 1943
To my wife Zoé
and to my daughters
Godelieve and Marie-Charlotte
I confess my own ignorance and do not hide my own pusillanimity. And yet, nothing gives me greater joy, but also nothing frightens me so much, as to speak of the glory of the Virgin Mary.
—Saint Bernard, In Assumpt., sermo 4

The excellence of the glorious Virgin is such that every language is impotent to recount and praise it: Scripture is powerless, the prophets are powerless, and the parabolic images are also. That is why the Holy Spirit, speaking by the mouth of the Prophets, praises her not only with words but also by figures and parabolic images: because no parabolic image suffices perfectly to express her excellence, the similitudes and metaphors have been multiplied with a view to better celebrate her praise.
—St. Bonaventure, De Nativitate B.V.M, sermo 3
Preface
How may we truly apply to the Blessed Mary all that is said of Wisdom in the Sapiential Books? In answering this question we are attempting no innovation as will be evident from the constant use made of the Doctors of the Church. Rather, in composing this study, whose main purpose is to assemble a certain amount of pertinent quotations relating to the Mother of God as Wisdom, we have been prompted by the miseries of our times which indicate more than ever our need to keep our eyes steadily fixed upon one of the most outstanding manifestations of the Wisdom and Mercy of God.
Those texts which in their mystical sense the liturgy applies to the Mother of God will be utilized merely to illustrate conclusions deduced from the literal sense of other passages of Scripture. Such an illustration, nevertheless, supported as it is by the liturgy, has a truly illuminating quality. 1
How to express my acknowledgment to all my friends who, without always realizing it, collaborated in this collection? It was Jacques de Monleon who first helped me understand the role of mercy; it was an American Jew who told me of the writings of the Blessed de Montfort; I do not forget the part played by Father Maurice Dionne nor that of Father Alphonse-Marie Parent who undertook the thankless task of correcting my manuscript and the proofs; I think too of all those I cannot name. If this little work has any value, it is uniquely due to a merciful Providence which arranged the fortuitous encounters and confided this work to the most unworthy of the servants of His Mother.
PART ONE
Ego Sapientia
1. Ego Sapientia

Mary must shine forth
more than ever in these latter times,
in mercy, in strength, and in grace.
—St. Grignion de Montfort
The words which the Church places in the mouth of the Blessed Virgin are not, “I, the wise,” nor “I, the wisest of all creatures,” but “ I, wisdom—Ego Sapientia. ” 2 Of a very good person we may say that he is goodness itself, but this attribution is to be understood in a purely metaphorical or parabolical se