THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH

Publishers:

The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C.

VoL. XXVIII

JULY, 1964

No.3

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

I. The Discovery of Man
A. The Dialectics of Man and Nature

T

1. The inseparability of man and nature

HE Marxist dialectic aims at the integration of all
things in nature into a unitary scheme of endless
movement, a process whereby the universe develops its
latent potentialities in virtue of an inherent dynamic character. 1
In his preoccupation with the dialectics of nature Marx has by
no means lost sight of his central concern, which is the nature

1 The thesis of the present paper is that Marx never discovered what man is or
why he is one being, although he claimed to have in his possession the first and
only key to the real understanding of man. Marx does not reveal the concern with
the problems of substance, matter and form, essence and existence, in terms of
which a Thomistic solution is proposed to the question of the unity of man. For
this reason it is necessary to make inferences, from what Marx actually teaches,
and to a certain extent to reconstruct a Marxist theory of man. I have tried to do
this in Marx's own terms, but after the attempt I am almost inclined to say that
for Marx the unity of man was simply not a problem. What Marx did say about
man is presented here and analyzed in the light of the doctrine of St. Thomas.

259

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JOHN PATRICK REID

and cause of man's alienation and the necessary course of social
revolution. Not only is man one with the rest of nature in that
he is wholly material and has evolved along with the rest of the
material universe, according to the laws of the dialectic; but,
and this aspect of Marxism is original and distinctive of
dialectical materialism, nature has no meaning in isolation from
man. For man, nature is nothing other than the environment in
which he lives and exercises his properly human faculties; above
all, human labor, the transformation of material forces through
man's ingenuity and efforts, gives meaning and significance to
nature, of which man himself constitutes the highest, most
perfect development. Marxism is a thoroughgoing naturalism,
a complete identification of man with his physical environment,
of human energies with the forces of nature. "The material,
sensuously perceptible world to which we belong is the only
reality," Engels states as a first principle of "pure materialism." 2 Marxist naturalism, the ontological equating of man
with the physical world, is also a materialism, but a dynamic
materialism. This is the first clue in our search for the meaning
and definition of man and of human unity.
Marx does not flatly deny the existence of spirit nor even in
some sense its superiority. But, just as he does not define
matter, so he does not define spirit, nor does he tell us clearly
what is the relation between them. Of the grossest form of
materialism there is hardly a trace in Marx, although Engels
does say that "spirit is only the higher product of matter,';
and, more fully: "If the question is raised: what then are
thought and consciousness, and whence do they come, it becomes apparent that they are products of the human brain, and
that man himself is a product of nature, which has been developed in and along with its environment; whence it is selfevident that the products of the human brain, being in the last
analysis also products of nature, do not contradict the rest of
2 Ludwig
F euerbach, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Selected Works
(MESW), II, 364. All references to the writings of Marx and Engels are taken
from the authorized English translation of their works published in Moscow by
the Foreign Languages Publishing House over the past ten years.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

fl61

nature, but are in correspondence with it." 3 This seems clear
enough, but Marx does not go so far. The one phrase usually
quoted to show his pervasive materialism-" The idea is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human
mind, and translated into forms of thought " 4-can be understood to mean no more than that all of our knowledge depends
ultimately on the data delivered by the senses.
The nearest l\farx gets to a statement of his view on the
nature of reality is in the opening sentence of the first of his
Theses on Feuerbach, and it is one of the most pregnant
sentences he ever wrote: " The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism-that of Feuerbach included-is that the object, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the
object of contemplation but not as human sensuous activity,
practice, not subjectively." 5 This declaration is worth a very
long examination, but that examination is bound to be fruitless
i£ one has not already grasped the fundamental teaching of
Hegel; without Hegel we should be truly puzzled as to what
Marx is trying to say. Marx's statement seems to contain two
key ideas:
1) "Reality should be conceived not only as object but also
as subject." This is an obvious echo of Hegel's phrase in the
Phenomenology of Spirit: "Everything depends on grasping
and expressing the ultimate truth not as substance only but
also as subject." 6 Marx's insistence that reality is not only
"object," i.e., a being that is acted upon, but also "subject,"
i. e., a being that acts, originates action, distinguishes his dialectical materialism from the mechanist forms o£ materialism.

2) "Reality should be conceived as human sensuous activity." This again follows Hegel very closely. Reality, for
Hegel, the Idea, begins as knowing nothing, not even itself,
Anti-Duhring, 31.
• Capital, I, xxx, in Marx's Preface to the first German Edition, translated.
• Theses on Feuerbach, in MESW, II, 402.
• The Phenomenology of the Spirit, trans!. by J. B. Baillie, in The Philosophy of
Hegel, ed. by Carl J. Friedrich, Modern Library, 1954, 417.
3

JOHN PATRICK REID

yet capable of knowing all things. In every stage of its progress
from knowing nothing to knowing itself, it is still called Idea
or Reason. He says in .his Introduction to the Philosophy of
History: "Spirit is only that which it attained by its own
efforts; it makes itself actually what it always was potentially." 7
In other words, reality to Hegel is the highest that it is capable
of becoming; but reality is capable of becoming sensuous human
activity; therefore reality should be conceived as sensuous
human activity. There are all sorts of other forms of reality less
than that, just as Hegel's reality has all sorts of forms less
than reason. But what a thing can become, that it is. So says
Hegel, so says Marx; St. Thomas does not say this, but this is
what he means, in man's case, as we hope to show. We shall see
later that Marx intends his statement to be understood in a
definite sense that is something less than what might be understood from the mere words. The important point is that Marx
approaches his study of the dialectics of nature only with a
view to discovering therein the nature and course of human
evolution in the world and in history. In our search for the
Marxist concept of man we shall be led to examine the character of the dialectical fulfillment of man and the intimate
interrelationship of man and nature.
2. Opposition between man and nature

Whatever may be said of later developments of Marxism,
even of Soviet Communism, Marx himself was certainly not a
positivist. He intended to go beyond the critical analysis of
the workings of capitalist economics, to discover in reality as
such, in the totality of nature, the objective bases of man's
absurd condition in the economic order. His dialectical philosophy is, ultimately, an attempt to account for economic
alienation in terms of the objective, necessary state of things.
He proposed, further, to explain all the alienations consequent
upon contradiction in economic life-social, political, ideologi7 The Philosophy of History, trans!. by Carl J. Friedrich and Paul W. Friedrich,
in Friedrich, op. cit.,

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

cal, and religious-in terms o£ the essential and consistent
structure o£ the dialectics o£ nature and history. The explanation constitutes the heart o£ Marx's constructive philosophy,
dialectical and historical materialism. Marx sees in the constituent elements o£ reality, or rather in their mutual interrelation, a solution o£ the alienations which plague man's
existence, a principle of unification which will restore to man
that part o£ his nature which he has surrendered to society and
lost. This is the basic problem in Marxist (as distinct £rom
Hegelian) dialectics and around it are clustered the chief
elements o£ his doctrine on the nature and unity o£ man. It
is a question which involves a number o£ difficulties o£ an
extremely abstract and technical nature, above all the precise
meaning o£ the unity and duality in nature and in man's
relation to nature.
In Marx's view there are a few basic relationships which
explain both the ultimate constituents in all things and their
gradual unfolding and development in the course o£ time. The
key to the understanding o£ reality is to view it always, not as
nature in itself apart £rom man, nor as man in himself isolated
£rom nature, but as a complex whole involving these two polar
aspects o£ being in dynamic interrelation. The totality o£ being
comprises the relation o£ man to nature and, in a special sense,
o£ man to man. These relationships may be described as both
opposition and unity, and Marx is not completely consistent in
his interpretation, favoring now one and now the other. His
over-all view requires that both aspects be retained, because
each expresses a genuine element in the objective structure of
being. Marx is at first inclined to insist almost exclusively on the
opposition between man and his natural environment, and thus
to conceive o£ human life as a constant struggle in which, by
his own productive efforts man tames the forces of nature and
overcomes this antagonism to or alienation from the world
around him. This interpretation stresses the dialectical character of reality, seeing in every phenomenon the seeds of
contradiction, o£ privation and tension which impel the universe

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JOHN PATRICK REID

on to its dynamic fulfillment. But Marx recognizes that there
is also another side to reality, that in which the parts and forces
of the universe are integrated and harmonized in an ontological
synthesis which also expresses the ontological nature of being. 8
Marx asks the same question as any serious philosopher:
what is being, what expresses the innermost heart of nature
and man? His most general answer is that reality is a tissue or
network of dynamic relationships, and not a complex of independent, unrelated substances. Phenomena must, therefore, be
studied in the light of their interactions. With everyday things
such relations may be of little practical consequence, but these
become of increasing importance when we turn to social phenomena, and we only waste our time if we consider them in
vacuo, as pure abstractions. Further, phenomena must be
studied in their movement and development. The craving for
something stable and eternal is deeply rooted in the human
mind, but reality is not in fact static but is in a state of continual change. Lastly, we must look for contradiction in the
processes of nature and society, since contradiction is the motive
force behind all development. The fundamental relationships
between phenomena are of immediate opposition, but this
opposition, while it is basic and universal, is not final or
absolute. Thus, the opposition· between man and naturethe fact that man stands over against and faces nature as
distinct from himself, as hard and recalcitrant to his efforts
to harness its resources or to understand its workings-can
be overcome by man himself. Human life consists, indeed,
though it is never fully achieved, in the successive bridging of
the opposition to nature, so that if this mediation were perfect
the opposition would be transcended and man and nature
would be fused in a synthesis which would be the consummation of the dialectics of history. Actually, complete mediation will. never be achieved: opposition and resolution will
8 On the ontological premises of the Marxist nature-man
opposition, see Collins,
James, God in Modern Philosophy (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959)
249-50.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

265

continue to co-exist, or rather to succeed each other, at different
levels in virtue of the inexhaustible fertility of the contradictions at the heart of reality. Having recognized the tension
between opposition and mediation as involving an endless
process, Marx sought to discover the precise manner in which
and the means by which the mediation of the opposition between man and nature is effected. 9

B. The Unity of Man -with Nature
1. Need as objectification

There would be no need or room for mediation between man
and nature if there were not a deep-rooted opposition between
the two. From what we have said thus far, it is evident that
Marx regarded this opposition as universal and fundamental,
and that he proposed to interpret human life as an undertaking
of the task of mediation in a dialectical fashion. But there are
passages in Marx's writings which seem to postulate an even
more intimate unity between man and nature, which imply
that man is basically one with the physical universe of which
he forms but a part, while opposition is only secondary and
derivative. 10 In these places Marx speaks as if opposition were
in some sense a sign of some accidental defect in man's nature,
or rather a falling-away from an originally harmonious condition. From this point of view mediation of any kind would
be nothing more than a return to primitive unity. We are faced
with this two-sided attitude of Marx towards the problem of
9 We shall be forced to retract
something of what we here attribute to Marx
by way of a formulation of the ultimate question about reality. On the doctrinal
inadequacies of Marxism as a total world system, see Calvez, S. J. Y.-M., La Pensee
de Karl Marx (Paris: Editions du seuil, 1956) 6f!5-628, where the anti-metaphysical
bias of Marxism is contrasted with Marx's inability to escape metaphysical constructions of his own. Father Felix Morlion, 0. P. once remarked to me that he had
found only two pages of metaphysics in all the works of Marx. The statement
may be an exaggeration, but see the statement of I. M. Bochenski, Contemporary
European Philosophy (University of California Press, 1956) 70-1.
10 Examples of such passages are to be found in Capital, I, 319-21; Economic tLnd
Philosophic
of 1844, 28-30; 61-62, and the entire essay on "Estranged
Labor," 67-83.

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JOHN PATRICK REID

man's relationship to nature, and we are unable completely to
resolve it because Marx himself preferred to maintain both
viewpoints or was at any rate unwilling to abandon one in favor
of the other. This apparent inconsistency still plagues those
students of Marx who expect to find his doctrine free in every
respect of dark and obscure areas and shining brilliantly in the
pure light of sheer reasonableness. There is no question of
trying to force Marx into a position more logical and thus more
tractable than the one he ultimately assumed. Due reservation
must be expressed of this flaw in Marxism, but for the present
it is possible and advisable to interpret Marx in what may be
called a favorable sense, allowing at least that he knew what he
was saying and said, in truth, the only thing he could say.
One of the most obvious and important ways in which man
is related to nature is through the experience of needs which
only nature can satisfy. Need fairly constitutes man's condition
as related to nature: the latter comprises all the wealth and
resources which man absolutely requires if he is to maintain
life and acquire his perfect stature. Man's truest definition, for
Marx, is that he is a "being in need"; man is part of nature
and yet he is somehow distinct from and facing nature. He
lacks everything except the capacity to be perfected by natural
forces, and this makes him different from everything else in the
world of nature. The recognition of this boundless destitution
is the very beginning of wisdom: need, as proper and essential
to man, turns him towards nature as something other than and
opposed to him (as possessing what he lacks), and yet as also
making possible the satisfaction of his every need.
This basic duality between man and nature is one of real,
immediate opposition, but it may also be conceived, in Hegelian
terminology, as a radical objectification: man as a subject, as a
being in need, faces himself as an object, i.e., nature, as the
objective source of his need-satisfaction. Thus man, himself
wholly a being of nature, from, of, in, and for the natural world
(the only world), exists or is impelled outside of himself as a
subject, and this emphasizes his distinctness from the rest of

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

267

nature. The duality and ambivalence in man is even more
profound and more far-reaching, since man is soul and body,
spirit and flesh: everything distinct from his own interior,
mental life is set over against and opposed to him, "objectified " and thus foreign to him. Man is indeed, and this realization cuts into the very heart of the whole problem of human
life and human alienation, a being essentially capable of objectification. It is not extravagant to say that man's true nature
exists outside of himself, so that human perfection is achieved
only by man's entering into fruitful, profitable relationship to
nature, thereby regaining for himself what is properly his. We
must add at once, however, that this intrinsic duality is not
one-sided: it is reciprocal in that nature itself must be brought
to its highest development through man's conscious efforts. In
the section following this one we shall present Marx's description of the processes of mediation by which the opposition
between man and nature is bridged. But first, a brief sketch of
the Marxist theory of knowledge will illustrate forcibly the
doctrine of man's dependence on the objective world of nature. 11
Engels states emphatically that" The great basic question of
all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relations of thinking and being." Throughout the
centuries philosophers have offered many solutions to this problem, but Engels contends that such a discussion has always
resolved itself into the question: which is primary, spirit or
nature? "The answer which the philosopher gave to this
question split them into the two great camps. Those who
asserted the primacy of spirit to nature, and, therefore, in the
last instance, assumed world creation in some form or other ...
comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded
11 On man as a being in need, see Marx's early work, "Critique
of Hegel's
Philosophy of Law," in Marx and Engels Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy,
ed. by Lewis S. Feuer (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1959) 262-6.
For a careful analysis of Marx's transformation of the Hegelian doctrine of
objectification, see essay, "The Dilemmas in Communist Ideology," by Cornelio
Fabro, C. P. S., in the collection The Philosophy of Communism (New York,
Fordham University Press, 1950) 206-11.

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JOHN PATRICK REID

nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.
These two expressions, idealism and materialism, primarily
signify nothing more than this." Marx's philosophy obviously
falls among what Engels calls the schools of materialism, and
yet he insists on a distinction between thought and matter:
"That thought and matter are 'real,' that they exist, is true.
But to call thought material is to take an erroneous step." And
again, "That the conception of matter must also include
'thoughts ' . . . is a confusion, for once such an inclusion is
made, the epistemological distinction between mind and matter,
materialism and idealism has no meaning." 12
But this does not mean that matter and mind are two
different kinds of reality; the distinction merely indicates which
is primary, matter or mind. The primacy of matter and the
objectivity of knowledge and of its faithful conformity to the
sensibly given are thus correlative. Yet the mind is not a merely passive recipient of impressions derived from external reality.
In his first thesis on Feuerbach Marx contends that the old materialist idea that sensation is nothing but the action of external
reality on the senses is to be rejected. He upholds the mind as
an essentially active power in the knowledge-process: "The
chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism .. · . is that the
object, reality, sensuousness that is, activity of the senses, is
conceived only in the form of object ... but not as human sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively." 13 Finally, although
thought itself is immediately a product of the brain, the material or object of thought is drawn from the external world. In
opposition to idealism, dialectical materialism emphasizes that
knowledge does not have a purely subjective source; in opposition to the old materialism it contends that the mind plays an
active role in the acquisition of knowledge.
Marxism opposes any theory which would have man arrive
at knowledge automatically through sensation or without
strenuous mental effort. From this point of view alone knowledge might be called the result of a dialectic or interaction
12

13

Ludwig Feuerbach, in MESW, II, 365-6.
Theses on Feuerbach, in MESW, II, 402.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

269

between mind and external reality. But it is not simply in
virtue of this interaction that we may regard Marx's theory of
knowledge as truly dialectical in his sense of the w'ord. For
purely speculative knowledge, the abstract and detached contemplation of reality, does not engage man vitally and fruitfully with the world of nature: it isolates him, in fact, and
leaves his deepest needs unsatisfied, his misery unrelieved, his
utmost potentialities unactualized. This point leads to the
doctrine of the ways and means by which the opposition between man and nature is mediated. 14
2. J.lfediation between man and nature
a. Labor and mediation

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of the
Marxist doctrine of the activist, dynamic character of knowledge for the over-all theory of the dialectical fulfillment of man
in nature. When Marxism speaks of the unity of thought and
action, the intention is to stress the necessity of thought's overflowing into action: man can never merely know an object,
because he does not really know it until he does something
about it. In the very act of knowing an interaction takes
place between man and nature, by which man is changed and
at the same time utilizes his knowledge to transform the world
around him. Marxism sees no possible value in any knowledge
which does not culminate in progressive action upon material
reality. Marx sums up his outlook thus. "The question
whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking
is not a question of theory but is a practical question. In
practice man must prove the truth, that is, the reality and
power, the 'this-sidedness' of his thinking. The dispute over
the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from
" Carew-Hunt points out that it was from Feuer bach that Marx derived the
seminal idea that all of man's activity has its root in his material needs; see
Carew-Hunt, R.N., Marxism: Past and Present (New York: Macmillan Co., 1955)
29; also his The Theory and Practice of Communism (New York: Macmillan Co.,
1951) 29-82.

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JOHN PATRICK REID

practice is a purely scholastic question." 15 The ultimate criterion of truth is practice which is to be regarded as the source,
the object, and the final acid test of the certainty and reliability
of all knowledge. This is not to identify Marxism with pragmatism, although both propose practice as the final standard of
truth. Pragmatism is often idealist and is very little concerned
about the source of knowledge, whereas Marxism insists that
knowledge is derived from a real, objective world. Finally,
Marx regards man's knowledge as relative, for the most part,
but admits that man has grasped truths absolutely and completely in some instances, although very rarely. The relative
character of knowledge means that it is always limited and
conditioned by a particular age, and not that what is true today
may be false tomorrow. 16
The Marxist doctrine of knowledge involves four consequences which are germane to the problem of the unity of man:
1) It denies the spirituality of soul or mind-the mind is only
a function of the brain, matter specially organized. 2) It
teaches that the mind can and does know objective reality,
conditioned by the dialectical character of nature and the
degree of development of scientific research. 3) It offers objective practice as the ultimate criterion of truth. 4) It holds
that all true knowledge is inseparably united to action. It is
with these last two points that we are particularly concerned as
indicative of the way in which the opposition between man and
nature is mediated. For Marx the most fundamental mediation
is labor, man's active transformation of nature to suit his own
desires and meet his own needs. By labor he means not merely
the actual expenditure of productive energy but the whole
complex of productive activities and relations within the social
framework of a given culture or civilization. Labor is as basic
as the opposition it overcomes, so that we may even define man
Theses on Feuerbach, in MESW, II, 403; this is a quotation from Thesis III.
Cornforth, Maurice, The Theory of Knowledge, New York, International
Publishers, 1955: a good, clear, rather simplified expository study (by a Marxist)
of the pragmatist character of Marx's philosophy; see especially the chapter, "Truth
and Freedom," 151 ff.
15

16

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

271

as a being capable of work, as homo faber. The unity of knowledge and practice does not mean that the two are always in
harmony; it implies that there is a necessary harmony between
them, and that when they are not in agreement the reason is
to be found in the practical field.17
Since the opposition between man and nature can never be
completely reconciled, labor has no limit, it constitutes man's
essential lot throughout time and history. It is labor, in fact,
which lends structure and coherence to human life, which would
otherwise be radically decomposed, and, if the opposition were
not at all effectively overcome, dissolved into chaos. Considered
apart from man, absolutely and in itself, nature is, as far as man
is concerned, non-existent and unintelligible. Man himself,
similarly isolated from nature, would cease to exist: he is, Marx
tells us, wholly a Naturwesen/ 8 both actively and passively.
Actively, insofar as he tends to realize himself through activity
on natural forces, and passively, insofar as he is receptive to
physical and psychological impressions from the world around
him. Hunger, for example, is a concrete, natural need. It
demands a nature outside of man, an object other than man to
satisfy it. Hunger is thus the objective need of man for what
is extrinsic to him, indispensable for his integration and for the
outward projection of his own nature. In this case it is evident
that man is not only active with regard to nature but is, even
more frequently, passive.
But Marx carries his analysis a step further. After having
shown us man as a creature of nature (Naturwesen), he considers the proper characteristic of man as human, a specific
type of natural being, menschliches N aturwesen. This is the
17 The most extensive and detailed account of the historical significance of labor
in overcoming the distinction of thought and nature is provided by Engels in his
Dialectics of Nature, I, 228-46, and by Marx-Engels in the German Ideology, in
Feuer, op. cit., 247-60. The Moscow edition of the latter work has been exhausted and it was not possible to consult another edition of comparable authority.
18 For the meaning of this word and the senses in which Marx uses it, see the
Translator's Note on Terminology in the Moscow edition of the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts, 12-8; in the work itself consult particularly 68-71, 80-4.

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JOHN PATRICK REID

very heart of :Marx's concept in its most constructive originality, a consideration which is decisive in our view of man the
subject. Neither nature-objectively nor subjective-nature is
immediately present in human nature in an adequate way.
Human nature is perfectly attuned to objective reality not
merely by personal, individual labor, but by labor that is both
social and historical. In a moment we shall analyze these twin
aspects of man's mediatory activity, but let us reflect briefly
on the scope and significance of Marx's central insight.
In his view of labor, social and historical, as the essential
means of overcoming the gulf which separates man from the
rest of nature, Marx has discovered the methodological nucleus
of all his subsequent philosophical construction. He remarks
that, after having recognized the nature of human labor in
"extrinsic projection" or alienation, Hegel went no further,
conceiving that the true nature of man is self-consciousness,
instead of seeing man's real essence in his dynamic and mutual
interrelationship of activity and passivity with the objects of
nature. Hegelian becoming or process, J\iarx observes, must
also have a subject which undergoes the process, but for Hegel
the subject can only be the result of the process. This subject
absolute Spirit, Idea, or God!
is absolute
This is pure mystification, in which real man and real nature
are reduced to mere predicates, transitory and ephemeral, no
more than symbols of that mysterious and hidden man and
nature which are ideal and not real! All real subjects become
predicates (of the unique subject-Absolute· Spirit) and all
their actual concreteness vanishes in an empty abstraction of
the totality of absolute Spirit. To Hegel, then, the core problem
of human labor remains unanswered: it is a mere alienation, an
objectification like any other, without any intrinsic requirement. For 1\farx, on the contrary, there is a deep significance in
labor for it is the means by which alienation is overcome and
transfigured and by which eventually a cond{tion of life will be
achieved in which there will no longer be exploited or exploiters.
But this is getting ahead of the subject.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

Marx has many fine passages in his works describing the
vital nature of human labor and tracing the changes which have
been brought about in the forms of labor by the course of
history. 19 The most primitive type of labor answered man's
most pressing and unrefined needs, and must have consisted in
nothing more complicated than picking the fruits of nature
just as they were, ready to be used. Even this simple activity
already bridges the gap between man and his environment.
This activity, of taking from nature what he requires or desires,
will continue as long as man's existence on earth, through every
possible evolution of forms of civilization and social life. At the
present time (under capitalism) labor has reached the highest
stage it has ever known, immeasurably more efficient and
elaborate than under primitive conditions, and the end to
progress is nowhere in sight. Man stands over against the
whole of nature; labor will forever be his most persistent need
or rather his most essential characteristic, because he will
never completely adapt the resources of nature to his needs,
which are universal. The animal provides only for its own
extremely limited needs, reproduces only itself, but man turns
his efforts to the whole of nature, freely and consciously concentrating his energy on the exploitation of every available
natural force. The animal acts only to satisfy the needs of its
own particular species, whereas man can, by his labor, respond
to needs of any species, and, further, applies to his work a
measure which is immanent to it-the measure of reasoning,
understanding, and deliberation.
Labor is not only man's most proper enterprise, but the
results or effects of labor-the things produced-already preexist in the mind and imagination of the worker. This means
that the worker not only transforms external matter but, in this
very transformation, he realizes his own conscious purposes and
expresses his dominance over matter. This aspect of labor is
19 Such passages are scattered through the Economic and Philosophic Manuscript3
and in Capital, I, 169-77, where Marx explains what he means by and includes
under the term "labor."

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JOHN PATRICK REID

preserved even when man uses tools and machines, for these
instruments are also fashioned from materials extracted from
nature by labor, to help man to meet his needs more easily and
more efficiently. In fact, machines are more completely "abstracted" from nature than the materials which man consumes
more or less immediately. They are more perfectly adapted to
human nature because they are more intimately related to
man's reasoning powers, his wholly abstract instruments of
production. Through the use of machines, therefore, thinking
and labor are closely connected. Man shapes and modifies
materials distinct from himself into extensions of his own labor
power-he impresses them with the stamp of his own nature.
Hence the extreme importance of the instruments and means
of production, of machines in general: they are the most
accurate and revealing indicatives of a given civilization (much
better for this purpose than, for example, potte:r;y, which is
"less human ") . In labor there is both an objectification of
man and a humanization of objective reality; this mediatory
activity is the very foundation of human existence and civilization. Mediation is continued in every area of human endeavor, in law and politics, scientific research and social reform,
even in art and recreation. In art, for instance, there is a
remarkably profound identity of man's concepts and the immanent laws of nature: in "imitating nature," art reveals to
man nature's own innermost struggle. 20

b. Society as most perfect mediation
The mediation through labor goes on in every age and under
every type of social organization. The most perfect form of
mediation is to be found in social life itself, which is the
normal framework within which all other attempts at mediation
are made. Through labor and his other activities man confronts
and humanizes all the forces of nature until finally there
remains nothing objective to and distinct from himself except
20 Labor as man's characteristic
Feuer, op. cit., 247-9.

trait is described in the German Ideology, in

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275

man himself recognized as such. At first, of course, man is aware
only of the external appearances, the outward and superficial
qualities of his fellow-man. Gradually he comes to realize that
"his complete self-actualization depends on his relationship to
other men, with whom he must enter into dialectical intercourse. It is not man alone, as individual, who exploits the
resources of nature, but all men together, cooperating with each
other and each contributing his share to the building up of
society. Therein all find their true selves, for they are wholly
reconciled to objective reality-to nature and to the others of
their race. This is the perfect mediation, but it must be worked
out and developed in the course of history. The important
point is that production, the fundamental fact of man's real
existence, constitutes the foundation not only of his individual,
but also of his social, life.
Social life is, therefore, as essential to man as production,
and not because of his individual needs. It is with a view to
production that men establish themselves in society. The first
step in this respect is taken in the relationship of man to woman,
but this is only a first step because in a sense it is only a
further aspect of man's attitude to nature. Family life represents the fulfillment of reciprocal need of the same general
order as man's other interrelations with nature. It forms a
basic and intermediate stage between a state of nature and a
more complex and artificial type of social life. In the more
developed forms of social life the recognition of man as such,
in his genuine humanity, comes to depend less and less on nature and more on the objective effects of production. But man's
intercourse with man will never divorce itself completely from
external media; there will always be the objectification of, for
example, language. Through labor, social labor and all this
implies, the opposition between man and nature and between
man and man is gradually overcome. 21
21 The origin of human society in cooperation
for purposes of production is
recounted in Engels' Dialectics of Nature, 116-36. See also Marx's Theses on
Feuerbach, Theses VI and VIII, in MESW, II, 403, 404.

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JOHN PATRICK REID

c. History as the totality of mediations
1) The dialectics of historical alienation

It is now possible to view the historical process as the working out of the dialectic between man and nature and, in society,
man and man, which results from the dynamism implicit in
the fundamental mediation of labor. History is nothing but the
totality of such mediation and the development of the forms of
mediation is the history of civilization. Since mediation continues indefinitely, the basic and most immediate relationships
are primitive in the sense that they logically condition the
others rather than that they are chronologically presupposed by
these others. We cannot, indeed, determine with minute precision the course of development of successive manifestations
of the relations of mediation, because we cannot grasp the
totality of history. What we understand is the intelligible
structure and meaning of the history of mediation, which is
expressed in the proposition that it is man who actively
undertakes his own reconciliation with nature and his fellow
man, according to the laws of the dialectic. It is at this point
that Marx lays the final groundwork of his system which leads
ultimately to the complete doctrine of historical materialism.
To a considerable extent Marx has already explained alienation, in the light of his own first principles. The radical duality
at the heart of nature and of history (man's distinctness from
the rest of nature and that of men from each other, respectively) accounts at least for the possibility of alienation. Marx
at times claims that he has explained even the fact and the
necessity of alienation. The most outstanding instance of this
is Marx's analysis of commodity and value, for this is the point
at which the basic and universal duality in being emerges on
the economic level. Briefly, this is what happens: working on
nature, man fashions a product capable of satisfying his own
qualitative needs. He also thereby objectifies himself in his
product and, with respect to all other men, becomes objective,
set over against them. In this way, because his product is

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

277

social, man can be recognized by others in what his labor has
brought about. Through the exchange of commodities a specific
type of society, namely, the economic, is born. The vehicle of
economic life is the commodity, a product apt for exchange. As
such it has a universal, social value and not only the specific
personal and psychological value it had for the individual who
produced it. Every such product has both 1) use value, which
as unique and specific, cannot be compared directly with any
other use value because it satisfies a particular need but cannot
satisfy other needs, and 2) exchange value, value simply, which
constitutes what is meant by a commodity, a certain quantity
of human sensuous reality which imparts its value to it and can
be expressed in terms of money. 22
The mediation of these two distinct types of value is itself
twofold: there is a mediation which consists in human labor,
man's productive activity, which is both specific (like use
value), in that the worker makes the product, and social (like
exchange value), because it is capable of substitution-it can
be sold at a price and can also be performed by others. Because
of this dialectical character of labor, it is possible to separate
use value from exchange value, and herein, at this precise point,
lies the possibility of economic alienation. The inherent duality
in commodities, their contradictory component characteristics
(private-social), make possible the development of this alienation and the appearance of recurrent crises of overproduction
and unemployment. The circulation or distribution of a commodity, a universal property of commodities as such, is common
to every stage and mode of production, from the most primitive
to the most advanced (Marx denies this in his later works) .23
Marx concludes, therefore, that the possibility of alienation is
inseparable from the very nature and being of economic life.
With these assumptions Marx comes very close to explaining
•• On the alienation of man in economic life through the placing of labor as a
commodity on the market, see Capital, I, 167-98 (chapters 6 and 7). The various
definitions of the types of value are in chapter 1, sections 1 to 8, I, 35-70.
•• For such a reversal of position, see Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme
(1875), in MESW, II,

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JOHN PATRICK REID

adequately the alienation which takes place under capitalism.
He does not go further here, although he seems to be aware that
he has accounted for the possibility and no more than that.
In order to demonstrate the necessity of alienation, he must
discover further elements in socio-economic life. He is eventually compelled to elaborate dialectical materialism in a monistic
fashion, in a way which we shall not be able to describe in this
paper. The possibility b'ecomes an historical reality when
human labor, which increases the value of commodities, is
placed on the market and dealt with like any other commodity.
Marx is here confused and hesitant in the face of an ambiguity
in this basic doctrine of dialectical materialism: he wants to
maintain both the opposition and the unity between man and
nature (the physical universe and other men), but he is forced
to contradict in one place what he says in another. He is
inclined to consider the primary constituents of being and
history as the relationship of opposition and the indefinite
means of mediating this opposition, through labor and the
social process of civilization. But on closer examination Marx
seems to insist that unity or identity is more basic than opposition-that man is fundamentally one with and a part of
nature-and that mediation is only the re-establishment of a
radical and primary identity. On this second hypothesis, it
becomes increasingly difficult to account for the inevitability of
alienation, except through an extreme oversimplification of
historical facts and analytical interpretation. It becomes much
easier, on the other hand, to promise, if not to achieve, an
eventual reconciliation of oppositions should they arise. 24
2) The historical intervention of labor

The historical intervention of labor, by which the opposition
between man and nature is overcome, involves an application
to man's condition, to what is most properly human, of the
•• The difficulties of maintaining both the identity of man with nature and a
radical opposition between the two (under capitalism) are recognized even as early
as the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in the essay entitled
"Estranged Labor," 67-83.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

279

dialectics of nature and completes the doctrine of dialectical
materialism. It also serves as the link between this phase of
Marxist philosophy and the historical materialism in which the
whole is terminated. At this point we may reflect on the
constituent elements in Marx's basic theory of man's opposition
to and mediation of nature. The three essential elements are,
we have seen, a) need and satisfaction, b) objectification, and
c) work-in the order of logical analysis. A review of the implications of each of these factors for the historical character of
man's relation to nature will provide a concise picture of the
dialectics of matter and suggest further lines of inquiry which
we may keep in mind for our critical evaluation of Marx's
concept of the nature of man.
a) Need and satisfaction. Man's needs reveal him to be
facing nature and opposed to it. Yet Marx insists even more
strongly that man is a being of nature, bound to it through
these same intimate ties of his sensible needs. Marx says that
man is passive, limited, and dependent, just as the plants and
the other animals. The objects of man's thinking exist outside
of him; in seeking to know them man manifests and confirms
his own energies. This is precisely what is meant by saying
that man is an objective, corporeal being with natural powers:
that he has, as the objects and media of exercising his vital
forces, real, sensible existents. Man is immersed in and inseparable from nature precisely because he is capable of and
compelled to objectification. This does not imply, however,
that man is simply to be identified with nature: the very fact
of need means, for Marx, that there is a certain opposition
between nature and man. Marxists always strive to maintain
some sort of discontinuity between man and the rest of nature. 25
But the same difficulty arises out of Feuerbach's anxious
merging of man with his environment: 26 if unity between man
•• Thus Cornforth, op. eit.,
in a chapter headed, somewhat misleadingly,
"Mind as Product and Reflection of Matter."
•• A difficulty to which Engels devotes considerable attention, Anti-Duhring,
Part I, ch. 8, 53-61; see Cornforth's comment, op. eit., SO f.

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JOHN PATRICK REID

and nature is basic, if his needs bind man to and turn him
towards nature, then how is alienation to be explained? How
does nature become hostile and opposed to man? In reply,
l\1:arx tries not so much to· discover the causes which bring about
alienation as to decribe what happens to need in alienated man.
He assumes private property as the ultimate reason for alienation, exploiting human need, victimizing man and depriving
him of the real, immediate satisfaction of his needs. Instead of
specific, qualitative need for some real object, it becomes a
woefully impersonal need, a desperate urge for bare subsistence,
mere survival, on the part of the proletarian; while for the
capitalist it degenerates into an abstract, unreal need for
money. Thus need can be prostituted because it becomes something wholly foreign to the victim's real nature when he falls
into the trap of private property. 27
b) Objectification. Marx's argument becomes not a little
ambiguous and confusing when he attempts to analyze more
precisely the subject-object relationships. The difficulty is to a
great extent inherited from the vagueness and complexness of
Hegel's own doctrine. On the one hand he emphasizes that man
is an objective being, that his proper mode of existence is in
contact with the real, natural world. Incidentally, Marx almost
never talks about "matter" or the material universe as such,
so that he escapes the appearance of materialist in the gross
and obvious sense. For him the whole discussion proceeds in the
context of "nature," the world of sensible objects, of familiar
experience. Marx would regard a being completely isolated
from and unrelated to nature-a "non-objective being "-as a
non-being, a monstrous absurdity. For this reason he is forced
to deny, as a complete contradiction, the existence of a purely
spiritual being, independent of material, sensible reality. But
on this very point it becomes difficult to account for the fact
27 In an important sense, once again, Marx has inherited the antinomies inherent
in Hegelian thought, which allows the co-existence of contradictions in reality.
For this element in Hegelianism, see Findlay, J. M., Hegd: A Re-Examination
(London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1958) 25-6, 63-6. On need as the driving
force behind the intervention of labor, see Engels' Origin of the Family, 5.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

281

of subjective alienation: if the mode of being proper to the
subject is to be in contact with and turned towards objectivity,
how can such a being isolate himself and construct. his own
illusory world? To find even a plausible answer to this question
Marx must make strenuous use of the dialectiq and bring in the
issue, itself unresolved, of the inherent contradictions in all of
reality. 28
c) Work. There are numerous passages in 1\'Iarx's works,
especially in Capital, which extol labor as man's noblest activity
and describe glowingly, and sometimes beautifully, the role of
labor in social life and in the building up of civilization. 29 In
the
the problem of labor as alienation (under
capitalism) is developed from the strictly formal point of view
and its speculative implications are worked out. Labor worthy
of man is "the practical production of a world of objects"; the
elaboration of the resources of nature for man's own use, thus
preserving man as a specifically conscious natural being. The
effect of man's labor, Marx adds, is the objectification of man's
own proper life, insofar as he thereby reproduces himself
actively in his products, and may thereafter contemplate himself in a world formed by him. Thus does he rise above the
animals that remain slaves of nature-homo faber! And yet,
throughout Marx's treatment of man as producer we behold the
spectacle of man as just another purely natural being. He is,
after all, the product of the inner dialectic of nature, of nature's
dialogue with itself. In general Marx does conceive of labor as
28 Marx's
interpretation of the materialist position is outlined in another of
Cornforth's works, Materialism and the Dialectical Method (New York: International Publishers, 2nd rev. ed., 1960) chapter 4: "From Mechanistic to
Dialectical Materialism," 39-46. It should be noted, incidentally, that most of
Cornforth's quotations here are from Engels.
29 Such passages are scattered
throughout Capital, in which Marx sometimes
interrupts dry, technical analyses of fiscal and industrial processes and lyricizes
over the humane aspects of labor; see, e. g., in Vol. I, Part II, Chapter VII, sect. 1,
177-185; Part IV, Chapter XIV, sect. 4, 350-358; and Part V, Chapter XVII, sect, 3,
526-7. The most forceful and closely argued statement is the essay on "Estranged
Labor "-Die Entfremdete Arbeit-in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts,
67-83.

JOHN PATRICK REID

a unique and distinctive undertaking, but at times, and not
infrequently, he creates the unmistakable impression that man
is, in his attitude towards nature, not significantly different
from any other animal. We
only conclude that there are
several knotty and obscure problems in Marx's dialectic of
man's historical intervention through labor in the world of
material reality. The original question receives no clear and
decisive answer: which is really Marx's primary emphasis,
man's opposition to and uniqueness in nature, or his unity with
nature? And if we cannot adequately solve this dilemma,
should we entertain any hope of answering our immediate
question as to the unity of man himself?

II. A Thomistic Appraisal of Marx's Concept of Man
A. Limits of a Thomistic Critique
1. Methodological limits
For the purposes of this appraisal we shall take as our
measure or standard of comparison the doctrine of the unity
of man set forth by St. Thomas Aquinas in various places in
his writings. 30 The Thomistic concept of the unity of man,
although based on physical and psychological analyses, is essentially a metaphysical one. It accounts for and explains man's
unity in terms of his very being, through an analysis of the
constituent elements or "parts" of his being in their ontological interrelationship. It is important to keep this in mind
in undertaking an appraisal of Marx's doctrine on this point.
To be perfectly consistent and fair, we should compare the
Marxist with the Thomistic positions at each and every stage
of the development of St. Thomas' thought. Marxism itself,
however, both in its approach or method of handling the
80 The
clearest exposition of St. Thomas' teaching on this point is in the
Disputed Questions, De Anima, art. 1, "Whether the (human) soul can be both
hoc aliquid lllld the form of the body," and art. 2, "Whether the human soul is
separated from the body according to esse." Parallel passages include S. T. I,
q. 75, a. 2, "Whether the human soul is something subsistent," and the whole
of q. 76, on the union of soul and body; also S.C. G. II, c. 70, on the same
question.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

problem and in the actual solution it proposes, precludes such
a point by point comparison. We discover that this is so, quite
to our dismay, only after we have searched the texts of Marx
and found them so utterly different in many ways from those
of St. Thomas. It is this discovery that makes us aware of the
limits, methodological as well as doctrinal, which impose themselves on an attempt to criticize Marxism on the basis of
Thomistic principles. A brief exposition of these limits is not
only a pre-requisite to an intelligible criticism but will in itself
throw considerable light on the criticism as we conceive it.
Marx writes as one who is consciously and deliberately, as
well as in fact, outside of the great and centuries' old Western
philosophical tradition. There is not time here to spell out all
the ways in which Marx departs from the general line of speculation more or less characteristic of this tradition; his most
glaring and far reaching divergence, and the one most significant
for us in view of the problem we are considering, is his complete
lack of interest in questions of metaphysics. In substantiating
this accusation great pains must be taken to state the case
exactly as it stands, noting the pertinent qualifications and
reservations. Armed with the Thomistic doctrine of being and
its application to the problem of the unity of man, we address
ourselves to the task of comparing the Thomistic concept of
human existence with that of Marxist metaphysics. The
Thomist is bewildered to find, in place of a metaphysics of
man-however deficient-no metaphysics at all, but instead
an astonishing essay involving the history and sociology of
economic relations. Where is Marx's theory of the human
composite, what does he hold with respect to substance, nature,
potency and act, esse? To these questions Descartes would
gladly furnish an answer, so would Hume, so too would Hegel.
From Marx comes only a strange, provocative silence, but a
silence from the depths of which the heart of Marxism plainly
cries out.
The Thomist begins to realize that he must make the best of
the situation; he must take Marx as he finds him. If Marx did

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JOHN PATRICK REID

· not put to himself the same questions asked by St. Thomas,
then no one should expect to find answers which could be
strictly compared with those proper to the questions raised by
St. Thomas. 31 That Marx should have asked these questions is
another thing again; we maintain that his failure in this regard
leaves his doctrine of man incomplete and inadequate. But this
line of criticism we shall introduce later, in its place: at present
we wish only to call attention to Marx's distinterest in the
metaphysics of man and to set this down as limiting our criticism from the outset. This absence of metaphysics does not,
however, preclude a Thomistic appraisal of Marxism: there is
in Marx a very definite and well-developed concept of man,
including, at least by implication, a view of man's unity.
2. Doctrinal limits

Marx is an excellent example of the philosopher caught in the
dilemma of wanting to do away entirely with metaphysical
preoccupations, on the one hand, and yet unwilling to surrender
himself to a downright positivism, on the other. Marx wants to
retain and bring to its highest peak of development a dialectics
of nature and of human history, to replace by transcending the
abstract, idealist dialectics of Hegel. To this end Marx begins
by subjecting the existing world, as he found it, to a thoroughgoing criticism, exposing its weaknesses and contradictions in
every area and tracing them to their root cause in the case of
human estrangemertt or alienation. 32 He follows this severe
critique (a" critique to end all critiques") with a philosophical
31 The fact of the matter
seems to call for an attitude which avoids both the
mistaken expectancy signalized here and the flat assertion that Marxism is essentially
a propagandist tour de force and no theoretical system at all. For the latter view,
see W. W. Rostow, "The Priority of Power," in The Dyna·rnics of Soviet Society
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1952) 7-11, and the essay
"Marxism: Philosophy or Ideology?" by Jeremiah Newman, in his A Time for
Truth (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, Ltd., 1955) 142-64.
32 Every one of Marx's major works bears the word critique or critical in its
title or sub-title. On the initially and fundamentally critical character of Marxism,
see Calvez, op. cit., 41-54, and the interesting historical reflections in Sidney Hook,
From Hegel to Marx (New York: The Humanities Press, 1958) 95, 130.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

construct which has come to be called dialectical and historical
materialism. It is within the framework of this sweeping vision
of the past, present, and future of the physical universe, of
which man is a part, that the Marxist concept of man and his
unity is evolved and takes shape. We have roughed out only
the broad features of this world view, and only for the purpose
of situating Marx's position on the problem of man within its
native doctrinal context. It is the boundaries to this same
framework that will set the doctrinal limits to a Thomistic
appraisal.
Marx has devoted himself to the study of social and economic
history, in place of metaphysics and the psychology of man. If
we are to judge ·Marxism on its own merits, we have no choice
but to take up the doctrinal synthesis as Marx left it and to
criticize precisely this from the standpoint of Thomism, which
we are convinced is that of truth. In doing this, we shall be
obliged to by-pass and largely ignore some of Marx's basic
presuppositions and most of the practical or "revolutionary"
corollaries which, in his own mind, surrounded his theory of
man. The focal interest at present does not extend to Marxism
in its full scope, even though the concept of man occupies a
central and commanding position in this philosophy. It is for
this reason that one is justified in leaving unchallenged even
some of the points made and conclusions reached in the exposition of Marxist doctrine in the first part of this paper. And
yet if the exposition of Marxism had been confined to just those
aspects of it in which the nature and being of man are specifically in question, it should have failed in our very aim of
revealing Marx's thought on these points and not touched what
was in this thought most vital and most original.
In our appraisal we shall have nothing to say concerning the
reality and forcefulness of the Marxist dialectics of nature or
the intricacies of economic relations. 33 One is almost desperate
33 The question of the authenticity
and significance of a dialectics of nature in
Marxism is extremely problematic, with equally competent students taking
opposite sides. See the discussion, with references, in Wetter, op. cit., 50-3,

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JOHN PATRICK REID

for good clues to the mystery of man's being as it is resolved in
Marxism, and this is why consideration must be given to more
than what is absolutely relevant to the question of the nature
and unity of man. The two key concepts in Marxist philosophy
are those of the dialectic and materialism; enough time has
been spent in defining these concepts and delineating their role
in the Marxist discovery of man to refer to them again in our
comparison of Marxism and Thomism. It should be abundantly
clear to any student of St. Thomas, from reading the first part
of this paper and even before any systematic reflection on the
subject, that Marx's doctrine of man is located squarely in the
center of his dialectics of nature and history and that the latter
serves as the font and support of the former, just as St. Thomas
grounds his doctrine of man on that of the metaphysics of
substance, nature, and esse. Within these limits, of method
and of content, the following points are offered by way of
criticism. 34 ·

B. The Disappearance of JJ1an
I. The dissolution of human nature

a. JJ1arx' s naturalism

Man is, for St. Thomas, a being of nature, at home in the
physical world and himself essentially material. The Thomist
will never retract this admission, whatever he may insist on
saying further to clarify and complete his concept of man.
Human nature includes, as one of its essential components, a
body, matter organized to live at the vegetative and sensitive
as well as the higher, purely immaterial levels. This nature is
one, although it is not simple, because the soul is per se and
immediately united to the body as substantial form to matter.
Man is what he is in virtue of this union of spirit in matter;
The classical locus of the Marxist dialectic in nature is not in any of Marx's works,
but in a work by Engels entitled Dialectics of Nature.
•• For an historical introduction to St. Thomas' teaching on this problem, see
A. C. Pegis, St. Thomas and the Problem of the Soul in the Thirteenth Century
(Toronto: Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1934) esp. pp. 77-120.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

his nature is unique in this respect, but in its own order it is
complete and self-sustaining. St. Thomas looks within man
himself to discover the principles of human nature and he finds
these principles constituting a single composite in which the
matter serve_s the form and form actuates matter for its own
(form's) perfection. The Thomistic insight into substance, plus
the recognition of the substantial character of the rational soul,
enable us to discover the unity of human nature within man
himself and to explain it in intelligible terms. Man is a natural
being but his nature has within itself an element which, because
of its spirituality, transcends the material order and distinguishes him profoundly from every other species in nature.
Marxism, on the other hand, looks to forces and influences
extrinsic to man to give an intelligible account of what man is
and why he is that way. In one sense Marx does claim to set
man apart, as something unique and different among natural
things (p. 266 above). But even here there is no reference at
all to the nature of man as man, and no admission that man
and the universe as a whole depend in their very being on a
God Whose perfections are reflected in and shared by the natures of finite, created things. Marx soon plunges into the most
radical and unrelieved naturalism, because he has not discerned
within man, in the spiritual character of human nature, what is
distinctively human. There should be no mistake or delusion
about Marx's use of terms such as" soul and body," and" spirit
and flesh:" he cannot avoid them, without extremely awkward
circumlocution; but they are to be read always in the context
of his expressed and pervasive materialism. One is reminded
in this, as in so many other instances, of Freud's difficulties,
arising out of his attempt to describe immaterial realities and
their interrelations out of a stifling conviction of materialism.
Their very helplessness with the choice of language betrays the
hopelessness of their position.
Marx's naturalism aims at a thorough rationalization of his
basic and original presupposition, which is that man is nothing
but a Naturwesen. To this end Marx submerges man first in

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JOHN PATRICK REID

the totality of physical forces, then tries to disengage him in
such a way and to such an exterit that he will be able to explain
both alienation and the mediation by which it can and must
be overcome. This is a type of environmentalism, more profound and more serious than that of psychological behaviorism,
and indeed there is, beneath the gross error and degradation of
man, a valid insight. Man is, in truth, a being-in-need: Marx
has hit on the very essence of man's real ontological condition,
but unfortunately Marx himself does not realize or understand
the true significance of this discovery. Not only as a creat.ure,
utterly contingent in the depths of his being (as we shall recall
in the next section of this paper), but more specifically in his
nature, man's indigence is, for St. Thomas, one of his most
striking hallmarks. Man is situated, in the heirarchy of being,
at the lowest level of intellectual creatures, so imperfect and
needy in the order of knowledge, that his intellect, his spirit,
requires to be united with matter for its (the intellect's) own
good. Man's most natural and most pressing need is this, the
need to acquire, by arduous and continuous effort, the intellectual perfection proper to his nature. In this St. Thomas sees
the most precise revelation of man's nature: both its glory and
its poverty, but it is this that makes man what he is, a spiritin-need-of -matter.
Marx thinks that he can discover man through an analysis
of his needs, which direct him out of himself (where, according
to :Marx, previous to his communion with nature through
"objectification," he really is nothing at all, a purely "subjective" phantom, in the Hegelian idealist sense) and bring
about his self-fulfillment through social, historically conditioned
labor. A Thomist can be quite sympathetic with this view of
man, even while he insists on correcting it where it is in error
and filling up what is wanting to it where it is only partial
and incomplete. It is a question of 1) what is meant by "objectification," and 2) what this actually reveals of the nature
of man.
As to the first, we are obliged to point out to the Marxist

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

289

that man's natural activities, the operations through which he
gradually achieves a measure of human stature and perfection
(man never stops growing up, in this sense), spring from and
manifest inner principles which constitute an original, natural
endowment. Man is able to and does in fact act as he does
because he is what he is; further, his manner of acting, the
operations which are peculiarly his, these differ fundamentally
from the type of activity found in all other natural agents
because man has an essentially different nature than theirs.
Why Marx did or could not see this, one cannot pretend to
know with certitude, but it is a safe conjecture that he was
prevented by the radical materialism and naturalism which
colored all of his thought. For St. Thomas, what is called
"objectification" (a term which never lost for Marx, in spite
of his vigorous protests to the contrary, its Hegelian connotation) is man's way of expressing his nature and of bringing to
actualization the specifically human potentiaiities with which,
in virtue of his rational soul, he is natively endowed. This is in
sharp contrast to the Marxist concept of objectification, which
regards it as the link between man and the forces of brute
matter and as serving only to rescue man from annihilation in
face of these same hostile forces. Where in the Marxist view is
the special dignity and perfection of man? This brings us to
our second question, .what does objectification reveal of man?
Among all of man's many and varied activities-and he is
far and away the most versatile of this world's inhabitants-it
is that of intellection and all that it involves (we are here
considering man's intellectual "life" as made up of a number
of distinct operations, not forgetting that these are " activities "
in a sense only analogous to his other actions, physical and
vital) that sets man apart from every other creature of our
experience. Man lives most properly the life of reason and it
is in order to enrich and develop this life that he does whatever
else he does, when he is acting in conformity with his nature.
For the Thomist, therefore, every type and instance of objectification, to retain the Marxist term, is some sort of revelation of

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JOHN PATRICK REID

man's spiritual, intellectual nature. On all of his works, personal and social, man leaves the unmistakable stamp of reason:
insofar as his activities bear this impress they reveal man's true
and proper nature. His operations may be and are multiple and
diversified, but they give evidence of the unity of his nature by
the unity of their ultimate source and end, the rational power
from which they receive their impetus as human and to which
they contribute, each in its own way.
Marx's naturalism is the first cause of the dissolution of
human nature, the first step in a series which terminates in
the disappearance of man, whom Marx thought he had been
the first in history to understand as he really is. Marxism
allows no nature to man, actually, because it denies to him
intrinsic and essential substantial co-principles and fails to
recognize the spirituality of man and the intellectual character
of his proper human activity. Marx is a kind of Freud-inreverse, in the sense that, instead of searching with Freud the
depths of unconsciousness within man, far below the level of
reason and the light with which it shines in man's soul, Marx
goes outside of man and wanders about among the forces of
nature, seeking for an answer to the question, what is man, in
the dynamics of man's relations with nature and with other
men in society. There is no stable and distinctive point of
unity for man's nature because, in the last analysis, there is no
human nature as such.

b. Marx's evolutionism
No philosopher was, in the nineteenth century, more acutely
conscious of the universality and impact of change in the
world of man and of nature than Karl Marx. It would be
interesting, perhaps, to analyze the causes of this strong sense
of flux in Marx; for the present we can suggest three influences
to which it may probably be traced: 1) Hegelianism, which is a
thoroughgoing philosophy of development pervaded with a
powerful historical spirit; 2) Darwinism, including the general
nineteenth century scientific trend to explain all phenomena by
the genetic method-Marx himself more than once acknowl-

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

291

edged his indebtedness to and admiration for the author of the
Origin of Species; and 3) Marx's own original studies in and
enthusiasm for the pre-Socratics, especially those who stressed
the dynamic, ongoing character of reality. By combining elements from these three sources Marx formulated his own
philosophy of dialectical materialism. What of the implications
for his concept of the unity of human nature?
The remark with which we concluded the immediately preceding section may be repeated at this point, with the additional note that the nature of man disappears in the inexorable
onrush of ever-changing physical reality. We are aware, of
course, that evolutionism is no more exclusively a :Marxist
attitude towards man than is naturalism or what may be called
externalism. To plunge man into the moving stream of socioeconomic relations is merely Marx's way of embracing an outlook
which became increasingly more widespread as his century wore
on. The result for man, i.e., the philosophical concept of man,
is always pretty much the same: man has no nature, he has
only a history; the present, or what man seems " to be," becomes intelligible only in terms of the past and the future. In
other words, the being of man is dissolved in his becoming; we
might say that Marx sees in "nature," in the nature of any
thing, including man, a principle of motion but not of rest!
There is in Marx's espousal of the dialectic a significance
whose gravity and import, for our problem in particular, cannot
be overemphasized. St. Thomas can and does wholeheartedly
agree that change, motion of every kind, is the special and
most proper characteristic of the type of being found in this
material universe; nature is for him the inner ground of each
thing's peculiar species of change and resistance to change. For
this reason it is possible to construct, with the principles of
Thomism, a true philosophy of nature, taking into account the
very mutability of the world around us and of ourselves insofar
as we belong to it. But for St. Thomas, whose deepest insight is
a metaphysical one, even this sensible, changing universe is not
ultimately intelligible except in terms of the stability and

JOHN PATRICK REID

consistency of being and the reasons and causes thereof. In
other words, the Thomist rejects evolutionism as an adequate
and final explanation of the reality that is human nature
because the evolutionist concept of man loses this nature and
abandons it to the never-ending swirl of change and motion.
At the center of Marx's evolutionism, conditioning and calling
for it, is his naturalistic materialism: the glorifying of matter
and of man's intimacy with matter issues inevitably in a
championing of the characteristics of the purely material as
such, which are potency and all the imperfections this entails.
Marx goes so far as to say on several occasions that man has
not as yet (i.e., before the advent of socialism or what we
would call integral communism) realized his own true nature. 35
He looks to the future, to the necessary and determined course
of historical progress, for the ushering in of the age of humanity.
Man is not, as yet, but will be. Again, the idea of man's constructing his own personality, in the modern psychological sense
of the word, is not at all foreign to the thought of St. Thomas.
He has undertaken both to locate the possibility of such a
dynamic self-education and to illustrate its realization in several
areas of human activity. As to the first, the possibility, St.
Thomas regards man as given by nature an intellect that is
purely potential or " possible," as he calls it: if to be human
means above all to be rational, then clearly man achieves his
humanity-in whatever measure is assigned to him, as an
individual-only through a lifetime of actualizing and perfecting the intellectual power (potentia), both in itself and in the
control and direction it exercises over the entire range of powers
which are subject to its dominion. As to the illustrations St.
Thomas provides of the working out of this process, we may
cite two that come readily to mind: first, the long and laborious
enterprise of scientific inquiry in which man must engage in
35 See in particular his essay "The ]\leaning of Human Requirements
where there
is Private Property and Under Socialism," in the Paris Manuscripts, 115-35. The
radically evolutionist and energeticist character of Marx's materialism with respect
to human nature is discussed in E. I. Watkin, Men and Tendencies (London:
Sheed & Ward, 1937) 266-8.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

293

order to achieve some degree of perfection in the intellectual
order, the order of understanding, and secondly, the moral
ascesis, which continues throughout the entire life span of man,
by which alone he can bring into full maturity the capacity for
good with which his free will is endowed. 36 In both cases we see
that the concept of man is a dynamic one, an insight into the
progressively developing character of human nature and its
originally potential and unactualized condition. Man, more
than any other creature, hears the divine injunction: become
what you are.
But Thomism is not an evolutionism, whereas Marxism is,
and while Marx refuses to assign to man a fixed and abiding
nature, St. Thomas refuses to admit the possibility or intelligibility of a human development that did not presuppose and
continually refer to a nature already essentially constituted.
The difference between these two positions, similar to each
other in a superficial fashion, consists in the fact that St.
Thomas roots his philosophy of man's successive self-realization
in the ontological structure of his essence-complex, hylemorphic, a harmonious tension of spirit in matter, whereas
Marx simply is blind to this demand. The key here, once again,
is in Marx's failure to understand the substantial and intellectual dimensions of human nature, due in part to his preoccupation with external relations, with the satisfaction of material
needs and the historical engagement of all that pertains to
.human life and the human situation.
The core and center of human nature, the point of unity at
the level of nature, is for St. Thomas the immediate and
absolutely essential actualization of man's body or matter by
his spiritual, intellectual soul. The fruit of this union is one
•• On the intellectual enterprise peculiar to man, and its dependence on the
psychosomatic unity of human nature, see the magnificent tracts in De Veritate,
on the office of the teacher, q. 11, and on superior and inferior reason, q. 15, as
well as S. T. I-II, q. 57, aa. 1 and 2, on the perfection of the intellect through the
acquisition and exercise of habits. The will likewise must be guided to and fixed
firmly on the good proper to man through persevering and life-long self-discipline:
see S. T. I-II, 61, 5, on the stages of man's spiritual life in terms of the growth of
virtue.

294

JOHN PATRICK REID

substance, undivided in itself and divided from all others.
Marx does not see man at all in these terms, which are explicative of the oneness of human nature; he reduces the distinctively rational perfection of man to a level of practical
problem-solving, the function of providing for man's needs; he
seizes on the potential and therefore developmental aspects of
the human condition and ignores their grounding in and ordering to what is unchanging, namely, the nature of man, essentially the same in every age and under all kinds of circumstances. Under the relentless pressure of the Marxist dialectic,
naturalistic and evolutionist, human nature has been dissolved,
and with it, of course, the unity of man in his nature. But the
end is not yet.
2. The fragmentation of man's being

a. The Marxist theory of knowledge

We might justifiably be accused of treating Marx much too
generously when we say that he asked the question, what is
being? Marx himself would not thank us for the intended
compliment: his repudiation of metaphysics and of all interest
in problems of metaphysics was clear and vociferous enough.
Still, it seems likely that we can and should bring our appraisal
of the Marxist doctrine of man along and up to the realm of
metaphysical consideration, and this for two reasons: In the
first place, the failure of a philosopher or of one who proposes
a total world-view to reach the level of metaphysical insight is
in itself a fact of metaphysical significance and can only be
judged from the vantage point of such insight. Secondly, Marx
was, most probably involved in metaphysical questions in spite
of himself and whether he realized it or not. If these two
reasons, general and specific, are valid, then we may confidently
pursue the critique of Marxism into the area of the unity of
man's being, with the aim of judging the adequacy and reasonableness of Marx's doctrine on this point.
There is evidence that Marx deserves the charge which
Gilson raises against the pre-Socratics, namely, that they

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

295

refused to ask questions about reality beyond the level of
matter. 37 We have already indicated that the kingdom of the
spirit was closed to Marx, who denied its very existence. Of
God, infinite and all-perfect creator, the angels, the dependence
of creatures in being on their author, the intimate operations of
intellect and free will, there is no sign of understanding or
appreciation in Marx. This blindness was a fatal and far-reaching handicap and accounts to a great extent for Marx's stopping
short of an insight into the pure act of esse: recall St. Thomas'
dictum that the metaphysical intuition occurs at the precise
point where the judgment of separation recognizes that being
as such is not necessarily either in matter or free from matter
but can be in both ways. 38 In the light of Marx's premetaphysical primitivism we may begin to grasp the raison d' etre
of his theory of knowledge; we may then go on and see in the
deficiencies of this theory the key to his failure to account for
the unity of man's being. Our intention may be clarified,
perhaps, by re-statement: first we shall comment briefly on the
principal features of Marx's theory of knowledge, and then we
shall attempt to reflect on the implications of this theory for
the concept of man's existential unity.
By way of protecting our analysis from accusations of attributing to Marx elements of a theory which he did not in fact
elaborate, we frankly admit that the develppment of a theory
37 Gilson, Etienne, Elements
of Christian Philosophy (Garden City: Doubleday
& Company, Inc., 1960) 93. The Marxist predilection for the pre-Socratic philosophers is notorious; referring to the theory of dialectical materialism, Engels writes:
" This primitive, naive, yet intrinsically correct conception of the world was that
of ancient Greek philosophy and was first clearly formulated by Heraclitus, etc.,"
Anti-Duhring, 33. See Herman Reith, C. S.C., "The Marxists Interpret the
Pre-Socratics," The New Scholasticism, XXVII, No. 4, (Oct. 1953) 404-31.
38 The key text is In XII Libras Jietaphy.'ficorum, Proemium, where St. Thomas
designates the degree of immateriality proper to metaphysical knowledge: "Intelligibile enim et intellectum oportet proportionata esse, et unius generis, cum
intellectus et intelligibile in actu sint unum. Ea vero sunt maxime a materia
separata, quae non tantum a signata materia abstrahunt, 'sicut formae naturales in
universali acceptae, de quibus tractat scientia naturalis,' sed omnino a materia
sensibili. Et non solum secundum rationem, sicut mathematica, sed etiam secundum
esse, sicut Deus et intelligentiae. Unde scientia, quae de istis rebus considerat,
maxime videtur esse intellectualis, et aliarum princeps sive domina."

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JOHN PATRICK REID

of knowledge on Marxist premises and the drawing out of its
epistemological implications were left to Engels and Lenin. 39
The outstanding defect in this theory is its confusion of realism
with what the Marxist insists on calling materialism. The error
has been pointed out many times by critics of Marxism, but
there are no signs that the correction has made the slightest
impression or will have the least possible effect on the writing
of Marxist treatises. The confusion involves the equating of
a noetic realism with a materialist reductionism: Marxists
proudly call themselves materialists when what they mean
(and in this they might well take pride) is that they uphold
the objectivity and realistic reference of the knowledge process.
Having duly noted this strange substitution of terms-the
reasons for which we have not time here to determine-we may
pass on to compare :Marxist realism with its Thomistic counterpart, to see what is what with the two.
The clue to the Marxist espousal of noetic realism is to be
found in the concern of Marx to transform knowledge into
practice: it is a realism motivated by and subservient to a
pragmatism. For JVIarx, as we have seen, knowledge must be
of reality because he proposes to revolutionize man's condition
by turning knowledge itself into a living criticism of reality.
This is pragmatism, but with a difference: in the classical sense,
pragmatism substitutes practice for truth-the sole concern
is with achieving satisfactory results and the very possibility
of obtaining a detached, speculative insight into the real is
ignored where it is not denied. Pragmatism thus leads readily
to scepticism and, in the moral order, to a cynicism which is
very difficult to hold in check. Of this type of pragmatism the
:Marxist declares himself not guilty: truth. was always a
sionate concern of Marx's, but it was his conviction precisely
39 Compare
for example, the meagre and oblique references to this question in
Marx's early work, the Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts, with Engels' long and
carefully constructed Anti-Duhring (1885) and with Lenin's philosophical masterwork, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1909)-two works which the eminent
Soviet theoretician, V. V. Adoratsky, regards as "the supreme philosophical achievement of Marxism." See 'Vetter, op. cit., 116.

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

fl97

that truth consists and is verified in practice. The reasoning
behind this is not hard to reproduce. The very life and existence
of man depend on and are maintained in objectification, which
is labor socially and historically determined; knowledge, therefore, becomes humanly valid and valuable only when and in the
measure that it contributes to this mediatory activity whereby
man enters into fruitful communion with nature and his fellow
man. The idealist view of knowledge, locking man within the
confines of his own mental constructs, rendered impossible such
a program of rational transformation of the real. Such at least
was Marx's conviction and on this score he bases his rejection
of Hegelianism.
In the Marxist theory of what knowledge is there are three
essential points of opposition to the doctrine of St. Thomas:
the primacy
1) the spiritual nature of intellection is denied,
of contemplative knowledge is cast aside, and 3) the metaphysical import of intellectual knowledge is missed entirely.
Tl).e last point relates to the implications of the Marxist theory
of knowledge for the unity of man, and will be taken up in the
section following this one. As to the first two points, they
may be summed up by saying that Marxism is sensualist and
pragmatist, whereas Thomism is spiritualist, without denying
the material component in human knowing, ahd theoretical,
without ignoring man's need to complement intellection with
practical activity. These terms are fairly self-explanatory, but
they designate only the bare essential characteristics of knowledge admitted in the two opposing philosophies. What is of
much greater importance is for us to determine the respective
concepts of man which underlie these antagonistic views, relating the sensualism and pragmatism of Marx to this ontological concept and deducing from this relationship the Marxist
view of the unity of man's being.

b. Consequences for the unity of man
The problem of the unity of man is not fully determined by
St. Thomas until he has worked through to the metaphysical
bedrock of this unity. This ontological analysis is made possible

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JOHN PATRICK REID

by and is carried out in terms of the Thomistic doctrine of esse,
as applied to the structure of man's being. The being of man
is absolutely one by reason of its single act of existing, an esse
which belongs properly and per se to man's spiritual soul and
which is communicated to his body so that it is, in fine, the one
and only esse of the unified substance which is man. This
insight is the fruit of St. Thomas' masterful, and ingeniously
original, inquiry into the exigencies of a spiritual substance,
which the human soul is. The starting-point of this investigation in the case of man is his intellectual activity, an operation
which reveals the spiritual and therefore subsistent character
of the rational soul which is its proper subject (this is not to
deny that concretely it is man, and not the soul, that knows).
The unity of human nature, also established through the
analysis of the requirements of an intellectual substance that is
also the substantial form of a body, is confirmed and merged in
the unity of the human being as an existential reality.
When we turn to the implications of Marxism for the unity
of man's being, to which we have alluded, we are once again
disappointed at the poverty of metaphysical understanding and.
judgment. Marx is completely absorbed in man's interrelationship with physical nature, and this preoccupation prevents his
recognizing the true and spiritual nature of human intellection,
which alone could lead him to see the principle of the unity of
man in his being. At the center of Marx's attention in his
reasoning on human nature is the activity of labor, and it is in
his analysis of labor that Marx commits himself to a view of
man which can never get to those causes which explain why
man is one in being as well as in nature. The basic fault, as we
have indicated, is Marx's failure to search within man himself
for the intrinsic principles of action, and to see clearly what
activity that is properly human actually involves. We know
what intellection is, for St. Thomas, and how he is able, through
his examination of the roots of intellection, to establish the
unity of man. In place of intellection-primarily
speculative
and essentially spiritual-Marx proposes labor, practical and

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

fl99

material in object and in purpose, as man's most distinctive and
valuable kind of activity.
For l\iarx man's conscious purpose, .the reason for and
guarantee of his existence, is his domination over matter. This
goal is to be more and more effectively realized, through the
progressive improvement of techniques of production, or what
would today be called technology; in fact the social order itself
is brought into being and organized for the sole end of rendering more efficient and more productive the forces of labor
present in mankind. Thus in the Marxist concept of labor
the relationship of knowledge to external, physical activity is
radically reversed: for St. Thomas, intellection, the grasping by
the intellect of the perfection of the being of things, is an end in
itself, and constitutes man's highest activity; all other actions,
which as a whole comprise the " active life," are ordered to the
supreme activity of intellectual possession and contemplation
of truth. Thus the body is for and serves the needs of the soul;
soul and body are united only in order to allow the human
intellect to carry out its proper operations. Marx sees the case
quite differently: knowledge has an ultimately practical purpose; man's cognitive powers have been evolved (in a Darwinian sense) with a view to his more complete and dynamic
mastery .over nature. Man's material needs, which constitute
the basis of his communion with nature, of which he is but a
part, hold the primacy, so that man is no more than a fortunate
animal. The intellectual power of man, whose true nature Marx
has not perceived, is debased to the level of a mere instrument
of physical, material satisfaction.
There is in Marxism no point of greater import for the
concept of what man's nature and destiny are than the doctrine
of labor and its presuppositions in the dialectics of nature.
But Marx never gets beyond the consideration of what is, in
fact, the external manifestation and expression of man's inner
nature and being. It might have been possible to arrive at an
understanding of the being of man by tracing human labor to
its intellectual source, but Marx turns away from reflection of

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JOHN PATRICK REID

the interior of man and concentrates exclusively on the
dialectic of man, the producer, with his natural environment.
In place of an inquiry into esse 1\1arx offers the usual modern
surrogate, which is the alleged concentration on man in his
"existential" conditions, which means in the details of his
historically conditioned social and economic life. If we put the
question of what man is and in what does his unity ultimately
consist, directly and forthrightly to Marxism, we have no hope
whatever of receiving a firm reply in terms of the nature of
man and the act of existence which it determines and limits.
Frank Sheed said that Marx never really looked at man.
When we reflect on the elements of the Marxist concept of
man as we have described it, we find, not an incarnate spirit,
an intellectual creature with an immortal soul, but a body
making use of the cognitive faculties with which a favorable
evolutionary process has endowed it. The only unity which has
any meaning for Marx is man's oneness with nature, a unity of
never-ending mediation of the opposition which prevents a total
identification of this highest of nature's products with the
physical matrix which is his only home and with which he is
continuous.

Conclusion
This paper does not require any elaborate or explanatory
summing up, although it may be useful to collect in a systematic fashion the principal conclusions reached. They are the
following:
1) For Marx man has no stable, fixed nature, but he does
have a history, the essential meaning of which is to be read in
the dynamics of socio-economic relations.
2) The center and purpose of human life is labor, so that
man is essentially a productive animal which achieves its perfection by improving the conditions under which its material
needs are satisfied.

3) The spiritual and intellectual nature of man is denied or

MARX ON THE UNITY OF MAN

301

at least ignored by Marx; this makes it impossible for Marx to
explain the unity of man's nature or of his being.
In our exposition of
we have concentrated on those
points which relate more proximately to the problem of human
unity. At the same time, in our appraisal of this doctrine we
have stressed the weaknesses and flaws which render it unacceptable as a solution to the problem at hand. A fuller and,
no doubt, more balanced presentation would not hesitate to
point out the positive contribution of Marxism towards an
understanding of man in some of his facets, as well as the
agreements of Marxist anthropology with the Thomistic concept of man. In any case, it is all too easy to be unfair or too
harsh on the teaching of one whose positions, while defective
and fundamentally vitiated in large measure, have more often
been attacked with virulent passion than analyzed with calm
detachment.
It is not possible to say without qualification that the choice
of Marx as subject of comparison with St. Thomas is an altogether happy one. If Marx had written more and thought more
about this specific problem, his doctrine might have been
treated with less prolixity. It may be some reassurance to
venture the hope that Thomists still take up the task of
appraising other philosophical positions of similar importance,
even though the prospects are as dim as those which have been
faced in dealing with the prophet of the proletariat.
JOHN PATRICK REID, O.P.

Providence CoUege
Providence, Rhode Island

ETIENNE GILSON AND THE CONCEPT OF
EXISTENCE

I

N 1952 the second edition of Etienne Gilson's Being and
Some Philosophers was published. 1 This is a remarkable
book in that the position maintained in the body of the
work is apparently contradicted by the appendix written
especially for the second edition. Throughout the book Gilson
builds a case for the position that there is no concept of existence.2 But in the appendix where he cites the criticisms of
Fathers Louis-Marie Regis and Jean Isaac, Gilson admits that
"No Thomist ... should write that existence (esse) is not
known by a concept." 3
1 (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies) For the purposes of this
study, L'etre et l'essence (Paris: Vrin, 1948) and Being and Some Philosophers
will, for the most part, be considered as one work. L'etre et l'essence contains a
series of lectures which Gilson gave as a course of study at the College de France,
probably from the Fall of 1945 until the early part of 1948; cf. L.-B. Geiger,
"Existentialisme, essentialisme et ontologie existentielle." In Etienne Gilson, philo.oophe de la Chretiente (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1949) p. 252; (note 2 should
read: "Voir supra p. 227, n. 3 "); N. Picard, [Review of L'etre], Antonianum,
XXVI (1951) 169. Picard states that these lectures were given at the "Lutetiae
Parisiorum" (on the lie de la Cite) and thus must have been given between 1945
and 1948, since Gilson was in Vermenton from 1941 to 1944; cf. below n. 17.
While Gilson presents substantially the same material in Being and L'etre, the
English version constitutes a more summary treatment based on the French; cf.
Being, pp. x-xi. For some points of interest to this project, one or the other work
may be more explicit and therefore reference to it is more appropriate.
Several sources mention a 1948 edition of Being published by Declan X.
McMullen, Garden City, N. Y. However, according to a letter received by this
writer from Mr. McMnllen, "We had scheduled but never did publish this book."
2 Op. cit., pp. 3-4, 176-7, 193, 198, 202, 209, 214, 215. "The problem
of the
knowledge of existence is the alpha and omega of our author's book." (Reproduced
by Gilson from an article by L.-M. Regis; cf. ibid., p. 217 and Modem Schoolman,
XXVITI [1950-1] 121.
3 Being and Some Philosophers, p. 221; cf. ibid., pp. 222-3, 225-6, 228, 230. Fr.
Regis reviewed Being, whereas Fr. Isaac reviewed that work as well as L'etre et
l'essence; see Bulletin thomiste VIII (1947-53) 39-59. Georges Van Riet's study is
limited to an examination of chapters 9 and 10 of L'etre; those chapters deal with

SOft

ETIENNE

GILSON AND THE CONCEPT

OF EXISTENCE

303

In the light of this change one is naturally quite startled to
find the following statements in Gilson's Christian Philosophy
of St. Thomas Aquinas published in 1956: 4
... we have an abstract concept for essence but not for the act
of existing. 5
We understand now why judgment alone can penetrate to existence.6
A pure est is unthinkable/
It is quite impossible to come to the act-of-being by an intellectual
intuition which grasps it directly, and grasps nothing more. 8

This study proposes to show how Gilson came to deny in the
first edition of Being and Some Philosophers in 1949 9 that
there is a concept of existence, and to show in what way he
reversed his position in the appendix written for the second
edition of that work in 1952. It will also be seen why Gilson
made the above statements from The Christian Philosophy of
St. Thomas Aquinas even though they seem to contradict what
he said just four years before in the appendix to Being and
Some Philosophers. Finally, Elements of Christian Philosophy/0 one of Gilson's most recent works, will be examined to
discover whether he has resolved these difficulties.
the knowledge of existence; see " Philosophie et existence," Revue philosophique de
Louvain, XLVI (1948) 352-76. For some reason Gilson does not mention Van
Riet's most pertinent article. After the appearance of the second edition, Ralph
Mcinerney wrote "Some Notes on Being and Predication," Thomist, XXII (1959)
315-35, which analyzes the last chapter of Being (i. e. " Knowledge and Existence "
corresponding to cc. 9 and 10 of L'etre) as well as the appendix.
If all versions and translations of Being and L'etre were considered as one work,
it would be among Gilson's best known works. The research for this paper has
uncovered 51 book reviews of the work in its various forms.
• (New York: Random House).
• Christian Philosophy, p. 40.
• Ibid., p. 42.
7 Ibid., p. 368 (Throughout
this paper all italicized words in quotations are as
found in the texts cited.)
8

Ibid.

• The imprint and pagination in the first edition are the same as that of the
second edition. The addition of the appendix in the second is the only difference.
10 (New York: Doubleday, 1960).

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I
Gilson's statement in the first edition of Being and Some
Philosophers (1949) that there is no concept of existence, goes
back to 1939. In that year he wrote Realisme thomiste et
critique de la connaissance 11 which represented the culmination
of a lengthy dispute with Msgr. Leon Noel on the central
problems of epistemology. 12 The first six chapters of that work
are devoted to an analysis of the epistemological problem and
especially to how various Thomists have attempted to solve it.
Chapter seven presents Gilson's view as well as the justification
of this view in the light of Thomas Aquinas' principles. Because
in this chapter he indicates that there is no concept of existence/3 the question of .how man can know existence is taken
up separately in the last (eighth) chapter. There again he
repeats his position that there is no concept of existence/ 4 but
also explains that the solution to the problem lies in judgment_l 5
The impossibility of a concept of existence is repeated without modification from 1939 to 1949. In additions written for
the fourth edition of Le Thomisme 16 in 1942/ 7 Gilson states
" (Paris: Vrin) a reprint appeared. in 1947.
12 Cornelius Fay, "The Possibility of a Critical Realism:
Noel vs. Gilson," New
Scholasticism, XXXI (1957) 172-88; see esp. 183. Gilson's writings in this dispute
(previous to 1939) were gathered together and became the first four chapters in
Le realisme methodique (Paris, n. d. but sometime from 1935 to 1937). Apparently
the fifth chapter was written for the occasion of publishing the papers together; cf.
the indispensable bibliography by Callistus Edie in Melanges offerts a Etienne
Gilson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1959) p. 36 n. 282. For
Gil,on's references to Noel, see
thomiste, preface, chapter 2 and pp. 35 n.
1, 37 n. I, 41 n. 1.
13 Realisme thomiste, pp. 185-6.
14 Ibid., pp. 216-7, 220, 225.
15 Ibid., pp. 224-6. The intellect cannot separate
existence from being and form
a concept, as it does with essence. Nevertheless, it can affirm that being, as seen in
the sensible, is an existent. In this way the intellect knows existence through
judgment. Gilson's position that existence is known adequately only through
judgment goes back to 1932 when he wrote "Realisme et methode" which later
became chapter 2 of Le realisme methodique. For his statements on existence and
judgment, see ibid., pp. 48-9.
16 (Paris:
Vrin) What seems to be a thorough catalog of the changes in the 4th
ed. (from the 3rd) is given by F. Van Steenberghen in Revue philos. Louvain,

ETIENNE

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305

that "we have a concept of being but not of existence." 18 For
the fifth edition of Le Thomisme in 1944, he added only 15
pages which fall within the middle portion of chapter 7 in Part
III. 19 Here again the statement is made that" existence is not
the object of a concept." 20 This position is repeated in 1945
in the essay, "Limites existentielles de la philosophie," 21 and
in 1946 in his address to the American Catholic Philosophical
Association. 22
In 1949 the first edition of Being and Some Philosophers
appeared, a year after its French counter-part, L' etre et l'essence.23 In both works he reiterates what he had been saying
since 1939. 24 But a new factor is introduced. He cites ImXLVIII (1950) 431-2. Note that he is giving the pagination in the 5th ed. Where
he has pp. 372-480, one should read 377-487.
A transcription of a lecture given by Gilson in 1949, begins: "Some years ago I
wrote a book on the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas. Between the third and fourth
editions of this book I became increasingly aware, very much so, of the important
part that Esse plays in his teachings. As a result I tried to stuff as much Esse as
possible into the third edition as a way of preparing the fourth. I succeeded to a
certain extent in the section on God and on metaphysics in general. ... "
The transcription in MS has the title, "Some Applications of Esse in the Writings
of St. Thomas Aquinas." It records Gilson's lectures given on Oct. 5, 6, 12, 13, 19,
20 of 1949 at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto.
17 The preface has "Vermenton,
17 mai 1941." This means that he was in
Unoccupied France (later occupied by Hitler's forces) during the war. A notation
in Melanges (p. 13) has: "1941-1944: continue son enseignement au College de
France." All the prefaces for the various editions of Le Thomisme are either in the
front of the book or in Appendix I in the 5th ed. The 5th ed. was reprinted in 1945
and 1947. (In Christian Philosophy, p. vii, Gilson mentions a 1948 ed., but this
cannot be located in any catalog; cf. Melanges, p. 42 n. 354. However, the paper
cover, of some copies, has 1948 even though the title page has 1947).
18 Le Thomisme, p. 61: " ... nous avons un concept de l'etre,
mais non de
l'exister." See also pp. 62, 67. Because the 4th ed. (1942) is not generally available,
the pagination of the 5th ed. will be cited.
19 Ibid., pp. 505-20; the preface for the 5th ed. is dated "20 avril 1943."
20 Ibid., p. 511: " ... J'exister n'est pas objet de concept;" cf. ibid., p. 519.
21 In the collection, Existence
(Paris: Gallimard, 1945) pp. 70-1, 80, 83, 85-6.
22 " Existence and Philosophy," Proceedings A. C.P.A., XXI (1946) 16.
23 Cf. Van Riet, Rev. phil. Louvain, XLVI (1948) 352 nfl1: "On peut considerer
comme un resume fidele de [L'etre et /'essence] l'esquisse qu'en a tracee M. Gilson
dans Les limites existentieUes de la philosophic."
24 L'etre et ['essence, pp. 7-9, 109-12, 117-20, 248-52, 255, 267, 308, 318-9; cf. pp.
283, 285-6; Being, pp. 3-4, 176-7, 193, 198, 202, 207, 209, 215.

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HARRY LA PLANTE

manuel Kant as being one of the first to realize that there is no
concept of existence, and that the problem of the concept of
existence is the source of mnch confusion and difficulty in
metaphysical endeavors. Not only does Gilson agree with Kant
that this is the source of many difficulties, but he proposes that
"The unique object of the present work is to throw some light
on this fundamental ambiguity," 25 which is that a person can
conceive a being without conceiving its existence. Furthermore,
he indicates in his study of Kant that Kant was led to consider
the role of the concept of existence when he understood that the
existential character of Hume's empiricism could not be entirely
eliminated from metaphysics. 26
Now, the objective of the first part of this paper was to
trace Gilson's thought to the point in the first edition of Being
and Some Philosophers where he says that there is no concept
of existence. By tracing his thought back to Realisme thomiste,
one better understands that the doctrine about the concept of
existence in Being and Some Philosophers represents convictions which Gilson held for many years and which quite
logically came to bear upon the project he proposed in 1949
(and 1948).
However, it turns out that this analysis is quite superficial.
The influences· which had been at work from 1939 to 1949 were
much more complex than what has been revealed in the preceding discussion. As one reads Etienne Gilson's works on metaphysics and epistemology during this period, one repeatedly
encounters clues to more subtle influences. More detailed
study leads one back through a complicated maze of multiple
references and a variety of borrowed ideas.
One of the most readily detected clues can be seen in Gilson's
statements about Kant in the beginning of Being and Some
Philosophers. There Gilson says that Kant would agree that
existence cannot be conceived, and then gives these quotations
from the Critique of Pure Reason:
25 L'etre, p. 9:
"L'unique objet du present travail est de jeter quelque lumiere
sur cette ambiguite fondamentale .... " Gilson's discussion of Kant's position is on
pp. 7-9, 184-203 of L'etre, and pp. 3-4, 119-32 in Being'.
26 L'etre, pp. 188-9; Being, pp. 122-3.

ETIENNE

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307

' Being ... is evidently not a real predicate, or a concept of something that can be added to the concept of a thing.' 27
'By whatever and by however many predicates I may think a thing
(even in completely determining it) nothing is really added to it,
if I add that the thing exists.' 28

Immediately after the latter quote, Gilson adds: " In short,
actual existence cannot be represented by, nor in, a concept." 29
Now, what is remarkable is that Gilson has changed the
perspective of his discussion in an important way. Being and
Some Philosophers is presumably written by a Thomist who
considers that the mind attains adequate knowledge of things
through the mediation of the senses. As chapter 5 clearly
indicates, Gilson is convinced that the intellect does know
existence. However, the first few pages of the book not only
raise the problem of how the mind knows existence, but indicate that it could never form a concept of existence. To invoke
Immanuel Kant here as one who understood the problem is
somewhat perplexing. Kant, in fact, held that there is a concept
of existence. 30 Of course, as with every concept (category,
form) in Kant's system, he held that man is not certain how
accurately (or whether) the concept of existence applies to
things. 31 Moreover, Gilson is well aware that Kant did not
consider existence in a noumenon as an aspect or determinate
of the thing. The word "existence" merely reflects the fact
that the total being is "posited" in the real (noumenal)
order. 32
27 Being, p. 3; cf. Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental
Dialectic, Bk. II, ch.
3, sect. 4; (Berlin Akademie ed., III, 1911 401; also cited as B 626 where B means
the original second edition of 1787; Great Books ed. [Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952] XLII, ISla).
28 Being, p. 4; cf. Critique, loc. cit.; (Berlin Ak., III, 401; B 628; Great Books,
XLII, 181 b) . In L' etre, p. 7 Gilson refers to this " celebre passage de la Critique"
but without giving its location.
29 Being, p. 4; cf. L'etre, p. 8.
3 °Critique, loc. cit. (Berlin Ak., III, 399-403; B 624-30; Great Books ed., XLII,
180b-182b).
31 Critique, Transcendental
Logic, Bk. II, ch. 1, sect. 3 (Berlin Ak., III, 90-7; B
102-13; Great Books ed., XLII, 41b-44a).
•• Being, pp. 125-7; cf. L'etre, pp. 191-6.

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Certainly Gilson's appraisal is correct when he says, "In
short, actual existence cannot be represented by, nor in, a
concept." This statement does represent Kant's position. However, when Kant says that actual existence cannot be known,
it is not for the same reason that Gilson has in mind. For
Gilson, existence cannot be conceived, " Because it lies beyond
essence. . . ." 33 For Kant, actual existence cannot be conceived because the mind is incapable of attaining the existent
(noumenon) which transcends man's experience of the real. 34
The mind has a concept of existence but there is no way o£
knowing whether it corresponds to actual existence.
There can be little question but that Gilson is something of
an authority on Kant's philosophy. 35 Why, then, would Gilson
entertain this shift in perspective from the Thomistic to the
Kantian? Presently an attempt will be made here to show that
he introduced Kant's position because he was to some degree
influenced by the writings of Pedro Descoqs and Joseph
Marechal.
There are other reasons suggesting that Gilson came under
influences not directly evident in his writings. He cites David
Hume as having some effect on Kant's notions on the concept
of existence, but Gilson does not indicate that Hume said anything on whether or not there is a concept of existence. The
fact is that Hume did say this. 36 Although he refers to the
Appendix (pp. 635-6) of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature,
Gilson disregards Hume's statement in the same Appendix (p.
33 Being, p. 202. It would seem that Gilson adapted his phraseology to correspond
to that aspect of Kant's philosophy which holds that actual existence cannot be
conceived. Gilson's more common phrase is "There is no concept of existence."
But an expression such as " Existence cannot be conceived " puts Gilson in contradiction with what he says in chapter 6, namely, that judgment which does enable
man to know existence, is a kind of conceiving; cf. below n. 70.
34 Cf. H. W. Cassirer, Kant's First Critique
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1954)
pp. 172, 207-11; James Collins, History of Modern European Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954) pp. 461-3, 504-7.
35 Cf. for example, his Unity of Philosophical Experience (New York:
Scribners,
1946) chapters 9, 12 as well as Being, pp. 119-32 and L'etre, chap. 6.
36 Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Part II, Sect. 6; ibid., Part III, Sect. 7; ibid.,
Appendix. (Selby-Bigge ed., pp. 66-8, 94, 623).

ETIENNE

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309

623) that there is no concept of existence. 37 In view of his

explicit declaration that he is investigating the concept of
existence in Being and Some Philosophers, how can one explain
Gilson's disregard of Hume's clear statements about the
concept?
Some explanation of Gilson's approach to Kant and Hume
is had, when Gilson's thought from 1939 to 1949 is retraced in
greater detail than was done above.
It was seen that Gilson first made his statements on the
concept of existence in Realisme thomiste et critique de la connaissance. It is quite certain that, at that time, he came under
the influence of Pedro Descoqs, S. J.,S8 and Joseph Marechal,
S. J., 39 while studying their theories on Thomistic epistemology.
At times the evidence is somewhat circumstantial. However,
the reader will see that the weight of evidence precludes the
possibility of coincidence.
37 Gilson cites Selby-Bigge's ed.; see L'etre, p. 189 n. 2; Being, p. 123 n. 29.
Gilson gives Selby-Bigge's ed. as 1896 (L'etre has the misprint 1396) whereas the
1958 ed. has the years of publication as 1888, 1897, 1917....
38 Georges Van Riet seems convinced of the influence of Descoqs (and Gabriel
Picard) but he does not attempt to substantiate it; see L' epistemologie thomiste
(Louvain: Editions de I'Institut Superieur de Philosophic, 1946) pp. 505, 507. The
precise influence of Picard's work on Gilson's thought is difficult to ascertain, but
two points are noteworthy. First, all of chapter 3 of Realisme thomiste is devoted
to a thorough examination of Picard's Le probleme critique fondamental in which
he maintains that there is no concept of existence; see Archives de philosophic, I,
cahier 2 (1923) 22, 29; cf. 30. Secondly, although the ideas of Picard and Descoqs
tend to be identified, in epistemology Picard's work is considered the dominant
one; cf. Realisme thomiste, p. 101 n. 1; Van Riet, op. cit., pp. 378-9; Descoqs'
review of Picard's Probleme in Arch. de phil., II, cahier 2 (1924) 201. Thus, on
the question of the concept of existence, Picard's notions determined what Descoqs
had to say. 'Vhile Gilson's position is traceable more directly to Descoqs, it must
be recognized that it was Picard who prepared the way as regards the concept of
existence.
•• Le point de depart de la metaphysique. Cahier I-V (Louvain, Paris: Desclee
de Bouwer, 1923-6; 2nd ed., 1944-9). Each cahier is a volume by itself; e. g. Cahier
II: Le conflit du Rationalisme et de l'Empirisme dans Ia Philosophic moderne avant
Kant (Paris, 1944) 261 pp. Marechal also wrote a Cahier VI. However, in its
recent advertisements for " Publications du Museum Lessianum, section philosophique " Desclee de Brouwer has this entry for publication 8: " Cahier VI. Les
epistemologies contemporaines. (Ce cahier dont Ia redaction a ete interrompue par
Ia mort de !'auteur ne sera pas publie);" cf. Andre Marc, L'etre et l'esprit (Paris,
1958), last pages in book.

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HARRY LA PLANTE

Descoqs' influence is first seen in the fact that his ideas are
the last to be analyzed in Realisme thomiste before Gilson, for
the first time, indicates that he hold's that there is no concept of existence. Moreover, Gilson cites one of the pages in
Descoqs' Cours de Theodicee where he explains why there is
no concept of existence. (However, Gilson's reference is not
directly connected with the concept. 40 )
While this is not conclusive, in subsequent works it becomes
increasingly evident that Descoqs is considered an authority
in this matter by Gilson. Among the changes which he prepared
for the 4th edition of Le Thomisme, Gilson inserted three
pages 41 which deal mainly with epistemology. Within these
few pages he repeats his stand on the concept of existence/ 2
but what is noteworthy is that the three authorities cited are
Thomas Aquinas, Etienne Gilson and Pedro Descoqs.
Then, in Being and Some Philosophers there is no question
but that Gilson associates his position with Descoqs. In the
earlier works one strongly suspected that Descoqs had influenced Gilson's thought. Now, however, his agreement with
Descoqs is open and explicit. In the following passage "they"
with whom Gilson is disagreeing about the distinction of essence
and existence, refers to Fr. Decoqs.
40 Gilson's references to Descoqs are in Realisme tkomiste, pp. 68 n. 1, 101 n. 1,
160 n. 1, 176 nn. 1-2, 177 n. 1. Gilson refers to Descoqs' Praelectiones tkeologiae
naturalis. Cours de Tkeodicee (Paris, 1932-5) I, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45-8, 50, 55-6, 60-6.
Descoqs says there is no concept of existence, on pp. 43, 72, 266 esp. n. 1, and 641-3.
The page containing Descoqs' position on the concept and cited by Gilson, is p. 43.
Gilson first adopts the position that there is no concept of existence on p. 185 in
Realisrne tkomiste, i.e. 7 pages after the place (p. 177 n. 1) where he cites p. 43
of Cours de 1'keodicee.
41 Pp. 326-8; cf. Christian Pkilos. St. Tkos. Aq., pp. 231-3. Note that the insertion
in the 4th ed. was prepared before May 17, 1941. Certainly this was a rather brief
interval after writing Realisme tkomi.•te in that France was invaded by the
Germans the preceding summer and Gilson had remained in France (at Vermenton).
This would seem to reflect the proximity of Descoqs' influence in 1939.
42 Le Tkomisme, p. 328:
" ... le jugement ... est seul capable d'atteindre, par
dela !'essence des etres que le concept apprehende, cet ipsum esse. ... " Note that
Gilson cites Descoqs' Cours de Tkeodicee.

ETIENNE

GILSON AND THE CONCEPT

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311

And, since each and every essence is an object of both concept and
definition, the very fact that there is no concept of existence as such
is to them a sure sign that existence itself is nothing. " Existence,"
they say, " existentia, id quo formaliter ens constituitur actu, that
is, that whereby being is constituted in act, is not a concept, but a
pseudo-concept.'' 43

On the following page Gilson's agreement with Descoqs on the
concept of existence is again in evidence when he takes up
Descoqs' phrase, "pseudo-concept,"
(even though it is to
correct Descoqs' explanation of why existence is not conceivable): "As a concept, 'to be' is indeed a pseudo-concept,
but 'to be' might well escape representation in virtue of its
very transcendence." 44
All of this provides some evidence that Gilson originally
accepted the doctrine that there is no concept of existence as a
result of his study of Descoqs' work while he was writing
Realisme thomiste.
Again, when one turns to Gilson's presentation of Kant's
ideas, Descoqs' influence may be detected. The key section is
the first part of Descoqs' chapter on Kant in Cours de
Theodiaee (i.e. I, 641-5) . In spite of Gilson's silence about this
section, there are at least four points which relate Gilson's work
to this section. First, in Cours de Theodicee and in Being and
Some Philosophers the same passage from the Critique of Pure
Reason is cited (beginning, "Being is evidently not a real
predicate . . ." 45 ) and this is followed in both works by a
discussion of the impossibility of having a concept of actual
existence. Gilson's statement is: "In short, actual existence
cannot be represented by, nor in, a concept;" whereas, Pedro
Descoqs has: "Besides, it is true that actual existence as actual
pertains to no concept of a contigent thing." 46
•• Being, p. 176; cf. L'etre, pp. 109-10 esp. the notes.
"Being, p. 177; cf. L'etre, pp. 110-1.

•• cr. above n. 27.

•• Being, p. 4; Theodicee, I, 643: "Verum est praetera existentiam actualem ut
actualem ad nullum conceptum rei pertinere contingentis; " the complete discussion
on Kant and the concept of existence extends from 641-4.

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HARRY LA PLANTE

Another, somewhat involved piece of evidence brings together the thought of Descoqs, Gilson and Fr. Joseph Marechal.
Immediately after the above passage in his Cours de Theodicee,
Fr. Descoqs cites certain pages in Marechal's Cahier III 47
which are part of Marechal's exposition of how Kant's opuscula
were preparations for the Critique of Pure Reason. It seems
beyond question that Gilson, because of Decoqs' reference,
searched out Marechal's exposition. In the first place, Gilson in
Being and Some Philosophers refers to the same section of
Kant's opusculum, An Essay on Negative Quantities which
Marechal cites. 48 Secondly, Gilson also refers to three passages
in the Essay on God's Existence to which Marechal makes
reference. 49 To say this is coincidence is nearly impossible
because each passage involves only one or two pages. l\ioreover, of Gilson's five references to Kant's opuscula, four are
given by Marechal." 0
Again, the key section in Descoqs' Cours de Theodicee seems
to have also influenced chapter 6 of Being and Some Philosophers, which is devoted to Gilson's own explanation of how
existence is known. Gilson begins that chapter by distinguishing conceptus by which man knows essence, from conceptio by
which judgment is made. 51 In Gilson's view, existential judg47 Descoqs'
references are to Marechal's
ed. In the 1944 ed. (which is
probably the one in most libraries), see pp. 48-9,
for Descoqs' references to pp.
ed. The pertinent pages for this reference are 48-9.
197 in the
48 Gilson, L'etre, pp. 189 n.
190 n. 1; Being, p.
nn.
30; Marechal, III,
33 n.
34, n. 1, 35 n. 1. Both refer to Versuch den Begriff der negativen Grossen
zn die Weltweisheit einzufuhren, III, Allegemeine Anrnerkung
Ak., II

•• The passages are: (1) Der einzig mogliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes, III,
(Berlin Ak., II, 156-7); cf. Gilson, L'etre, p. 194 n.
3; Being, p.
n. 36; Marechal III, 49 n.
Kant, loc. cit., I, 1,
(Ak., II,
73-5); cf. L'etre, p.
n. 1; Being, p. H5 n. 33; Marechal, 47 n. 1; (3) Kant,
loc cit., I, 1, 1 (Ak., II,
cf. L'etre, p. 191 n. 1; Being, p. 1M n.
Marechal, 46 n. 1.
50 Gilson also refers to Beweisgrund, I, I, 3 (Ak., II, 75-7); see L'etre, pp. 193 n.
I, 194 n.
Being, p.
n. 35. Although Marechal does not cite these pages in
Beweisgrund, he does refer to the material on either side of this passage; see
Marechal, III, 47 n. 1 and
n. 1.
51 Being, p. 190.

ETIENNE

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313

ment provides knowledge of real ("actual") existence. 52 'What
is noteworthy is that this distinction between conceptus and
conceptio was made by Descoqs in the same passage criticising
Kant's statements on the knowledge of existence. Of equal
importance is Descoqs' position that only through conception
can existence be known. 53 Also within this context, Descoqs
places the knowledge of essence through conceptus, in the
"abstract" order implying that judgment is in another order. 54
Similarly, in Gilson's treatment of the existential judgment,
judgment is distinguished from the " abstract" knowledge characteristic of understanding essence. 55
Finally, the passage from the Critique which Gilson uses as
the key-note for Being and Some Philosophers, ("Being is
evidently not a real predicate ... ") is found in those sections
of Descoqs' and :Marechal's works which were just considered.
Now, Gilson terms this passage the "celebre passage de la
Critique." 56 There seems little reason to label this passage as a
famous one other than the fact that Gilson probably saw it
analyzed in both Descoqs' and Marechal's studies.
There remains the question of Gilson's appraisal of Hume
and his failure to cite Hume as holding that there is no concept
of existence. It seems certain that Gilson relied almost entirely
on Marechal's statements in the latter part of Cahier II where
Marechal discusses some of Hume's ideas. The Selby-Bigge
edition of The Treatise of Human Nature is at issue here.
Gilson gives the date of that edition as 1896 57 which is the date
given by mistake by Marechal. 58 According to the 1958 edition,
•• Cf. ibid., pp. 206-9; L'etre, pp. 294-9.
•• Theodicee, I, 642-3.
•• Ibid., 642. One element of Descoqs' thought that Gilson in no way accepted is
the notion that a knowledge of existence is achieved through intellectual intuition.
In the Elements of Christian Philosophy he specifically excludes it from Thomism;
see below n. 135; cf. Theodicee, 642.
•• Being, ch. 6 esp. pp. 213-5; cf. L'etre, pp. 307-10.
•• L'etre, p. 7. Descoqs, p. 645 in Theodicee refers to Marechal, Ill, 197-202
which are pp. 256-62 in the 1944 ed. For Marechal's quotation, see 1944 ed., p.
260 n. 1.
57 L'etre, p. 189 n. 2; Being, p. 123 n. 29.
(L'etre has the misprint 1396).
•• Cahier II, 208

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HARRY LA PLANTE

there was no 1896 edition. 59 Moreover, in following Marechal's
quote from Hume, Gilson corrected Marechal's error in the
spelling of " renonce " (by changing it to "renounce ") , but
Gilson made the error of "correcting" Marechal's spelling of
" connexion " without realizing that Hume actually gave that
older spelling rather than "connection." 60 Taken together,
these points suggest that Gilson did not actually look at the
Treatise, but only followed the information provided by
Marechal in the latter part of Cahier II. 61 This in tum would
seem to answer the question about Gilson's faulty appraisal of
Hume. The passages cited from Marechal's Cahier II (i.e. pp.
fl08, fl41) fall in the first part and conclusion of chapter five
which is an analysis of Hume's epistemology. Now, within that
chapter Marechal reports (with quotations) on Hume's stand
that there is no concept of existence. 62 In view of the fact that
Being and Some Philosophers intended to investigate this concept, Gilson's disregard of Marechal's report on Hume, could
well be explained by assuming that Gilson merely examined
the first and last pages of chapter 5 in Cahier II. Consequently
it appears that it is due to the fragmented information he
gathered from Marechal, that Gilson produced his inaccurate
portrayal of Hume.
Somewhat the same explanation would seem to account for
his evaluation of Hume's influence on Kant. How is one to
explain the following except as a poorly educated guess?
We do not know with certainty what, exactly, Kant had read of
Hume, but there is little doubt that this sentence [from the appendix to Hume's Treatise] was the very one that aroused him from
his dogmatic slumber. 63
•• See
ed., p. viii. Apparently there was only a first ed. in 1888.
Subsequent editions, 1897, 1917 ... , were only reprints; cf. ibid.
•o Cf. ibid., 636; Gilson, loc. cit.; Marechal, IT, 241.
61 Gilson's quotation
(L'etre, p. 188) from Hume's Enquiry concerning Human
Understanding is not given by Marechal, nor is it near that cited by Marechal, II,
240. Note, however, that Marechal's reference to the Enquiry is on the page preceding that on which he analyzes the Appendix in Hume's Treatise, and that it is
that analysis which Gilson seems to have followed.
62 Marechal, II, 228, 236.
63 Being, p. 122; cf. ibid., p. 123: "This time we are sure that Kant has read at
least the Appendix to Hume's Treatise . ... " Cf. L'etre, p. 189 n. 2.

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Those who have made extensive studies into the influence of
Hume on Kant have not ventured any statement so bold. He
may be correct in his appraisal but there is no way for him or
anyone else to be at all certain. 64 But why did he say this
about the sentence in the appendix? As was just suggested,
Gilson encountered the sentence at issue in his study of
What seems likely is that, because Marechal had
presented him with what appeared to be an appropriate quotation, Gilson concluded that this sentence could very well be
the passage Kant read. But at its best this conclusion could
only be a guess.
In retrospect, one sees the persistence of Fr. Pedro Descoqs'
influence from 1939 to 1949 as that of Fr. Joseph Marechal.
In 1939 in Realisme thomiste Gilson studied and apparently
accepted the position of Descoqs on the concept of existence. In
194Q in changes for the fourth editi_on of Le Thomisme, the
name of Fr. Descoqs is cited in the passage dealing with the
concept of existence. Finally, Descoqs' influence has been seen
throughout Being and Some Philosophers along with that of
Fr. Marechal.
Of course, one must avoid over-emphasizing Gilson's reliance
on those whom he consulted. It cannot be suggested that Gilson
did in no way examine the works ·of Kant or Hume in con•• Kant was familiar with the ideas in the Treatwe as they are found in
translations of the Inquiries. Sections of the Treatise (including the statements
cited by Gilson) were "rewritten"
(transferred) by Hume for the Inquiries.
These were quoted at length by Beattie (to repudiate Hume's position). Subsequently Beattie's work was translated into German and read by Kant; cf. Leon
Noel, Le realisme immediate (Louvain, 1988) pp. 56-7;
II, 207; III, 40-1;
Robert Wolff, "Kant's Debt to Hume via Beattie," Journal of the Hwtory of Ideas,
XXI (1960) 117-28 esp. 123. It may be significant that Hume is one of the few
major philosophers in the modern era whom Gilson did not study in any detail.
This may explain why he persisted in tracing Hume's notions on causality primarily
to Malebranche; see, for example, his Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy (New York:
Scribners, 1940) pp. 15, 86; Unity of Philosophical Experience, pp. 216-9. A survey
of the writings listed in the 1952 bibliography on Hume does not reveal any other
writer connecting Hume and Malebranche; cf. Revue internationale de philosophie,
VI (1952) 250-3. James Collins' treatment of Hume illustrates the point, for
he relates Hume's thought to 9 thinkers but Malebranche is not included; see Hwt.
of Modern European Phil., Index under "Hume."

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nection with the questions at issue. What this study has
attempted to show is that Gilson was guided more by referring
to Descoqs and Marechal than by a thorough study of Kant
and Hume.
The objective in the first part of this study has been to understand the influences whereby Gilson not only adopted his stand
on the concept of existence, but made it the key notion of Being
and Some Philosophers. Undoubtedly there are other points
which show his reliance on the thought of others. The points
selected here were chosen because they were either directly or
indirectly related to investigating Gilson's position that there
is no concept of existence. In understanding this, it has been
seen that the denial of the concept was but one of many
notions which he apparently accepted from the men he consulted.
II
The second part of this paper attempts to delineate the
changes in Gilson's position as revealed in the appendix of the
second edition of Being and Some Philosophers in
It may
be recalled that the appendix was written to answer the objections raised by Fathers Louis-Marie Regis and Jean Isaac,
against Gilson's statements in the first edition of Being and
Some Philosophers, that there is no concept of existence.
In concluding his discussion of Fr. Regis' comments,S5 Gilson
makes this distinction:
Unless we consider it necessary to identify praedicare and dicere,
there is some justification for distinguishing between the metaphysical conception of esse and its logical concept. 66
" 6 The central points of Fr. Regis' criticism are included in the excerpt which
Gilson reproduces toward the beginning of the appendix (pp. 217-21). The article
originally appeared in the Modern Schoolman, XXVIII (1951) 111-25. (Note 2,
p. 216 in Being should read pp. 21-5). For this paper, references for Fr. Regis'
statements will be made to the excerpt in Being.
66 Being, p. 227. The possible influence of the Suarezian, Fr. Pedro Descoqs,
again rears its head. Once more, Gilson does not cite this passage but he does cite
sections before and after the following: " Le concept meta physique ou reel est
celui qui represente la realite sans avoir besoin de correction ou de complement
dans sa ligne formelle, celui qui exprime simplement la realite objective, l'etre.

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The terms praedicare and dicere recall a previous point where
Gilson maintained that for St. Thomas there is no difference
between these two terms, but when speaking to contemporary
non-Thomists, one should be aware that for them praedicare
would refer to a logical concept. 67 When speaking to these
people, one should agree with them that the logical concept of
existence (the copulative use of to be) tells nothing about real
existence. 68 However, Thomists should be clear in insisting that
there is a metaphysical concept of esse. 69
The crucial question is, What does Gilson mean by a metaphysical concept of esse? This involves a distinction between
conceptus and conceptio which Gilson had actually made in the
first edition, and restates here in the appendix. 7 ° Conceptio
Le concept logique est le produit d'une abstraction imparfaite qui exige un complement ou une correction parce que comme tel, il n'exprime pas Ia realite qui est:
v. g. le genre est un concept logique, parce que 'non datur forma generis:'" see
" Thomisme et Scolastique," Archives de philosophie, V cahier 1 (1927) 109 n. 2.
Cf. Being, p. 176 nn. 41, 42 where Gilson cites pp. 108 and 112 of Descoqs' essay.
Previously, in 1944 Gilson made this same distinction in the passage written for the
5th ed. of Le Thomisme, i.e. pp. 512-8. Note that the discussion suggests that he
has Descoqs in mind: "Bien d'autres, qui font profession de thomisme ... ; "
cf. below n. 79.
67 Being, p. 224.
68 He substantiates
this position by pointing to " the remarkable scarcity of
logical considerations about existential propositions in classical logic . . ." (Being,
p. 227).
69 Ibid., pp. 222-8. Note that this is not "a distinct
concept of esse in itself,
apart from the concept which we do have of 'Socrates-conceived-as-existing.'"
(Ibid., p. 225) .
7 ° Cf. Ibid., p. 190 n. 1 with p. 222; as was suggested, this distinction
apparently
came from Descoqs; cf. above pp. 9-10. Within his presentation of this distinction,
Gilson evidently involved himself in a contradiction. He introduces the distinction
between simple apprehension and judgment with the phrase, "Now, the intellectually conceived is twofold in kind ... " and then continues, "In both cases
there is an intellectual act of conceiving and, therefore, a conceived intellection ... "
(Ibid., p. 190). But in chapter 1, when explaining why Kant was correct in denying
the ontological value of the concept of existence, Gilson used the phrases:
"'Being' is conceivable, 'to be' is not. \Ve cannot possibly conceive an 'is'
except as belonging to something that is, or exists." Again, ". . . being is always
conceived by us apart from existence, for the very simple reason that existence
itself cannot possibly be conceived." (Ibid., p. 8). Thus, one reads in chap. 1 that
existence cannot be conceived, but in chap. 6 Gilson says that existence is known
by judgment which is a kind of intellectual conceiving.

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refers to the act of judgment whereas conceptus means the
intellect's abstraction of an essence. But Gilson also understands conceptio as including conceptus. Thus, he is willing to
say that the existential judgment which would be a conceptio,
could also be termed a concepitts. His new position, then, would
be that, "No Thomist ... should write that existence (esse)
is not known by a concept." 71 Even though this is only a
change in terminology since concept now also means judgment.
One may conclude that Gilson sees the concept of existence
in three contexts. First, as related to the logical use of "is,"
this concept tells nothing about real existence. Secondly, in the
context of essentialist metaphysics, there could not be a concept of existence, because this concept would be abstract and
therefore could only attain essence or quiddity. Whenever he
used the word " concept " he had been addressing himself " to
the tenants of being conceived as realis essentia." In this case
" concept " had " the narrower sense of ' simple apprehension .
• • .'" 72 Finally, the concept of existence resulting from judgment (conceptio) does grasp existence. This latter is what
Gilson calls a metaphysical conception of esse,73 and could also
be termed concept in a broader sense of that word.
How is one to evaluate the position which Gilson has assumed
in the appendix? Several notions resist extending " concept"
to the broader sense of judgment. In the first place Gilson
Ibid., p. 221.
Ibid., p. 2£3.
73 The term "metaphysical
" seems to be related to the term "concrete" at
least as both apply to a knowledge of existence. Commenting on a passage from
the Summa Theologiae, Gilson says, "But the true noun answering the verb 'to be'
is not essence, it is being. Ens signifies in abstracto the act concretely signified by
is." (Being, p. 23£). Fr. Regis does not name the "concept which cannot be
abstract" (ibid., p. 220), but merely refers to In de Trinitate, 5, 3. What seems to
be the relevant passage does not state explicitly what the non-abstract concept
should be called; cf. the Decker version of Expositio super librum Boethii de
Trinitate (Leiden: Brill, 1959) p. 182. In A. Maurer's translation of questions 5
and 6 (Division and Methods of the Sciences, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1958) see p. 27. On the other hand, in his Elements of Christian
Philosophy, to be analyzed shortly, Gilson says that there is no quidditative
concept of existence, but when he does speak of the concept of existence, he terms
it " abstract." See below pp. 29-30.
71

72

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admitted in the first edition of Being and Some Philosophers
that " it is at least doubtful that Thomas Aquinas ever called
a judgment a conceptus." 74 Thus he is on shaky ground when
he says in the appendix, " ... even a judgment is a ' conception'
... hence a conceptum." 75
Further, it seems certain that "the broader sense of the
term" 76 conceptus disregards, if not contradicts, Fr. Regis'
statements. Fr. Regis said:
If we admit that ' to exist' can and must be known in and by a
concept of apprehension, we also admit that there is a second
knowledge of ' to exist ' which comes after the first, controls, and
completes it. This is affirmation, an act of judgment, whose soul
is neither the subject nor quiddity, nor even the verb or the act of
existing but the synthesis of the two, the unification of the substance and of its act par excellence, ' to exist.' 77

From this it seems impossible for Gilson to claim that he is in
agreement with Fr. Regis if he insists on using the word,
" concept " in the broader sense applied to knowledge of existence through judgment. Fr. Regis clearly distinguishes the
concept resulting from apprehension, from the act of judgment.
Moreover, he says that "to exist" must be known in apprehension. Judgment perfects this knowledge by joining the concept
of the substance with the previously developed concept of
existence.
The survey of Gilson's statements from 1939 to 1949, made
in the first part of this paper, raises another objection to his
use of " concept " in a broader sense than the first operation of
the intellect. In the appendix he claims that in the first edition
of Being and Some Philosophers he was "not using the language of Saint Thomas" 78 when he said that there is no concept of existence. His statements were intended for "the
tenants of being conceived as realis essentia." 79 However, it
"Being, p. 190 n. I.
71 Ibid., p.
75 Ibid., p.
TS Ibid., p.
•• Ibid.
79 Ibid., p.
in this connection Gilson mentions Suarezians

(pp.

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has been seen that Gilson first said there is no concept of
existence in 1939 in Realisme thomiste et critique de la connaissance. This work represented his fullest, most direct reply
to Msgr. Leon Noel who seemed to consider himsel£ a Thomist. 80
Then, there is Gilson's monumental work, Le Thomisme which
does not bear the mark of being addressed to non-Thomists.
Again, he repeated his stand on the concept of existence in
1946 for the annual convention of the American Catholic
Philosophical Association. It hardly seems safe to assume that
most of the members of that organization are not Thomists.
One cannot dispute the fact that Gilson had non-Thomists
in mind when he wrote Being and Some Philosophers. 81 Of
course, the same thing is true of L' etre et l' essence as well as
of "Limites existentielles de la philosophie" which is the only
essay written by a Thomist in the collection, Existence. But
what is undeniable is that in each work which contained his
statement on the concept of existence, Gilson formulated his
statement in exactly the same way regardless of whether the
work was written for Thomists or non-Thomists. Therefore,
his claim is difficult to understand when, in the appendix, he
states that he was writing specifically for non- Thomists wherever in Being and Some Philosophers he said that there is no
concept of existence. He had been saying that for years to
Thomists and non-Thomists alike using the same terminology
m every case.
Finally, one may point to the internal structure of his presentations on the concept from 1939 to 1949. In' each work,
Gilson begins by presenting the arguments against the possibility of a concept of existence. In the larger works this preNco-Scholastics (p. 227) and, in general, any of "our own contemporaries" who
are not Thomists (p. 223); cf. p. 224; "his own contemporaries." He also includes
St. Thomas' "modern scholastic interpreters," (p. 227) who presumably are not
followers of Thomas. On the next line he mentions the Neo-Scholastics, and in
view of his other statements about the Suarezians especially Descoqs (pp. 170,
176-7) , Gilson seems to feel that these people tend to interpret Aquinas in the
light of Suarez' thought and therefore could hardly be called Thomas' followers.
8 ° Cf. Fay, New Scholasticism, XXXI (1957) 183.
81 Cf. Being, preface.

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sentation may occupy a complete chapter. Then there is the
transition to what the mind must do in order to grasp existence,
that is, the mind must say (in judgment) that essence is
actualized by existence. 82 In this way the intellect attains truth
because its activity conforms to the joining together of essence
and existence in things. Thus, there are negative (no concept
of existence) and positive (existential judgment) elements in
Gilson's explanation of man's knowledge of existence. Anyone
who has noticed this pattern, must be puzzled to learn that the
positive element can also be called a concept in spite of the
many negative statements on the concept of existence, which
Gilson had written over a period of years.

III
It should be recalled that in the fourth (1942) and fifth
(1944) editions of Le Thomisme, Etienne Gilson introduced
his position on the concept of existence. On the basis of the
fifth edition, Fr. L. K. Shook, C. S. B., prepared an English
translation entitled The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas. 83 However, Gilson's revised position on the concept
of existence, expressed in the appendix of 1952, presented
certain difficulties for a new translation. The fact is that the
fifth edition of Le Thomisme has several sections which say
that there is no concept of existence. As Fr. Shook was preparing the new translation, Gilson knew that he could not let
those sections stand.
In the appendix he admitted that there must be a metaphysical or concrete concept of esse. It would hardly do to
82 Cf., for example, L'etre, ch. 9 which explains why there cannot be a concept of
existence, and ch. 10 which indicates how existence is known in judgment. In
Being the corresponding discussions are within ch. 6: pp. 190-202 are on the concept
and pp. 202 (beginning "The most serious mistake ... ") to 215 is on judgment.
Of course, in neither case is the particular section (ch. or pp.) devoted exclusively
to the concept or judgment of existence.
83 The last translation
was made in 1925 and was based on the 8rd ed. of Le
Thomi.nne which appeared in 1927; cf. Melanges, p. 28 n. 87.

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allow the following statements in Le Thomisme to be translated
without change:
... we have a concept of being but not of existence. 84
But reason does not like the inconceivable, and because existence is
just that, philosophy makes every effort to avoid it. 85
What characterizes Thomism is, in effect, the decision to locate
existence at the heart of the real, as an act transcending every
concept .... 86
... taken in itself, existence is not the object of a concept. 87
Thus, being at grips with the secret energy which causes its object,
a philosophy [of existence] finds in the direction of its limitations
the principle of its very fertility. It will never believe that it has
arrived at the end of its inquiry, because the end is beyond what
it can enclose in the bounds of a concept. 88

In view of his revised position in the appendix of 1952, one
naturally expects certain changes to be incorporated in the new
translation of Le Thomisme. In the foreword to The Christian
Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, he indicates that changes
have been made and that these are primarily concerned with
" the notion of the act of being (esse) . . . ."
•• Le Thomisme, p. 61: " ... nous avons un concept de l'etre, rnais non de
l' exister."
85 Ibid., p. 67: "Mais la raison n'aime pas l'inconcevable, et parce que I' existence
l'est, la philosophie fait tout pour l'eviter."
•• Ibid., p . .511: "Ce qui caracterise le thomisme, c'est en efl'et la decision de
situer !'existence au coeur du reel, comme un acte transcendant tout concept .... "
87 Ibid.: " ... pris en soi, l'exister n'est pas objet de concept."
88 Ibid., p. 519: "Ainsi aux prises avec l'energie secrete qui cause son objet, une
telle philosophie trouve dans le sens de sa limite le principe de sa fecondite meme.
Elle ne se croira jamais arrivee au terme de son enquete, parce que le terme s'en
trouve au dela de ce qu'elle peut enclore dans !'enceinte d'un concept." Reexamining
these statements in the light of his changed position, Gilson found himself accused
by his own words which he had written in Le Thomisme (p. 44) for the additions
"Renconnaissons d'ailleurs que ses interpretes les plus
made to the 4th ed. in
fideles ont eux-memes bien fois involontairement delorme !a notion thomiste de
I' existence, parce qu'elle est malaisee a saisir et. que, de par sa nature meme, il est
encore moins difficile de !a saisir que d ene plus !a laisser echapper." The sense of
this statement was modified significantly as far as the aims of the present project
are concerned, for in Chmtian Phil., p.
Gilson rephrased his position to say:
"Even his most faithful interpreters have themselves sometimes overlooked the
Thomistic notion of being .... "

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The only important event bearing upon my study of Thomas
Aquinas during these eight years, was my discovery ... of Banes'
commentary on the first part of the Summa Theologiae.
By and large, however, Banes appears to me to be by far the most
Thomistic of all the Thomists whom it is my privilege to know.
This is eminently true concerning the notion of the act of being
(esse) which is the very core of the Thomistic interpretation of
reality. 89

What is surprising is that the reason given for making these
changes is Gilson's examination of Banes' work. One naturally
wonders about Fathers Regis and Isaac. Moreover, it should
become apparent in the following analysis that their remarks
had considerable influence on the changes made for the translation. These changes relate to Gilson's explicit avowal in the
appendix of 1952 that he was speaking of the abstract, quidditative concept when he said there is no concept of existence.
By adapting the terms " abstract concept" and "quidditative
concept" along with similar phrases and textual alterations,
Gilson manages to avoid some of the difficulties presented by
the statements in the fifth edition of Le Thomisme. It should
also be noted that, whatever influence Banes may have had, is
extremely difficult to detect. 90
First, consider the changes made in the passages cited above.
Where Gilson said, "we have a concept of being but not of
existence" in Le Thomisme, in Christian Philosophy he wrote,
"we have an abstract concept for essence but not for tlie act of
existing." s:t Next, compare the second passage cited above
89 Christian Phil., p. vii.
Note that Gilson says that Le Thomisme (5th ed.)
was written in 1948; this is the reason that he says " during these eight years; "
but cf. above n. 17. The expression "notion of the act of being" is somewhat
ambiguous. Does it refer to the Thomistic doctrine of existence or to what
Thomists say about man's knowledge of existence? As will be seen, the research
for this paper uncovered many changes in Gilson's statements about the concept
of existence, but none about the doctrine of existence. This applies specifically to
Part I chapters 1 and 4, Part II chapter 7 and Part III chapter 7.
90 Banes seems to be mentioned only in the foreword and as part of n. 1, p. 444.
The latter mention is an addition to the note found in Le Thomisme, p. 48 n. 1.
Further investigation may reveal the influence of Banes in the omission of two
rather lengthy passages from p. 44 of Christian Phil.; cf. Le Thomisme. pp. 66-7.
91 Christian Phil., p. 40.

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from Le Thomisme with the following in Christian Philosophy:
"Reason dislikes the undefinable, and because pure existence
is undefinable, philosophy does all it can to avoid it." 92 For the
third passage, Christian Philosophy has: "What characterizes
Thomism is the decision to locate actual existence in the heart
of the real as an act transcending any kind of quidditative
concept .... " 93 For the next passage one finds: " ... taken in
itself, the act-of-being is not the object of a quidditative concept." 94 The last passage is substantially the same in Christian
Philosophy except that the last word is "definition." 95
It can be seen that Gilson has modified the statements in
Christian Philosophy to conform to the negative position which
he had always expressed on the concept of existence. Wherever
feasible he made changes such that he was now saying that
there is no abstract, quidditative concept of existence. 96 In
other instances he simply avoided saying that existence cannot
be known by a concept.
Anyone who has followed the discussion thus far naturally expects that Gilson made one more change in Christian Philosophy.
One would expect that somehow he would also let it be known
that, according to his philosophy, there is a concept of existence
and that this concept is metaphysical or concrete. Unhappily,
the research for this paper has not found that this is the case.
The changes exemplified in the five passages cited are typical.
Besides these, other changes were made by omitting one or
more sentences from Le Thomisme and in its place one finds
nothing, or a short phrase; occasionally there is a complete
sentence to replace a lengthy passage. 97 The most extensive
Ibid., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 368. (Probably the second "of" is a typographical error).
"•Ibid.
•• See ibid., p. 370.
92

93

•• In other contexts Gilson also added the words " abstract" "quidditative" or
their derivatives to " concept " and other terms, but these do not deal directly
with the concept of existence; cf. Christian Phil., pp. 44 (twice), 45, 91, 368 (twice),
369 with Le Thomisme, pp. 67, 68, 133, 511, 512 respectively.
97 In addition
to the changes already cited, others can be found by comparing
Chri.<!tian Phil., pp. 34, 40, 41, 44, 91, 94, 368, 370 with Le Thomi.Yme, pp. 51, 61-2,

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addition to ChTistian Philosophy seems to be the four lines on
page 44 beginning," We cannot think of .... " It seems beyond
dispute that Gilson made no attempt to include the positive
aspects concerning the concept of existence, which he adopted
in 1952. An adequate revision of Le Thomisme would have
included his views on the exact nature of the metaphysical concept of existence; in 1952 he indicated that this question was
of primary importance. 98 This in turn would include some
statement on how this concept is acquired. In fact, this would
have been an ideal situation to restate his conviction, expressed
in 1952, that the judgment of existence includes the concept
of existence. A discussion of this kind is nowhere to be found.
Rather than complicate or delay the translation, he merely
wrote his few corrections in the text of Le Thomisme for Fr.
Shook's translation. Most of these were one or two words.
In other instances he merely deleted undesirable phrases or
passages.
The results produced by this simplified method are disconcerting for one who has read Gilson's statements of 1952 about
the metaphysical, concrete concept of existence. Nowhere does
he say that there is such a concept or that there is any kind
relating to existence. If a person read nothing other than
Christian Philosophy, he would never suspect that Gilson holds
for any kind of concept of existence.
Nor is that all. The situation is further complicated by the
fact that the reader repeatedly encounters statements that
existence is only attained in the existential judgment. The
following excerpts are representative:
We understand now why judgment alone can penetrate to existence. To formulate an experience such as ours in which all its
objects are composite substances, we need a thought itself composite. To express the activity of the principles which determine
these substances, our thought must duplicate the exterior act of the
form by the interior act of the verb. Because the very root of the
62, 66-7, 133, 138, 511, 513 respectively.
40, 44, 91.

•• Being, pp. 224-5, 227-30.

There is more than one change on pp.

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real is an act, the act of judging alone can attain the real in its
root. 99
His metaphysic of being as being 'consignifies' existence. It does
not 'signify' it unless precisely it uses the second operation of the
understanding and employs all the resources of the judgment.l 00
The reason why ... the judgment is the understanding's most
perfect operation is that it alone is capable of attaining, beyond
the essence of the beings which the concept grasps, that ipsum esse
which is ... the very source of all reality

The force of these statements is heightened by the fact that
they represent the climax and solution of Gilson's portrayal of
the difficulties inherent in a philosophy of existence. The discussion preceding the analysis of the existential judgment progresses as if in search of some means of attaining existence.
Apparently this means is not a concept because the majority
of statements on the concept are negative in character 102 and
because the search quite evidently finds its conclusion in
Gilson's remarks about the act of judgment being ideally suited
to attain the act of existence. For the reader to conclude from
this that Gilson holds for any kind of concept of existence
seems virtually impossible.
Furthermore, the impression that existence is only attained in
judgment is substantiated by another facet of Gilson's doctrine
on the existential judgment. The existential judgment constitutes the very core of man's knowledge of being. Just as
existence is that actualization and perfection of being, so the
knowledge of existence is at the very center of the concept
of being. Because this doctrine is stated over and over again 103
one inescapably believes that Gilson teaches that existence
99 Christian Phil., p. 42. Substantially
the same line of argumentation is found
at the top of p. 41.
100 Ibid., p. 44; cf. ibid.: "Raised
to the plane of the judgment, Thomism will
again make contact with the very heart of the reality it is interpreting; " ibid., p.
374: "Of course we cannot see existence but we know it is there and we can at
least locate it, by an act of judgment .... "
101 Ibid., p. 232.
102 Cf. above, p. 17.
103 Christian Phil., pp. 40, 44 (5 times), 232, 368, 369.

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327

cannot be known by itself but only within the concept of being.
The doctrine that there is a concept of existence is nowhere
visible. The case for the concept of being is clearly given here:
The only means of speaking about the act-of-being is to grasp it
in a concept, and the concept which directly expresses it is the
concept of being. . . . It is quite impossible to come to the actof-being by an intellectual intuition which grasps it directly, and
grasps nothing more. To think is to conceive. But the proper
object of a concept is always an essence, or something presenting
itself to thought as an essence; in brief, an object. The act-of-being,
however, is an act. A pure est is unthinkable; but an id quod est
can be thought. 104

1£ one pauses here to look back on Gilson's pronouncements
for the existential judgment as well as the concept of being,
and recalls those statements relating to a knowledge of esse,
one readily gets the impression that Gilson could not possibly
hold for a concept of existence. Note, for example, these
phrases from what has been cited thus far:
It is quite impossible to come to the act-of-being by an intellectual
intuition which grasps it directly, and grasps nothing more. 105
A pure est is unthinkable. 106
[Judgment attains existence] beyond the essence of the beings
which the concept grasps .... 107
.. one cannot think of ... esse without ens. 108
Evidently Etienne Gilson's particular method of modifying
his position for the translation of Le Thomisme, has not had
the results which, according to the foreword,' 00 he intended.
Whether a person had read the appendix of 1952 or not, it is
not likely that he would grasp the full significance involved in
the (revised) statement in Christian Philosophy," There is no
104 Ibid., p. 368. Two changes were made in this passage for translation:
(1) for
"to conceive" Le Thomisrne, p. 511 has "in the first place to conceive" (d'abord
concevoir); (2) for "proper object" the French has "object" (!'objet).
105 Christian Phil., p. 368.
108 Ibid., p. 44.
106 Ibid.
109 Cf. above n. 89.
107 Ibid., p. 232.

328

HARRY LA PLANTE

abstract concept of existence." In the face of Gilson's other
remarks, especially those dealing with the existential judgment
and the concept of being, it would indeed be an unusual
reader who would realize that Gilson holds for a metaphysical
or concrete concept of existence. 110

IV
An entirely different presentation is found in Elements o.f
Christian Philosophy. The tenor of the discussion unequivocally aims at showing that there must be a concept of existence.
There is the candid admission that "even the so-called
'Thomists' have been and still are divided on this point,"
because of " a general reluctance to conceive the act of being
(esse) as a distinct object of understanding." 111 However,
Gilson is assured that St. Thomas not only had a notion of
existence but that he was anxious for his followers to see its
necessity. Possibly recalling his own difficulties in this matter,
he asks, "but how can he make us see it if we don't? " 112
One does not find the sentence, "There is a concept of existence," but the equivalent is seen in the following remarks:
110 This conclusion must take into account a sentence in Chmtian Phil., p. 369,
which seems to contradict everything said here: Gilson says that the controversy
over the distinction between essence and existence " shows how easy it is to
substitute the abstract concept of existence for the concrete notion of the act-ofbeing .... " However, this was part of the 15 pages added in 1944 to Le Thomisme,
i.e. p. 512, and in that addition Gilson clearly stated that existence could not be
known in a concept; cf. pp. 511, 519. Moreover, as was just seen, he explained
that the only way man can conceive esse is in the concept of being (p. 513). One
is left without any means of determining what Gilson meant by " notion" in 1944.
(Further research may reveal that " notion " is a vague term to account for the
fact that man has real knowledge of existence even though there cannot be
separate, conceptual knowledge. Also, some light may be provided by Gilson's
apparent allusions in this same paragraph, to the Suarezians esp. Descoqs, in such
phrases as "essentialize " and " professed Thomists." These suggest that Gilson
may have had in mind Descoqs' distinction between a metaphysical and logical
concept; cf. above n. 66. Another possibility is that he used this term to refer to
the understanding of existence within the existential judgment).
111 Elements, p. 131.
112 Ibid.

ETIENNE

GILSON AND THE CONCEPT

OF EXISTENCE

329

how did Thomas Aquinas achieve the awareness of the very
possibility of this notion [of existence]? It certainly results from a
supreme effort of abstraction, since, in order to form it, the intellect
must conceive, apart from the condition of being an existent, the
act owing to which the existent finds itself in this condition. 113
... the distinction [of essence and existence] presupposes the
notion of esse conceived
. . as the highest intrinsic principle
of ... being. 1 H
... all the arguments ... to establish the distinction between
being and essence ... presuppose the prior recognition of the
notion of the 'act of being' (esse) .115
Moreover, conceiving apart that which the thing is and the fact
that it actually is, we can form ... two abstract notions .... 116

Gilson also raises the question of the origin of the concept of
existence, both for the individual and as an historical matter.
For the individual, considerable difficulty results from the
impossibility of demonstrating the act of existence. It can be
seen that existence must be abstracted from the reality with
which man finds himself associated in this world. Given the
fact that man knows existence, the only conclusion is that
somehow he did acquire it. But to demonstrate this or to prove
to an individual person that his knowledge of existence is
acquired in a particular way, seems impossible. 117
The historical origin of the concept is an equally difficult
question: Gilson previously treated this matter rather extensively in The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. 118
" 3 Ibid.; the question of conceiving existence in connection with a knowledge of
God is discussed on pp. 1S2, ISS, 2SS.
114 Ibid., p. ISO.
115
116

Ibid.
Ibid., cf. p. 2S5. Less direct statements concerning the question of conceiving

existence are on pp. 102-S, 116, 118, 121.
117 Ibid., p. lSI.
118 Pp. 85-6, 93-4, 1S2-5. All of these were additions
made in the 4th ed. of
Le Thomisme. It should be noted that in Christian Phil., Gilson is only concerned
with the question of Augustine's and Moses' knowledge of existence. There was
no point in raising the question of whether they had a concept of existence because
this passage was written in 1942 when Gilson was convinced that no one had a
concept of existence. However, he definitely felt that a knowledge of existence was
possible, and proceeded to inquire into Augustine's and Moses' knowledge of it.

330

HARRY LA PLANTE

In that work he quotes at length from St. Augustine who found
God's words, "I Am Who Am," quite meaningless. Because
of his Platonic, " essentialist" frame of reference, Augustine
experienced considerable anxiety, wondering what God meant
when He said that He is Who is. How is God revealing His
nature here?
'We were waiting for him to say what he was, yet he did not
say it. What did we think he was going to say? Perhaps, if you
do not believe that I am the Christ; if you do not believe that I
am, the Son of God; if you do not believe that I am the Word of
the Father ... .' 119

Augustine was perplexed and disappointed because Moses made
no attempt to explain the meaning of Qui est. Not only was
Moses the recipient of this word directly from God (or His
angel), but he also recorded it in Exodus. For this pronouncement, so significant for mankind's understanding of the
Supreme Being, Moses apparently felt no explanation was
necessary. 120 Thus, for St. Augustine the problem remained
insoluble.
One naturally asks whether Moses had an understanding of
God's words. If he did, it could be said that this would involve
a concept of what existence is and would indicate that the
concept had its origin deep in the history of mankind. In this
work (Christian Philosophy) Gilson argues that Moses did not
formulate any notion of existence. 121 God revealed that His
essence is existence, but
" 9 Christian Phil., p. 85; cf. pp. 86, 134. There are minor errors relating to pp.
85-6. Note 6 which was omitted through a typographical error, should occur on p.
86 at the end of the third line from the bottom. The reference for this note on p.
455 should read: "St. Augustine, In Joannis Evangelium; 38 .... " This applies to
the two long quotations on pp. 85-6. Cf. Le Thomisme, pp. 125-6 esp. 126 n. 2
which also has the error " tract. XXVIII " instead of " tract. XXXVIII."
12 ° Christian Phil., pp. 86, 132.
.
121 Judging
from the quotations and discussion of Augustine's attitude provided
by Gilson, one would conclude that in St. Augustine's mind there was little doubt
that Moses did understand the meaning of Qui est; see Christian Phil., pp. 86, 94;
for Gilson's reference on p. 94 to Summa Contra Gentiles, read Book I not II.

ETIENNE

GILSON AND THE CONCEPT

OF EXISTENCE

331

God no more explained it to Moses than to Augustine or to
us, as if, having revealed to men the truth that saves, He had
reserved the understanding of it to the patient efforts of the
metaphysicians. 122

But turning now to Elements of Christian Philosophy,. one finds
that the opposite stand is taken. It must be kept in mind that
after writing the above words for Christian Philosophy (i.e. in
Le Thomisme in 1942) he apparently changed his convictions
in 1952 when writing the appendix to Being and Some Philosophers. Thus, in 1960 (i.e. in Elements) he wrote:
... after establishing that God's essence is His very esse, [St.
Thomas] adds that 'this sublime truth Moses was taught by our
Lord.' Now, 1\Ioses could not learn this sublime truth from our
Lord without at the same time learning from Him the notion of
what it is to be a pure existential act. 123

What is remarkable is that in both ChTistian Philosophy and
Elements Gilson's judgments are based upon St. Thomas' discussion in Summa Contra Gentitles, Book I, chapter 22. The
diversity in Gilson's judgments in 1942 and 1960, reflects the
different convictions he held concerning the concept of existence. His evaluation in 1942 124 conformed more closely to his
conviction at that time that there is no concept of existencefor Moses or anyone else. By 1960 he had accepted the opposite
position concerning that concept. Thus it was more natural for
him to conclude from the discussion in the Summa Contra
Gentiles that Aquinas felt that Moses did have a concept of
existence.
One must suspect that this discussion is subsidiary to the
question more meaningful for Thomists, namely, how did St.
Thomas acquire the concept of existence? To be sure, neither
Gilson nor anyone else could hope to give a definitive answer.
But Gilson inclines to see Aquinas developing his notion of
existence through reflection on Exodus, III, 13-14:
Christian Phil., p. 86; cf. p. 94.
Elements, p. 132.
124 Page 94 of Christian Phil., which is primarily at issue here, is the translation
of a passage added to Le Thomisme, 4th ed.; cf. above n. llS.
122

123

HARRY LA PLANTE

Thomas Aquinas may well have first conceived the notion of an
act of being (esse) in connection with God and then, starting from
God, made use of it in his analysis of the metaphysical structure of
composite substances. 125

How convinced he is that Thomas first conceived existence this
way is difficult to say. Certainly, the question must remain
tentative and academic. But it should be observed that according to his own words, Gilson weakens his case concerning
Thomas Aquinas acquiring the concept of existence through a
study of Exodus. He does this in two ways. One is the position
he took on the manner in which each individual develops the
concept. When he says that everyone must attain a knowledge
of existence from the reality surrounding him, this must be
taken in a perennial sense, not just "post-Aquinas." Secondly,
he discusses the probability that a person must already have
a notion of existence before he could apply it to God.
All our notions of God are directly or indirectly borrowed from our
notions of finite beings, and if we did not first discern the act of
existing in the structure of God's creatures, how could we think
of identifying it with the very essence of the divine being? 126

The result is that the reader is not certain of what Gilson's
convictions are. However, it is more than likely that his basic
convictions would trace the· development of the Thomistic concept of existence back to " I Am Who Am." Following tlie
Book I o.f the
passage just cited, Gilson refers to chapter
Summa Contra Gentiles and, among other things, concludes:
"This invites us to admit that, according to Thomas himself,
his notion of esse can be learned from the very words of
God." 127
Elements, p. 131; cf. pp. 132-3, 233.
Ibid., pp. 131-2. This argument is somewhat ambiguous because it assumes
that the persons involved ("All our notions of God "-Thomists?) conceive of God
as having that highest perfection which is existence. But the discussion implies a
universal and perennial context. If Gilson has only Thomists in mind (and then
he should have said so) then the argument would go back to an awareness of
Exodus, and thus the mere statement of the argument as given is quite meaningless.
127 In other contexts and other works, Gilson devoted considerable effort
to the
125

126

ETIENNE

GILSON

AND THE CONCEPT

OF EXISTENCE

333

Three points remain to be mentioned, all of which go back
to Gilson's other works. The question is raised about the role
of judgment in attaining existence. Unlike The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, there are no statements such
as, "Only in judgment does man know existence." However,
judgment is still proclaimed to be an activity of the mind
whereby existence is known .
. . . the second operation of the intellect cannot attain being without, by the same token, attaining the act that lies in it beyond
essence.128
The second operation, which is the composition or division of concepts-that is, the judgment-attains the thing in its very act of
being.129

In the second passage note the mention of concepts. Whether
one of these could be the concept of existence, or whether
judgment is in any way related to the concept of existence, is
not discussed.
T"ne second point deals with the abstract, quidditative concept of existence. It will be recalled that in previous works, an
Angelic Doctor's treatment of the ,nature of God, but he makes no mention of it
here. In Elements, p. 123 Gilson refers to the fact that Thomas invoked the
authority of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite concerning esse as the being of God.
From this discussion, as in his fuller treatment in The History of Christian
Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), pp. 81-5, the
possibility from examination of those parts of the Summa Theologiae (i.e. I, q. 4, a.
2; q. 3, a. 4) cited by Gilson (Elements, p. 123 n. 23).
Other possibilities are treated in the 1949 lectures given at the Mediaeval
Institute; see above n. 16. For the most part those lectures analyze St. Thomas'
commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Gilson indicates that Thomas
equated existence with God's essence because Moses Maimonides had taught that
existence is the most appropriate name for God. (Lectures for Oct. 5 and 6) . He
goes on to point out in the other lectures that Thomas' convictions were strengthened by what he also found in other parts of the Sentences, relating to the thought
of St. Jerome, St. John Damascene, Avicenna and the Pseudo-Dionysius.
But then again, in "La notion d'existence chez Guillaume d'Auvergne," Gilson
not only stated that William of Auvergne was Aquinas' predecessor in that
\Villiam held that God's essence is existence but also suggests that Thomas had
seen this notion treated in William's writings; see Archives d'histoire doctrinale de
la litterature Medievale, XV (1946) 75-7.
108 Elements, p. 232.
120 Ibid., cf. pp. !i!SS, !i!S5.

334

HARRY LA PLANTE

abstract concept of existence was equated with the quidditative
concept, and that Gilson held that existence could not be
known through either type. The reader is not surprised, then,
to read, "There is no Qui in God; only an est, and of this est
itself . . . we have no quidditative concept." 130 But now
Gilson maintains that there is an abstract concept of existence:
" ... we can form the two abstract notions of essence ... and
of existence . ... " 131 This is a direct contradiction of the change
he made for The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.
There he said, " ... we have an abstract concept for essence
but not for the act of existing." 132 There seem to be two
reasons for the position that there is an abstract concept of
existence, as stated in Elements of Christian Philosophy. The
first reason has already been cited on two previous occasions:
the need for explaining how an individual knows existence, can
only be reduced to the fact that a person must have abstracted
this notion from the real things of this world. 133 The second
reason seems to be based on St. Thomas' words: " 'ipsum esse
significatur ut quiddam abstmctum.' " 134 The " supreme effort
of abstraction" whereby existence is known, is identified with
the mind's power to conceive. 13 " One can only wonder what
happened to Gilson's notion that the concept of existence must
be a concrete concept. 135
Ibid., p. 233.
Ibid., p. 130.
132 Christian Phil., p. 40.
133 Elements, p. 131.
134 Ibid.
135 Ibid.
In this connection Gilson makes the interesting
130

131

observation:
" ...
the notion of the ' act of being' ... cannot possibly be an intellectual intuition,
because there is no such thing in Thomism." (p. 130). Unlike Jacques Maritain
who also follows St. Thomas, Gilson is convinced that conception is quite different
from intellectual intuition. For Maritain's Yiew, see for example the section, "The
Intuition of Being" in Existence and the Existent (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday
Images Books, 1956) pp. 28-31. See also above n. 54.
136 In 1944 Gilson indicated
that a person would "essentialize" the concept of
existence if he termed it an abstract concept; see Le Thomisme, p. 512; cf.
Christian Phil., p. 369. Possibly one could write a separate report on Gilson's use
of the word "abstra<'t" in his several writings; cf., for example, the points made
above in nn. 73, 96, 100. In view of the other evidence relating to Descoqs, note

ETIENNE

GILSON AND THE CONCEPT

OF EXISTENCE

335

Finally, this analysis o£ Elements of Christian Philosophy
throws further doubt on Gilson's central position in the appendix o£ 1952. He admitted that" No Thomist ... should write
that existence (esse) is not known by a concept," 137 but he
went on to insist that this concept is achieved in the existential
judgment, and somehow is that judgment. It was also seen that
in The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas he £ailed
to substantiate his position o£ 1952, concerning the metaphysical concept. Now, it could be argued that he was working
in that translation with a set o£ statements formulated in a
different context and therefore intended to establish somewhat
different points. Insofar as only a translation was involved,
one could say that Gilson could do little to alter the general
trend o£ argumentation. However, in Elements of ChTi.stian
Philosophy, he was undertaking a new work with no particular
commitments concerning the concept o£ existence. Nevertheless, no distinction is made between conceptio and conceptus.
Even i£ it is maintained that Elements is a non-technical book,
i£ not a popular one, Gilson would still have an opportunity to
say that the concept o£ existence is had only in judgment.
Careful examination o£ the above passages cited £rom Elements,
reveals no such statement. Gilson even goes so far as to use the
73 above may reflect the attitude toward the meaning of " abstract " which Gilson
adopted for a while at least. Note that, like Gilson, Descoqs relates "abstraction''
to the logical concept but not the metaphysical. More specifically in the appendix ·
the reader encounters implied parallels or similarities between noun, abstract,
of
abstraction, logical, quidditative and essence on the one hand, and then these are
contrasted with verb, concrete, judgment, metaphysical, existential and existence;
see Being, pp.
esp.
Some of Gilson's difficulty seems to stem from overemphasizing the relation of grammatical and philosophical terms. For example, he
says, " Running does not signify an essence; that which runs has an essence, but
running itself is an act," (Ibid., p.
It seems evident that "running" does
not refer to a substantial essence but is in the order of essence since it is an accident,
namely, an action. Moreover, essence including accident is an act. It is remarkable
that Gilson had listed " action" as one of the accidents in the first edition of
Being, i. e. p.
In his article on L'etre, Van Riet devotes most of that article to showing that
Gilson tends to confuse the real order with the intentional order; see Rev. phil.
Lauvain, XLVI (1948)
137 Being p.

336

HARRY LA PLANTE

terms "abstract" and "abstraction" in connection with the
concept of existence. The presentation in Elements strengthens
the suspicion, that Gilson in 1952 recognized the force of
Fathers Regis' and Isaac's arguments in favor of a concept of
existence, but that he decided to tie that concept with the
existential judgment. 138 However, in his later work Gilson discussed the concept as something achieved independently of the
judgment of existence.

v
One effect this study may have is to make the reader more
cautious about accepting as final any particular statement on
the concept of existence as given in any specific work by
Gilson. This point may be exemplified by this excerpt from
J\tisgr. Charles Hart's excellent survey, "Twenty-five Years of
Thomism."
The reason for the failure of so many philosophical systems to go
on to existence lies perhaps in the fact that existence cannot be
conceptualized as can nature or essence. Existence requires the
more perfect intellectual act of judgment. Existence is expressed
by saying a thing (nature or essence) is. Yet the human intellect,
by reason of its dependence on abstraction, tends much more
easily to think in concepts, to grasp forms or essences rather than
to make a judgment by which alone it can go onto the act of
essence, namely, its existence. 139

These remarks are based on the first edition of Being and Some
Philosophers. Would Gilson still subscribe to this position?
On the basis of the evidence submitted in this paper, it seems
unlikely. However, in two works which appeared in 1962, one
is left in doubt. One work is the second edition of L' etre et
l' essence 140 which, unlike the first edition, has two appendices.
Within one of them, it is disconcerting to read a summarized
version of the principal position given in the appendix to the
second edition of Being and Some Philosophers. 141 Again, in
The Philosopher and Theology Gilson has written:
138
139

Cf. ibid., p. 222.
New Scholasticism, XXV (1951) 15.

"

w

0

(Paris: Vrin).
Ibid., p. 351.

ETIENNE

GILSON

AND THE CONCEPT

OF EXISTENCE

337

the philosopher himself knows well enough that all he may
have said successively, all the different assertions which, understood to the letter, sometimes appear contradictory, still ring true
to him and from some point of view still meet with his approval.
A nian does not change simply because he tries to solve the same
problem over and over again, and especially not if the data include
an unknown quantity whose exact value will always escape him. 142

One naturally feels that Gilson has the problem of the concept
of existence foremost in mind. How appropriately this statement applies to his treatment of the concept of existence over
the years, the reader must decide for himself.
HARRY LA PLANTE

Detroit Institute of Technology
Detroit, .Uichigan

u• (New York: Random House, p. 7.

. UNDERSTANDING
BERNARD J. F.

I

ACCORDING TO
S.J.

PART II

N a previous article 1 we have outlined the cognitional
analysis given in the first part of Lonergan's Insight. Now
we may compare this with Lonergan's own outline of St.
Thomas' cognitional analysis. Here, we are not trying to judge
whether or not Lonergan is accurate in his interpretation of
Thomas' thought on this point. We wish, rather, to understand the interrelation of different stages of Lonergan's own
development. His summary of Thomas' cognitional analysis
presupposed, as already established, a metaphysics and a
rational psychology. We may briefly outline pertinent parts
of the Thomist theory in these terms.
From the experiences of the various internal and external
senses a phantasm or imaginative representation is formed.
The agent intellect illumines the phantasm, making the species
actually intelligible and impresses this species on the possible
intellect. The possible intellect, as a spiritual reality, is intelligible, at least in potency, as well as intelligent. When it
receives a determination through the coordinated activity of
the agent intellect and the phantasm, it has an intelligent
conscious awareness of the intelligible determination received.
What it understands is the nature of the material object represented in the phantasm, a type of knowing which is essentially
incomplete. In expressing what is understood and in seeking
to attain a profounder understanding man forms a 'verbum,'
which may be a concept, definition or hypothesis.
Does this verbum truly represent the object? This leads to
the second mental operation which is also a two step process.
The 'intelligere' proper to the second mental operation is a
1 " Understanding
according to Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S. J.-1" Hereafter, this
will be referred to as I.

338

UNDERSTANDING

ACCORDING

TO B. J. F. LONERGAN,

S. J.

339

reflection on the evidence available to support the prospective
judgment. Such a reflection involves a resolution into first
principles and, at least implicitly, a self-penetration by which
the soul is aware "in actu exercitu' both of its own essence as
spiritual and intelligible and of its own ability to know truth.
We know by what we are. This resolution is guided by the
virtue of wisdom. 'Vhen reflective understanding grasps the
consistency between the proposed judgment and the ultimate
term of the resolution, it is satisfied and is rationally impelled
to place a judgment. Only in such a judgment is formal truth
had.
Though Lonergan had labored many years elaborating his
analysis of Thomist cognitional theory, he did not explicitly
presupopse it in Insight. Rather, it would seem, the conclusions
drawn from his historical studies served as an heuristic structure guiding his cognitional analysis. The assumption underlying his methodology is: if the Thomist theory is valid it is so,
not because it is Thomist, nor because it is endorsed by a
venerable tradition, but simply and soleJy because it expresses
procedures and structures immanent and operative in human
knowing. Granted this principle, the true path to an adequate
cognitional theory begins with careful observation of various
cognitional processes and proceeds by way of analysis. It does
not begin by appropriating principles from texts or traditions
and then seek to impose these upon reality. Accordingly,
Lonergan's cognitional analysis dispenses with any a priori
principles, pre-established truths, or implicit assumptions. The
actual path he blazed began with the fact of experience that
we do have insights, new acts of understanding, then proceeded
to analyze the various types of knowing proper to the polymorphic consciousness of man, and finally concluded with the
basic characteristic of the three levels found in any complete
act of knowing: the levels of experience, understanding and
judgment.
This triple structure is the phenomenological counterpart of
• Insight, chap. xi.

340

EDWARD MAC KINNON

the sense experience leading to a phantasm and the two mental
operations previously considered. Also, the analysis of Insight
revealed that the second and third levels of knowing each
involve a two-step process. On the second level one first has an
insight, an understanding of the significance of some experience.
Then one attempts to express this insight in terms of concepts
or explain it through general principles. Thus, in physical,
mathematical, and common-sense knowing he rediscovered
Thomas' "intelligere " followed by a " dicere verbum." There
is a similar parallel between sufficient reflection leading to
judgment and Thomas' explanation of the intelligible emanation of the word characteristic of the second mental operation.
In both treatments the primary stress was given, not to the
structure of knowing with its attendant process of abstraction,
concept formation, reasoning and judgment, but to the active
intervention of intelligence which grounds and gives intelligibility to these processes.
In the Verbum series this stress was achieved by a meticulously elaborated explanation of Thomas' teaching on the inner
word as an intelligible emanation. A concept or judgment is
grounded in a conscious grasp of understanding and proceeds
as the rational expression of what is understood precisely
because it is understood. This is not an automatic quasimechanical process. In Insight Lonergan avoided teaching this
in a didactic way. Rather, he presented a variety of instances
in which insight was operative as the grasp of an· intelligible
unity in sensible data, showed how insights and higher insights
lead to concepts and definitions expressing what is understood
or hypotheses concerning the inner reason for the intelligible
unity detected, proceeded to judgment and showed how a
rational judgment issues, as a function of intelligence, from an
intelligent grasp of evidence sufficient to warrant the judgment.
The reader was urged to rethink these or similar examples,
reflect on the dynamism immanent and operative in his own
cognitional processes and come to an understanding of what it
means to understand. The cognitional analysis proper to both

UNDERSTANDING

ACCORDING TO B. J. F. LOXERGAN,

S. J.

341

studies is essentially the same. Lonergan did not intend to
develop a novel doctrine but to rethink, in a modern context,
the doctrine which Thomas developed, a doctrine which the
Thomistic tradition has often neglected or misinterpreted.
Strict adherance to this purposeful methodology left many
questions unanswered and, in fact, unasked. What is the nature
of the reality known? How can we be sure that our knowledge
represents reality rather than mental categories imposed on
reality? Such questions are neither simply disregarded nor
treated as trivial. Rather, they find their proper place in the
unfolding of Lonergan's methodology: thoroughly understand
what it is to understand and you will understand the broad
lines of all there is to be understood.
Our purpose in the present study is to understand, not the
broad lines of aU there is to be understood, but simply Lonergan's explanation of the nature and scope of understanding.
However, this can not be adequately grasped without considering
his explanation of the unfolding of understanding. In sketching
this we shall concentrate on the unity and intelligibility conferred on the study by his distinctive methodology and on
some conclusions, not generally held, which flow from his understanding of understanding.

III.

UNDERSTANDING

AND REALITY

We have considered in some detail Lonergan's analysis of
cognitional activity and his explanation of the invariant structure immanent and operative in all thinking processes. Before
tracing the unfolding of this analysis a precautionary note is
in order. Man is not a pure intellect. His consciousness, which
is his own experience of himself, can flow in various patterns
such as the practical, the dramatic, the aesthetic, and the
intellectual. The development of cognitional analysis through
the moving point of view demands a strict adherence to the
intellectual pattern. This is not, so to speak, a matter of being
on the side of the angels-in Aquinas' rather than Disraeli's
sense of the term. It is, rather, a matter of intellectual asceti-

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

cism: of attempting to understand the given data, of asking
questions and requiring reasonable answers, or refusing to assent to any hypothesis unless there is sufficient evidence to
warrant assent, of not fearing to commit oneself when the
evidence is judged to be sufficient. Above all, it is a matter of
reflection on one's own cognitional processes, trying to grasp
what it is to pass from ignorance to empirical awareness, from
confusion to understanding, from uncertainty to self-commitment.
The Development of Metaphysics
The preceding cognitional analysis concluded with an account of consciousness and suggests the proposition, " I am a
knower." Should this proposition be affirmed? The obvious
answer would seem to be that one must affirm it because it is
true. Such an answer, however, would short-circuit Lonergan's
presuppositionless methodology because it would implicitly presuppose a standard of truth which has yet to be established.
Lonergan treats this question by noting that one is naturally
impelled to answer " Yes," and asks whether or not it is really
possible to avoid such an answer. An answer of" No," i.e., the
proposition, " 'I am a knower ' should not be affirmed," implies
an understanding of the question and a reason for the negative
response. This reliance on understanding and reason implicitly
contradicts the "No." Perhaps one could simply keep silent?
The fact is that a man confronted with a question does not
keep silent unless he judges that it is a reasonable thing to do,
again implicitly affirming that he is a knower. Perhaps one
could evade this self-affirmation by replying "Yes," but considering this reply to be probable rather than certain, an answer
which is tentative on the basis of present evidence but subject
to possible revision. Such a reply might seem to have the merit
of scientific objectivity, for science proceeds by means of
tentative assumptions and subsequent revisions. Actually, the
attempted evasion confuses a theoretical explanation with a
judgment of fact. Even the scientists make judgment of factthis is a Geiger counter-and accepts them as final. Accord-

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343

ingly, Lonergan has reached one basic affirmation, the selfaffirmation of the knower, on which he can build with confidence.
Man is a knower-but what does he know? Again, this can
not be answered in a way consistent with Lonergan's self-set
rules by presupposing evidence not yet established. Rather,
one must begin with the self-affirmation of the knower, understanding that this implies a dynamic orientation impelling the
knower to seek new data, greater understanding, and surer
knowledge. On this basis Lonergan can answer that what man
knows and seeks to know is being. Being, in the present
context, is defined as the objective of the pure desire to know, 3
a definition which requires some clarification. This definition
does not flow from an insight in the sense that a concept or
hypothesis proceeds from an insight as an intelligible emanation. Since being is whatever is or can be known, an insight
into being would be an understanding of everything about
everything. Lacking such a universal insight, one must form
a second order definition, i.e., consider the notion of being, not
the concept in the sense of a 'verbum.' This second-order
definition does not define the meaning of the term 'being,' but
rather shows how the meaning is to be assigned. One may call
a 'being' whatever is known through intelligent grasp and
reasonable affirmation.
Frolll this definition the general characteristics proper to the
notion of being may be determined. Since being is whatever can
be known, the notion of being is completely unrestricted. Stemming from the dynamic orientation of the mind, the attitude of
' wonder' with which Aristotle began his metaphysics, the
notion of being precedes cognition and judgment. Yet it goes
beyond the known or even the merely thought and aspires to
existing reality, i.e., what would be attained through the
totality of correct judgments. It is all-pervasive, underpinning
and penetrating all cognitional contents and constituting them
as cognitional. It is the core of all meaning, for in an act of
• Insight, p. 348.

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

meaning we intend to state what is-and whatever is, is being.
Since the notion of being underpins and penetrates all cognitional contents it can be neither univocal nor equivocal, but
is analogous. It is not an abstract notion, for it does not
prescind from anything knowable. It is, rather, a concrete
notion, for the drive to know reaches a partial completion only
in judgment and achieves its ultimate fulfillment by knowing
all there is to know; and this is being. 4
Lonergan compares this notion of being with various other explanations of being elaborated by Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle,
various scholastic philosophers, and Hegel. 5 He concludes that
his theory is the same as St. Thomas' though it differs from the
view Cajetan attributed to St. Thomas. Cajetan defined being
in terms of the unity of a function of variable contents. The
contents are essence and existence. The unity is the relation of
what is conceived to its being affirmed. While this theory
applies to individual concrete beings it is inadequate to explain
the totality of being.
•Jn Verbum-1, 391 ff. he explained essentially the same concept of being (without distinguishing between concept and notion) through a somewhat different
approach based on the meaning of possibility. An act is objective when it does
occur; possible when it can occur. A potency is objective when the corresponding
act is possible. Accordingly, the objectivity of a potency is the condition of the
possibility of an act. The corresponding condition for the possibility of a potency
is its intelligibility. As this analysis is applied to being, a being is possible when
it is intelligible. The transition from the affirmation of the possibility of a being to
the affirmation of its actuality is dependent upon experience and is posited in a
judgment. The concepts which are fused in this judgment presuppose the concept
of being, for any concept is a concept of some thing, i.e., of .some being. Accordingly, the concept of being is implicitly included in every other concept and
judgment and can not be explained in terms of any other prior concept or judgment.
'Vhat is prior to the concept of being is some act of understanding through which
the intelligibility of a being is grasped. The concept of being is, accordingly,
nothing but a conceptualization of intelligibility as such, i. e., a realization of the
intelligibility potential in objects and actualizable by the mind. It follows from
this analysis that the denial of this concept, i.e., the affirmation of the complete
unintelligibility of an object is implicitly a self-contradiction. On this basis we can
understand St. Thomas' immediate derivation of the principle of non-contradiction
from the concept of being (" fundatur supra rationem en tis et non en tis") in
S. T. I-II, q. 94, a. 2, c.
• Insight, chap. xii, sec. 7.

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34.5

One more notion requires clarification before developing
metaphysics, the notion of objectivity. 6 This complex notion
can be distinguished into various aspects. The principal notion
of objectivity is found in a patterned context of judgments.
One defines, for example, objects A, B, C, ... through the
correctness of a set of judgments: A is; B is; C is; A is neither
B nor C; B is neither C norD, etc. The distinctive features of
this explanation are its emphasis on a pattern of judgments and
its explicit acceptance of the fact that the knower is within
being, not a subject apart looking at being. He affirms himself
by substituting " I am " for " A is."
Besides this principal notion there are various partial aspects.
Absolute objectivity is proper to an individual judgment-" I
am sitting." Its ground is the virtually unconditioned grasped
by reflective understanding and posited in judgment. Absolute
objectivity is basic in the sense that the principal notion of
objectivity derives its validity from the set of absolute judgments it involves. Yet it is the pattern of judgments, rather
than an individual judgment that is required to posit, distinguish, and relate being. Normative objectivity is another partial
aspect emphasizing the fact that the proper and immanent norm
of objectivity is the unfolding of the pure desire to know.
Finally there is experiential objectivity, which is simply "the
given " of experience and thought taken in its broadest and
most undifferentiated sense.
It should be noted that Lonergan has not yet attempted to
determine what is actually objective. He has simply noted the
fact that we do make judgments of objectivity, and he has tried
to explain, through the recondite art of implicit definition,
various aspects of the notion of objectivity. The only position
excluded is the supposition that inquiry and reflection, intelligence and reasonableness, have nothing to do with objectivity,
that what is really objective is the unquestioned immediately
given of experience.
Lonergan's development of metaphysics is a precisely ordered
• Ibid., chap. xiii.

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

and carefully elaborated unfolding of the implications of his
cognitional analysis. It can be judged only on the basis of a
detailed study of his development, not on the basis of a summary outline. Accordingly, we are not primarily interested in
reproducing his development here, but are concerned with
showing how his explanation of understanding functions in the
development of metaphysics. The cornerstone of his development is the realization that any philosophical formulation
which implicitly contradicts the laws immanent and operative
in cognitional processes inevitably involves a philosopher in
incoherence. Such a formulation either leads to its own reversal
or disguises its incoherence in an obscurantism garbed in the
pseudo-profoundity of ultimately meaningless questions. If this
is so, it is eminently reasonable to avoid such counterpositions
from the beginning and develop an explicit metaphysics which
is an intelligent and critical elaboration of the metaphysics implicit in our way of knowing. For this reason any development
in accord with the basic positions on knowing, on being, and on
objectivity already established is called a 'position,' in contrast
to the various 'counterpositions.'
Metaphysics is the science of being. The notion of being
underlies, penetrates, and goes beyond all other notions. Accordingly, metaphysics is the department of human knowledge
that underlies, penetrates, transforms and unifies all other
departments. If one defines 'proportional being' as being proportionate to human knowing through experience, intelligent
grasp, and reasonable affirmation, then one can define metaphysics so that it is simply an expansion of the basis found in
cognitional theory: " Now let us say that explicit metaphysics
is the conception, affirmation, and implementation of the
integral heuristic structure of proportionate being." 7
A heuristic notion, as previously explained in I, is the notion
of an unknown content which is determined by anticipating
the type of act through which the unknown would become
known. An heuristic structure is the ordered set of heuristic
7

Ibid., p. 391.

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347

notions. An integral heuristic structure is the ordered set of all
heuristic notions. A metaphysics developed in accord with this
definition would be materially dependent on the sciences and
on common sense, for these supply the instances of knowing
proper to the polymorphic consciousnes of man. It would be
formally dependent on cognitional theory which exhibits the
invariant structure found in all knowing. It would be heuristic
inasmuch as metaphysics supplies the empty forms which
science and common sense fill.
A syllogism is an apt tool for exposing the skeletal outline of
his methodical development. The major premise simply establishes the isomorphism that obtains between the invariant
structure of the knowing and the composition of the known.
Lonergan summarizes this premise:
If the knowing consists of a related set of acts and the known is the

related set of the contents of these acts, then the pattern of the
relation between the acts is similar in form to the pattern of the
relations between the contents of these acts. This premise is
analytic. 8
The minor of his expository syllogism is subdivided into a
primary minor premise, a series of affirmations of concrete and
recurring structures in the knowing of the self-affirming subject,
and a secondary minor premise, which is supplied by scientific
and common-sense knowledge, after they have been properly
reoriented.
What sort of conclusions flow from this supple syllogism?
The structure of all knowing of proportionate being involves
experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation. A
corresponding trilogy must obtain in the proportionate known,
both the presently known and whatever would be known in a
full explanation of the whole domain of proportionate being.
With respect to this fully explanatory knowledge heuristically
anticipated one may define 'potency' as the component of proportionate being to be known in fully explanatory knowledge
by an intellectually patterned experience of the empirical
• Ibid., p. 899.

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EDWARD MACKINNON

residue. It is the component of being isomorphic to experience
(in Lonergan's technical sense of 'experience') , not nude experience, but experience as a constitutive part of full knowledge.
Similarly 'form ' denotes the component of proportionate being
to be known by understanding things fully in their relation to
one another. Finally, 'act' denotes the component of proportionate being to be known by uttering the virtually unconditioned 'Yes ' of reasonable affirmation. As the three levels of
cognitional activity yield a single knowing, so potency, form
and act constitute a single thing, for one and the same thing is
experienced, understood, and affirmed.
The elements of metaphysics have been defined in accord
with our way of knowing. But we can know things in two
significantly different ways: The abstract laws of science express a knowledge of things as they are related to other things.
To know a thing precisely as a thing is to grasp and affirm it as
a unity, identity, whole. The isomorphism which serves as a
major in the development of metaphysics demands a corresponding duality in the elements of metaphysics. In considering both types of elements it is convenient to begin with form,
for it is the form that is understood and specified by a
definition.
'Central' form corresponds to the concrete and intelligible
unity grasped in understanding a thing and required to understand change. Central act is existence, for this is what is
affirmed. Since central form is the intelligible uriity of data as
individual, central potency may be identified with the individuality of the empirical residue.
Classical scientific method leads to the formulation and verification of abstract propositions which express in a systematic
way the relation of things to other things. These empirically
verified explanatory relations implicitly define terms which are
grasped by understanding and may be called' conjugate forms.'
The corresponding conjugate act is occurrence, for this is what
is verified in a judgment affirming the relations defining a
conjugate form. Since these forms are verified in spatia-tern-

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349

poral continua, connections, and successiotts, these aspects of
the empirical residue are called the conjugate potency.
The conclusions derived in this novel way may be compared
with the traditional scholastic doctrines on act and potency.
The 'central form ' as defined above is essentially the same as
the ' substantial form ' of the Aristotelian- Thomistic tradition,
and central potency and act basically are the same as prime
matter and the act of existence. 'Conjugate form,' however,
differs from the standard Aristotelian- Thomistic doctrine of
' accidental form.' The reason is that Aristotle's understanding
of accidental form was derived from descriptive knowledge
while Lonergan's explanation of conjugate form is based on
explanatory knowledge. A similar disparity holds for Lonergan's explanation of conjugate potency and act.
This completes our survey of Lonergan's approach to metaphysics. His further development of these elements requires a
consideration of other types of understanding, which we are
now in a position to treat.

Genetic and Dialectical Understanding
The isomorphism that obtains between knowing and the
known, and the dynamic orientation impelling man from experience to full knowing suggest a corresponding dynamism
impelling potency to a succession of higher forms and acts. An
explanation of this general topic involves not only different
genera and species but their ordered interrelation as well. In
his treatment of genetic understanding, Lonergan attempts to
explicate and systematize the cognitional methods and tools
spontaneously used in treating such a problem. He begins with
a doctrine of genera and species based on explanatory conjugates and heuristic anticipations, rather than descriptive
knowledge. The conjugate forms proper to this type of knowing are implicitly defined not only by the explanatory relations
heuristically anticipated but also by the possible schemes of
recurrence. To explain these Lonergan uses a language and

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

methodology appropriated from the mathematical set theory. 9
Instead of summarizing his development in its full generality we
shall concentrate on the simplest case and try to communicate
the basic ideas involved.
A collection of atoms may simply be juxtaposed or may
form a molecule. The first instance involves a simple coincidence of conjugate acts; the atoms simply happen to be near
each other. In the molecular case an otherwise coincidental
manifold of lower conjugate acts invite the higher integration
effected by a higher conjugate form. In other words, this higher
form emerges and is grasped by a distinct act of understanding.10 Obviously, the new form must correspond to the disposition of the manifold being integrated.
A generalization of this and similar examples leads to the
idea of development, a flexible, linked sequence of dynamic and
increasingly differentiated higher integrations that meet the
tension of successively transformed underlying manifolds
through successive applications of the principles of correspondence and emergence. Just as an act of understanding is needed
to grasp each specific form, so a special type of understanding
is needed to grasp the regularity of events or conjugate acts and
the schemes of possible recurrence relating the sequence of
systems. This may be called genetic understanding. It leads to
concepts, definitions, and hypotheses which are subject to
verification through a judgment on the evidence that supports
them.
Among the various hypotheses generated by Lonergan's
genetic understanding the most interesting is the one concerning integrators and operators. A system is integrated through
the emergence of a new conjugate form in an otherwise coincidental manifold. The upwardly directed dynamism of being
which metaphysics calls finality is now conditioned by the
instability of the underlying manifold and the incompleteness of
the integration that unifies it. Accordingly, the newly inte9

Ibid., chap. xv. sect. 3.
Ibid., chap. xv. sect. 6. Rather

surprisingly
emergence of ceutral forms in this context.
10

he says nothing

about

the

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351

grated system becomes an operator striving, through the
principles of correspondence and emergence, for its own replacement through a more specific and effective integration. Through
the use of such concepts and principles genetic understanding
can grasp the intelligible sequence linking the emergence of an
atom from sub-atomic particles, of a molecule from atoms; the
dynamic interrelation linking physical, vegetable, sensitive and
intelligent forms in a hierarchical sequence; and the natural
processes operative in the intellectual and spiritual growth of
man individually and collectively. Lonergan, to be sure, does
not attempt an explanation of these various interrelations. But
he does suggest cognitional tools which he considers appropriate
for anyone who wishes to make such an attempt.
Dialectical method and understanding is treated intermittently in Insight as the moving point of view suggests various
pertinent elements and aspects. In gathering these scattered
threads we shall begin with a simple example which affords a
basis for the requisite insight, show how this is generalized in
dialectical method, and then point out special uses of this
method in Insight.
In the development of knowledge one desires not merely
understanding of isolated things or fragmentary aspects of
things; one naturally desires a coherence in understanding.
Logic may be defined as the effort of knowledge to attain the
coherence and organization proper to any stage of its development. 'Vhat happens when such an effort to achieve coherence
leads to frustration rather than unified intelligibility? The
dynamism of man's mind struggling to comprehend reality
strives to bring to birth a new and higher stage of integration
in which the lower level conflicts and tensions can be resolved.
Such striving is an integral part of the life history of the individual and the race, and manifests itself in dialogue, in the
conflict of philosophical positions and in the very history of
human developments. Dialectical method is simply an attempt
to explicate in an intelligent and critical manner the method

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

immanent and operative in this type of human thinking. 11
This, it should be noted, differs from the dialectic of Hegel, a
conceptual system which seeks to impose necessary solutions
upon reality. 12 Lonergan is simply explicating a general form
which is applicable to any pure unfolding of linked but opposed
principles that are modified cumulatively by their unfolding.
This supplies the general form of a critical attitude which is
worked out differently in different fields.
Perhaps the significance of this method can best be seen by
considering the dialectic that pervades every account of cognitional analysis Lonergan gives. An animal knows, not merely
phenomena, but real existing bodies: the cat knows the mouse;
the dog knows the bone, etc. Sense knowledge, in other words,
admits of its own sense-level integration. Man, as simple reflection reveals, is also capable of such a sense-level integration
(through what St. Thomas called the 'sensus communis'). In
addition to this sense-level integration there is also a specifically
human intellectual way of knowing, which involves asking
questions, obtaining insights, reflecting, and judging. This
higher level of operation neither denies nor excludes the senselevel integration. Rather it uses it as a matter on which the
intellect operates.
Few, unfortunately, have the critical cognitional insight
required to grasp this distinction and its practical significance.
Sense-level integration has the immediacy and directness of
experience as simply given. Prior to questioning, it is also prior
to doubt. There is, accordingly, an easy and almost automatic
tendency to accept the sensitive integration of sensitive data
as man's most basic knowledge of reality, the ultimate standard
of judgment and evaluation. Such an acceptance generates its
own metaphysics, an implicit metaphysics which passes for
hard-headed realism. Reality, in this metaphysics, is a collection of bodies which are simply thought of as ' already out
11 A brief explanation
of dialectical method is given on p. 244. The use of this
method is basic to the development of chap. xvii.
12 This difference is explained on pp. 421-2.

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there.' Man know them by the simple direct process of' taking
a look.' 1\:Ian, to be sure, can ask questions, raise doubts, and
propose theories. But these are to be resolved by checking the
conclusion with the reality already known. Such an attitude
engenders what Lonergan designates "the flight from understanding." A campaign against this flight is one of the basic
purposes of Insight.
Lonergan's own position on this matter can be most concisely explained through the terms developed in the last section.
An insight is the grasp of an intelligible unity in an otherwise
coincidental manifold of sense-data. The integration is on a
new and higher level which can not be explained by resolution
to the constitutive parts integrated. Yet, through the principles
of emergence and correspondence, the newly grasped intelligible
form is consistent with the material dispositions present in the
manifold of sense data. For every integrator there is an operator. The operator of intelligence is the detached, disinterested
desire to know. Other motives may influence the action of
the individual: desire for success, financial advantages associated with increased knowledge, etc. Such motives are not
immanent in the knowing process and, if they are dominant,
can only serve to distort normal development, directing it away
from its proper goal, a unified understanding of whatever is to
be understood.
A sense-level integration can supply the matter that intelligence probes and seeks to understand. But it is radically and
totally incapable of answering the questions set by intelligence.
True intellectual progress requires not only a critical and explicit recognition of this but also a strict adherence to the implications of this recognition. Lonergan has stressed this
through a dialectical development, repeatedly contrasting the
two opposed ideas of knowledge, sensitive integration regarded
as primary and the implementation of the pure desire to know.
Thus, there was the contrast between body, the 'already out
there now real' known by 'taking a look,' and thing, which
depends in a critical way on the process of questions, in-

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

sights, hypotheses, and reasoning. 13 Self-knowledge is developed through the same dialectic. Man can be thought o£ as
'knowing' himself through a pre-intellectual awareness, by
somehow intuiting or perceiving himself. When one seeks to
reconcile the duality o£ seer and seen implicit in this view with
the unity o£ conscious awareness he encounters such insoluble
pseudo-profundities as: "How can man, as subject, intuit
himself as object? " I£ however, one uses 'know' with a
realization o£ the three-tiered structure it implies, then man
knows himself, as he knows anything else, through intelligent
and reasonable self-affirmation. Such an affirmation does not
exclude conscious awarenes o£ self as subject, but simply insists
on judgment as the ultimate criterion o£ reality. 14 Similarly,
there are two notions o£ objectivity: one based on a comparison
o£ knowledge with the given o£ pre-intellectual experience; and
one which bases objectivity on a patterned context o£ judgments.
Man, as a philosopher, is not immune £rom the oversights
and misunderstandings proper to man as an individual. Thus,
the contrast between a naive and a critical attitude toward
knowing finds its metaphysical counterpart in the dialectic
which obtains between positions and counter-positions. Since
both have entered the history o£ thought the abstract possibility o£ a dialectic emerges as a dialogue between different
philosophers and philosophical traditions. Dialectical understanding is a general form enabling one to place various
philosophies by determining their fundamental positions and
counter-positions, tracing the development o£ positions and the
tendency o£ counterpositions to bring about their own reversal. 15
Ibid., chap. viii.
Ibid., chap. xi.
15 Lonergan
generally attributes to Scotus the transition from the position, as
given by St. Thomas, to the counter position and feels that the influence of this
transition in the subsequent interpretation of St. Thomas is far from negligible.
In Insight, chap. xiv, sect. 4, he used the dialectical method to trace the further
development of these two opposed stands. Empiricism presents the most explicit
statement of the basic counter-position and warrants the harsh appraisal: "Empiricism, successive clarification " (p. 412).
13

14

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355

Now that we have outlined Lonergan's teaching on genetic
and dialectical understanding we may consider the manner in
which the various types of understanding are integrated in his
metaphysics-centered synthesis. 16 His mode of development is
schematized in the military metaphor of a break-through, an
envelopment, and a confinement. The break-through is one's
affirmation of self as empirically, intelligently, and rationally
am a knower-breaks
consciOus. This self-affirmation-!
through the previous exclusive concentration of processes of
knowing and affirms a knowing being. This in turn leads to the
envelopment through the protean notion of being as whatever
is known through intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation.
The confinement is effected through the dialectical opposition
of the twofold notions of the real, of knowing, and of objectivity. On this dialectical basis one can divide the formulations
of human intelligence into positions, which invite development,
and counter-positions which invite reversal. The integral
heuristic structure of proportionate being which Lonergan erects
on this foundation can be analyzed into four moments.
1. Dialectical criticism transforms common-sense and science
to provide the secondary minor premise in the expository
syllogism given earlier. The transformation in question does
not mean that the metaphysician attempts to change science or
direct the work of the scientist. What it does imply is that the
metaphysician abstracts from the work of the scientist instances of insight, heuristic structures, and developed system
which reveal man's characteristic ways of knowing in their
proper complexity.
2. Cognitional analysis brings to light four methods of
possible inquiry, the conditions of their use, and the possibility
of their integration. These four methods are not listed as an
arbitrary selection, but as a critical explication of the ways in
which the mind of man actually functions in attempting to
penetrate the significance of the data of experience.
18

Ibid., chap. xv, sect. 8.

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

Understanding leads to the formulation of systems. Heuristic
method anticipates the finding of such systems in strategically
selected data. Cognitional analysis of such heuristic systems
allows a convenient and natural classification and an explanation of the significance of the different types of systems. Thus,
if one anticipates a constant system to be discovered, he is
employing the method previously explained as classical method.
The anticipation of a related sequence of systems is genetic
method. The anticipation that data will not conform to a
system grounds statistical method. Finally, the anticipation
that successive stages of a changing system will not be directly
intelligible grounds dialectical method. Any orderly attempt
to understand can fit into <>ne of these four procedures.
Suppose, however, that a man anticipates nothing and simply
looks at the data. Such a simple unquestioning acceptance
makes the emergence of any insight a fortuitous, isolated, and
relatively ineffective event.
Besides these methods of knowing data in terms of general
structures and abstract systems there is also the grasp of data
as individual. This requires a distinctive type of understanding,
one that grasps concrete unities, identities, wholes. This type of
understanding was explained in the previous discussion of
'things.' These five ways of understanding constitute the principal minor premise of the expository syllogism.
3. Metaphysical understanding unites the principal and
secondary minor premises to obtain the integral heuristic structure of the universe. Though an integral heuristic structure is
the anticipatory outline of what would be known by affirming
a complete explanation of experience, its significance does not
lie in some remote future when these anticipations may be
fulfilled. Its significance, rather, lies in the present, in an
explicit acceptance and critical deployment of the order immanent in any knowing, past, present, or future.
4. The final moment establishes the isomorphism that
obtains between the knowing and the known. The pattern of
relations immanent in the structure of cognitional acts, present

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357

or anticipated, must be found in the contents of these acts as
they occur. It follows that the structure of the known is isomorphic to the structure of the knowing. Accordingly, Lonergan denotes by 'act' what is known inasmuch as one under-stands; and by 'potency' what is known inasmuch as one
experiences the empirical residue. Thus, the basic structure of
the known is obtained.
To the distinctive type of understanding that grasps the
unity, identity, whole in data corresponds central form, which
has a corresponding act and potency. The various methods of
understanding data express the relations of things to other
things. These relations implicitly define terms which are
grasped as conjugate forms, with their appropriate acts and
potency. Finally, the structural unification of these methods by
generalized emergent probability leads to the structural account of explanatory genera and species, and ultimately to the
immanent order of the universe of proportionate being.
The method of developing metaphysics outlined here is,
Lonergan admits, not the one followed by Aristotle, Aquinas,
or Scholastics in general. Yet, he feels, it leads to essentially
the same metaphysical elements. Moreover, the new method
achieves these results without making Aristotelian physics a
mummy to be preserved incorrupt and rendered unceasing and
uncritical veneration.

Transcendent Knowledge
" Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not
only will -you understand the broad lines of all there is to be
understood but also you will possess a fixed base, and invariant
pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding." 17 The rich variety of subjects integrated into a unified
synthesis in the remainder of In..<tight vindicates and fulfills this
promise. As one would expect from the preceeding development, Lonergan is more concerned with methods and patterns
of understanding than with factual details. Thus the science of
17

Ibid., P- xxvili.

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

metaphysics is explained with an emphasis on the power of a
method rather than the details of development. 18 The relation
of metaphysics to pre-metaphysical thought is explained by a
skillful use of genetic and dialectic method in which Lonergan
shows how self-knowledge and a consequent metaphysics develops from the confused mythic consciousness, which is essentially the absence of critical self-knowledge. 19
In a subsequent section Lonergan gives a general theory of
interpretation and canons for a methodical hermeneutics. 20 He
feels that these canons should exercise a function in interpretation analogous to that of mathematics in the physical sciences.
The basis of these canons in Lonergan's explanation of understanding and the conclusion flowing from it that in any interpretation of a document, whether the document be an ancient
one or the text of a fellow philosopher, the proximate source of
meaning lies in the interpreter's own experience, understanding
and judgment. His discussion of the basis of ethics extends his
previous analysis from rational and intelligent consciousness to
moral self-consciousness. 21
These developments and others which we have not mentioned follow in a methodically ordered way from the unfolding
of the pure desire to know and lead to the most fundamental
problem that intelligence faces. This is the problem of an
ultimate understanding of reality or a higher viewpoint in
which the specialized and limited aspects of knowing and being
are unified in an intelligible way. The isomorphism between
knowing and the known implies the conclusion that the requisite higher viewpoint is a concrete possibility only as a
consequence of an actual higher integration. This is a question
of fact: is there such a higher integration? Any attempt to
Ibid., chap. xvi.
Ibid., chap. xvii, sect. 1.
20 Ibid., sect. 3.
21 Ibid., chap. xviii. I found his explanation
of essential and effective freedom
the most intelligible treatment of this problem I've ever read. Unfortunately, a
summary of this would lead us somewhat astray from the central theme of this
study.
16

19

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359

answer this question leads the questioner out of the realm of
proportionate being and into the realm of transcendent being.
Lonergan's treatment of transcendent knowledge involves
not only a carefully articulated and methodically developed
extension of human knowing into the realm of the transcendent,
but also a survey of the implications of the affirmations of a
transcendent being. 22 Since our primary concern here is with
the completion of his explanation of understanding we shall
expose the nerve of the argument. It may be summarized in
four steps:
I. Being is intelligible. Being is the object of the pure
desire to know and, in fact, we do know. What is unknowable
is non-being.
2. An explanation confined to the realm of proportionate
being reduces being to unintelligibility. This may be seen from
a consideration of causality, considering causality the objective
counterpart of the questions asked by the detached and disinterested desire to know. The attempt to understand the
given leads to questions concerning internal and external causes.
The answer to these questions is had only in a judgment
affirming the virtually unconditioned. The objective correlative
of such a judgment is existence or occurrence. Either this
existence or occurrence simply happens or it is explicable
through some further cause. H it simply happens then the
question of the intellect is unanswered; the virtually unconditioned is not reached; reasonable judgment is impossible; and
being is simply not known. In a word, mere matter of fact is
nothing.
H this existence or occurrence is explicable it is so either
through other proportionate beings or through transcendent
being. However, proportionate beings are virtually unconditioned. That is, they are conditioned and can be affirmed only
•• This summary is from chap. xix, " General Transcendent Knowledge." Chap.
xx, "Special Transcendent Knowledge" is a pre-apologetics based on the problem of
evil and presenting a heuristic structure of the solution. The arguments given are,
to some extent, a modem statement of the considerations given by St. Thomas in
Summa Contra Gentiles, I, cc. 3-9, and S. T., 1-11, q. 109.

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

when their conditions are fulfilled. To remain in this realm,
accounting for one happening by another, is simply to change
the topic without meeting the issue. Accordingly, if being is
to be intelligible one must go beyond the realm of proportionate
being.
3. Some of the attributes which a transcendent being must
have can be determined. This does not involve a special intuition of a peculiar way of knowing. It is simply a process of
asking questions and demanding intelligible and reasonable
answers. Metaphysical analysis led to the conclusion that
proportionate being is radically unintelligible unless there is
an ultimate intelligible integration in act. By a transcendent
being the metaphysician, who is following the way of analysis,
means the being who supplies the basis for this integration.
That is, the transcendent being must be an unrestricted act of
understanding. This may be considered both from the viewpoint of the understood and also from that of the act of
understanding.
From the viewpoint of the understood, what is understood is
being. Being is completely universal and completely concrete.
An understanding of being must be an unrestricted act that
understands everything about everything. This lack of restriction means that the act is not in the domain of proportionate
being, and is, by definition, transcendent.
A consideration of this act with respect to the understanding
itself must be based on a realization of what it means to
understand. The basic counter-position, which equivalently
considers knowing as an intellectual looking at reality, logically
requires an ultimate duality between the knowing and the
known. On the position, however, that knowing is knowing
being, the ultimate question is, not the duality of knowing and
known, but the significance of 'intelligible.'
Intelligibility may be either material, or spiritual, or abstract.23 Material intelligibility is proper to anything that can
23 These different types of intelligibility
are explained in chap. xvi, sect. 4. 8.
Their application to the present problem is on p. 674.

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be known through experience, understanding, and judgment,
but which does not itself understand or judge. Besides the
potential, formal, and actual intelligibility of what is known
there is a potential, formal and actual knowing. This intelligibility that is also intelligent is called spiritual. Abstract intelligibility reveals the correspondence between the material
intelligibility that is understood and the spiritual intelligibility
that is understanding.
Direct understanding abstracts from the empirical residue.
Accordingly, the empirical residue is what material intelligibility includes and spiritual intelligibility excludes. Since the
metaphysical equivalent of the empirical residue is prime
potency, prime potency is prime matter. It follows that the
spiritual is that which is neither constituted nor conditioned
intrinsically by the empirical residue, i.e., by matter.
If we examine the notion of an unrestricted act of understanding in the light of these considerations, it is clear that
such an unrestricted act can not be material intelligibility.
This is necessarily incomplete since it is grounded _in the
empirical residue. Nor can it be abstract intelligibility, for this,
by the very process of abstracting, is necessarily incomplete.
Nor, finally can an unrestricted act of understanding be the
type of spiritual intelligibility that inquires, for this implies
incompleteness and restriction. Accordingly, the unrestricted
act of understanding must be a spiritual intelligibility which
possesses an unrestricted understanding without any change
from potency to act. Such an unrestricted act must be unrestricted intelligibility as well as unrestricted intelligence. Because of this twofold unrestrictedness it is possible to distinguish between the primary component in the idea of being,
which is identical with this restricted act's understanding of
itself, and a secondary component, whatever else is understood.
Since the primary component is both unrestricted intelligibility and unrestricted intelligence, the intelligibility and intelligence must, if they are to be truly unrestricted, be completely identical. It follows that the secondary component is

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

understood, not by abstraction or deduction, but in the single
simple act of perfect identity by which the unrestricted intelligence grasps itself as unrestricted. Such a being is traditionally
called God.
4. The final step is the affirmation of the existence of God.
The attempt to understand the beings of experience has led to
the hypothesis of God as the ultimate explanation of intelligibility. "Does God exist?" is a question to be answered, not by
an analysis of the meaning of the terms, but only by reflective
understanding which grasps the statement, "God exists," as
virtually unconditioned. This is summarized in a syllogism in
which the major links the conditioned (not God's existence, but
our statement of His existence) to its conditions while the
minor affirms these conditions.
"If the real is completely intelligible, God exists.
But the real is completely intelligible.
Therefore, God exists." 24

The argument supporting the major was given under (3).
The proof of the minor is essentially a capping of the development up to this point. Being is intelligible, for being is what is
known by correct understanding. And being is completely
intelligible, for it is known completely only when all intelligent
questions are answered. This complete coincidence of the real
and the intelligible is the ultimate consequence flowing from an
acceptance of the basic position and a rejection of the basic
counterposition. With this achievement of complete intelligibility-at least in its radical principle-Lonergan has fulfilled
the promise he made to his readers some seven hundred pages
earlier: thoroughly understand what it is to understand and
you will understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood.
With this achievement the analytic process, resolution of
knowledge to its ultimate intrinsic and extrinsic principles, has
been completed. The terminal point of the analytic process
•• Ibid., p. 672.

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363

should, in its turn, serve as the starting point of the synthetic
process, a unified understanding of reality in terms of the
ultimate principles attained by analysis. Such a synthetic
process is merely sketched in Insight. The reason for this
apparent neglect seems to be, not Lonergan's failure to recognize the need for such a synthetic understanding, but his hope
of achieving it on a higher level, of effecting a theological
synthesis.
Theological Understanding
The monumental theological and philosophical synthesis
elaborated by Thomas Aquinas remains a peak which human
thought has rarely approached and never surpassed. Yet, in
many essential respects traditional Thomism does not meet the
needs of our time. Its philosophy has not adequately integrated
modern advances in knowledge, nor even presented a fully
satisfactory self-justification in the light of the contemporary
critical problem. Its theology, at present, is somewhat fragmented, with Scripture, Patristics, speculative and moral theology in separate compartments. A modern synthesis must not
only integrate these and other elements; it must also include in
its very structure an explicit recognition of the dynamic development of human understanding, individual and collective,
responsible for these advances.
Effecting such a synthesis is, in Lonergan's view, essentially
a question of methodology, a methodology which recognizes,
distinguishes, and unifies the diverse modes through which
human understanding develops. To get some glimpse of this,
the ultimate goal towards which the works and writings of
Lonergan seem to be directed, we must consider his explanation
of theological understanding. Theology, in the Catholic tradition presupposes revelation, a radically new source of information, and faith, an infused virtue by which one assents to
revealed truth. It also introduces distinctive problems of understanding, our sole concern here. Lonergan, a dogmatic theologian by profession, has made a significant contribution to
the problem of understanding the nature of theological under-

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

standing. We shall endeavor to summarize his views briefly and
then indicate their pertinence to the project, whether real or
conjectural, of an all-inclusive synthesis. 25
To limit this exposition we shall focus on Lonergan's explanation of one problem which arches over all other theological
problems, the problem of doctrinal development. It is an
accepted historical fact that many distinctively Catholic doctrines were not explicitly taught in Scripture or in the early
Church. The existence of seven and only seven sacraments of
divine institution was made explicit, for the first time, about
the year 1145 in the Sententiae Divinitatis of the school of
Gilbert of Poitiers. The clear distinction between the natural
and the supernatural, so basic to contemporary Catholic theology, was not formally taught before 1230. Even such fundamental Christian doctrines as the Trinity and divinity of
Christ were defined by the Church through such technical
terms as nature, person and " homoousion" foreign to the
Semitic style so evident in Scripture.
Such developments present no serious problem to the
Modernist, who claims that these doctrines simply evolved,
nor for many neo-orthodox Protestants, who would consider
many of these developments to be corruptions of the pristine
revelation. The Catholic theologian, however, must not only
accept such developments, but must also reconcile them with
the beliefs that public revelation ended with the death of the
last Apostle and that defined dogma is completely coherent
with revelation. The solution, universally accepted at least in
a generic way, is that the development in question is basically
a development in understanding, bringing what is implicitly
and virtually rPvealed into the focus of explicit awareness and
commitment. It is a question of transposition and equivalence:
transposition from a mode of thinking proper to Scripture to
25 Lonergan's
explanation of theological understanding may be found in the
50 page introduction to Divinarum Personarum, in his article, "Theology and
Understanding," Gregorianum, XXXV (1954), 633-48, and through analysis of his
treatment of particular theological problems.

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365

one proper to theology; equivalence between the basic doctrinal
content of the two modes.
Lonergan has developed an arsenal of conceptual tools for
attacking problems of understanding. He brings them all to
bear on. the nature of theological understanding. He begins
with the basic distinction between the " an sit" and the " quid
sit;" the question of the true, to be answered in a judgment
concerning the existence of the true, and the question of the
intelligible to be met by theological understanding. 26 Theology
is distinct from all other intellectual disciplines in its ordering
of these two operations. In other sciences understanding of
data leads to the formulation of hypotheses and theories and
terminates in a judgment concerning the validity of laws and
the limits of their application. A definitive judgment of dogma
is beyond the competence of a private theologian. Such a judgment is made by the teaching Church and is based, not on
a complete understanding of the truth defined, but on the
authority of God revealing. The speculative theologian in the
Catholic tradition begins by accepting a judgment of truth and
seeks a deeper though still obscure understanding of the truth
accepted on faith. More concisely, he accepts the answer to the
question, " an sit," and concentrates on the " quid sit."
In theology, as in philosophy, one may distinguish between
an analytic process, which proceeds from data to conclusions
and pronounces on the truth of these conclusions, and a
synthetic process, which seeks a unified understanding of the
many through the one which is ontologically prior. Thus the
terminal point of the analytic process serves as the starting
point of the synthetic process, while the synthetic process, in
its turn, adds a distinct formal intelligibility to the truths with
which the analytic process commenced. Both processes are
essentially concerned with the level of understanding, i. e., with
the question of the "quid sit," rather than with a definitive
judgment of truth. Yet, both processes are related to a judgment of truth through the revealed truths which precede these
•• The significance of these two mental operations was treated in the first part
of I.

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processes and by the degree to which the conclusions flowing
from theological understanding are consonant with the mind
and doctrine of the Church.
In considering the noetic problems proper to each process
and their interrelation we shall concentrate on one
the
one which Lonergan has treated in greatest detail, the development of the doctrine of the Trinity. Scripture and primitive
tradition reflect, in general, a common sense (or " quoad nos")
mode of understanding. The terms used are common, cultureconnected, and non-technical. Things are considered primarily
in terms of their relation to the subject, a Semitic subject with
highly personalized categories of thought. Thus, God is presented, in G. Ernest Wright's apposite phrase, as "He who
acts," the One who calls Abraham, chooses a people, speaks to
the prophets, rewards and punishes his people. Similarly, the
Trinity is presented primarily in terms of missions, The Father
sending the Son into the world as its Redeemer, the Spirit as
sent by the Father and Son to continue the work of redemption.
The development of Trinitarian doctrine through the Council
of Nicea could be described as a transposition, often a troubled
one, from a way of understanding based on common sense
knowledge and familiar analogies to a way of understanding
based on a precise statement of the central truth involved. In
explaining this transposition as an analytic process, Lonergan
utilizes his theory of knowledge to interpret the inner dynamics
of the development. He does this, not by casting history in a
pre-established mold, but by painstaking positive theology
illuminated by his understanding of the psychological processes
at work. Here, we shall neglect the positive theology and
siphon off the noetic elements. 27
The earliest discussions of the Trinity exhibit a peculiarly
Semitic nominalism, in which a name (such as "Father")
somehow represents a personality. The Gnostics initiated an
abstract treatment of this subject based on their theory of
27 The historical development of Trinitarian theory through the Council of Nicea
is contained in Lonergan's De Deo Trino: Pars Analytica, pp. 13-113.

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367

processions. Their theological aberrations induced many early
Fathers to reject such a mode of explanation and the use of
such abstract terms as "homoousion" (consubstantial) introduced by the Gnostics. Yet the drive to understand in a deeper
way the doctrine believed on faith perdured and led to new
attempts at explanation. The naive realism of Tertullian illustrates the early stage of this development. In explaining the
distinction between the Father and the Son he placed excessive
reliance on images: speaking a word, water from a font, light
from the sun. These clarified the meaning of the generation of
the Son but seemed incompatible with the unity of substance
between the Two. The tension arising from such apparent
contradictions is the dialectical spur goading theologians into
new approaches.
Origen, conditioned by Alexandrian Neo-Platonism, purified
Trinitarian thought of the materialism inherent in earlier more
imaginative thinking by insisting on the spirituality of God and
the spiritual generation of the Son. The Platonic notion of
participation, which he used to explain this generation, carried,
as a dissonant overtone, the implication that the Father is
superior to the Son. Origen, who was not much of a metaphysician, could not clarify this difficulty. Arius attempted to do so
by insisting that the Son is a super-creature essentially inferior
to the Father.
St. Athanasius may be taken as the proper terminal point
in
analytic development. His method of reasoning, which is
our concern here, may be summarized in four steps. First, he
obtained his initial idea of consubstantiality from apt images.
Secondly, he based the principles by which these ideas are
explained on reason and faith. Third, he interpreted the images
traditional to Trinitarian theory in the light of these principles.
Finally, he concluded with a precise statement of the fundamental truth involved: everything which is said of the Father
is also said of the Son, except the name Father. This decisive
statement transcended the imaginative thinking and limited
understanding of earlier attempts at explanation.

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

This was the doctrine taught by the Council of Nicea, that
the Son is consubstantial with the Father. In this pronouncement, the Council implicitly taught a doctrine of critical realism, that truth is expressed in judgment. It also sanctioned,
again implicitly, theological development proceeding according
to the exigencies of the human mind: from the reliance on
imaginative images used to generate some insight into the
mysteries accepted on faith; through the limited understanding
of things through their causes achieved with the aid of philosophical reasoning; to the definitive judgment in which a precise
term is used to express the truth previously fragmented in
varying images. Lonergan's earlier development of experience,
insight, and judgment and his explanation of dialectical method
generated heuristic anticipations which made it easier to understand the inner dynamics of this development. The success he
has achieved is a concrete illustration of the power and frutifulness of his methodology.
Parallel, and to some extent intertwined, with the analytic
process sketched above was the authentication of truth through
the definitive judgment of the Church. This authentication
supplies the truths basic to the synthetic process while analysis
yields a partial understanding of these truths by its proper
procedure of arguing from what is more manifest to what is
more obscure. Thus, the synthetic process presupposes the
existence of established dogma and the understanding proper to
the analytic process.
Before examining the significance of the synthetic process
for the problem we have been considering, a remark on the
nature of the understanding to be sought is in order. In other
sciences the analytic process proceeds, according to the Aristotelian ideal, by resolving the data. which serve as a starting
point into their ultimate causes. The synthetic process starts
with these ultimate causes, or with concepts whose understanding does not presuppose the understanding of something prior.
The matter which the theologian treats, however, are mysteries,
truths whose intrinsic intelligibility cannot be fully grasped.

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369

Understanding of a mystery is necessarily analogical. Accordingly, though the theologian begins his synthetic process with
concepts whose understanding does not formally presuppose the
understanding of later elements, these concepts are, nevertheless, inadequate to the reality treated and can express it only
in an obscure fashion.
The analytic process sketched above led to a body of
Trinitarian truths. To follow a more or less chronological order,
there was a gradual clarification and increased precision in the
discussions of: the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit; the real
distinction of the Three Persons; their consubstantiality; the
personal properties and relative character of each; the foundation of personal relations in the processions; and finally the
attempt to explain these processions by analogy with the
processes of knowledge and love in man.
The terminal point of the analytic process serves as the
starting point of the synthetic process, so that what is established through analysis receives an intelligent and systematic
ordering through synthesis. Building on a definite scriptural
foundation 28 as well as the works of St. Basil, St. Augustine,
St. John Damascene and others, St. Thomas Aquinas developed
an explanation of the Trinity based on his profound insight into
the psychological operations which served as an analogy to the
Trinitarian processions. 29 Thus, the generation of the Son is
28 Because of the importance which the doctrine of intelligible emanation has in
Lonergan's theology, as well as in his cognitional analysis, he is quite concerned
with the scriptural equivalent of his teaching. This he finds especially in the New
Testament use of " speak " and " hear." When used with respect to the preaching
of truth, these terms do not refer primarily to sensation (" hearing, they have not
heard") but to authoritative preaching and personal acceptance. This acceptance
and commitment implies distinctive intellectual and volitional activities on the
part of the recipient which can be explained as an intelligible emanation directed to
the true and one directed to the good. These psychological overtones carry over
into the scriptural account of the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit, and of their
processions and suggest the need for a deeper understanding of these psychological
processes through which the doctrine of the Trinity is communicated to men. This
is treated in the De Deo Trino: Pars Analytica, pp. 304-16.
29 St. Thomas'
treatment may be found in his Summa. Theol., I, qq.
Lonergan's Divinarum Personarum has essentially the same development but recast

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

explained by analogy with the intelligible emanation of the
inner word after this analogate has been properly purified. 30
In a similar way some understanding of the procession of the
Holy Spirit is obtained through another psychological analogy. 31
On the basis of this limited, analogical, but nevertheless fruitful,
understanding of the processions it is possible to explain, in a
quasi-deductive way, the divine relations, the Persons and their
properties, and the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit. Thus,
the same mysteries are explained as in the analytic process but
in the reverse order and with a different formal intelligibility.
The missions, for example, terminate the synthetic process and
through this process are understood in the light of more
fundamental truths which precede them.
Inadequate as this outline certainly is, it may, nevertheless,
serve to show the nature of theological understanding. In
ordinary knowledge the moving object of direct understanding
is the nature of the material body known, or the intelligibility
grasped by insight into sensible data. 32 In theological understanding the moving object is God, as revealed and accepted
by faith. Yet, He is understood in a finite act and through the
medium of a finite object, an immanently produced term, such
as the concepts of the intellectual and volitional operations
basic to the Trinitarian analogy. Accordingly, theological understanding of a mystery is analogical knowledge, necessarily
imperfect and obscure. Because of this obscurity, theological
understanding can not ground analytic principles, nor even a
theological hypothesis whose intrinsic possibility is clearly and
perfectly understood.
These imperfections notwithstanding, the synthetic process
to clarify the points obsured by misinterpretations of the psychological foundation
which Thomas used.
30 The principles involved are treated in I, 6-13.
81 We have not explained the psychological process which serve as an analogy
for this procession. It is in his treatment of this question (Divinarum Personarum,
Quaest. IV), that Lonergan shows the sharpest disagreement with the traditional
interpretation of St. Thomas, a tradition which may change under the impact of
his cogent reasoning.
82 This was treated in I, 11.

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871

in theology fulfills, though in an analogous way, the Aristotelian
ideal of a science, a knowledge of things through their causes.
As such, it is distinct from positive theology, which is primarily
concerned with a study of the sources of faith, and from the
analytic process which possesses its own distinctive mode of
understanding, its own formally distinct concepts, and its own
manner of proving and refuting. The proper purpose of the
synthetic process is not the establishment of truth but a deeper
and more unified understanding of the truths previously established. Its fundamental concepts are, not the common sense
concepts used in the fonts of theology, but concepts whose
formal intelligibility does not presuppose an understanding of
higher concepts. It is here that philosophical understanding is
most fruitfully employed and integrated into a higher synthesis.
The theological understanding attained is, of itself, neither true
nor false, for these predicates are proper to judgment not
understanding. Yet, theological understanding is related to the
true inasmuch as it is derived from revealed truths, or at least
coherent with them, and through the acceptance of theological
theories by the Church.
The history of theology bears witness to a dialectic between
these two processes. In the patristic period the analytic mode
was primary, leading through the strife of heresy to the
analysis and decisive formulation of the basic Christian truths.
In the scholastic period the synthetic mode was dominant,
expressing itself in syntheses and theological "Summae." Contemporary Catholic theology evidences a mixture of both ways.
Exclusive reliance on either method can generate aberrations,
especially when one fails to distinguish between the search for
certitude and the search for understanding. Thus, the laudable
return to the Scriptures and the Fathers, which has so enriched
contemporary theology, can be vitiated by the subtle and
sophisticated form of fundamentalism that would make Biblical
modes of thought a norm for all time, or the quasi-Jansenistic
mentality which would recast all theology in the mold of a
Patristic type of analysis. Degenerate scholasticism, on the

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EDWARD MAC KINNON

other hand, concentrates on subtleties of the system or philosophical questions to the neglect of the truths the theological
system synthesizes. A manualistic melange not based on a
critical recognition of the fact that the analytic and synthetic
processes have different ends, different formal objects, different
formal concepts and different ways of treating proofs and
adversaries can lead to confusion and a skeptical suspicion of
theological understanding.
Besides these two classical processes in theology there is also
a third way, the historical mode of understanding, which grasps
the development of dogma as a dialectic of the two processes,
and which provides the means necessary to avoid the aberrations listed above. The theologian following the historicaldialectical method studies the theological expressions proper to
different cultures, patristic, scholastic, etc., and tries to transcend the limitations of these particular cultures to attain the
elements which are prior in reality (" priora quoad se ") and in
all human understanding. This entails a complex of new
problems: interpreting documents; studying trans-cultural processes, distinguishing the various theological movements, etc.,
many of which were treated in Insight. In this way it should
be possible to effect a synthesis which not only integrates the
different processes but also explains the development emerging
from their dialectical opposition. Philosophy, the human sciences, and though in an indirect way, even the natural sciences
could become component parts of such a synthesis without
losing their relative autonomy. 33 Such a synthesis seems to be
the ultimate goal inspiring the works and writings of Father
Bernard J. F. Lonergan, S.J.
EDWARD MAcKINNON, S.J.
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

•• The relation of these subjects to theology was discussed in the Epilogue to
Insight. For a discussion of these problems see also, F. E. Crowe, S. J., "The Origin
and Scope of Bernard .Lonergan's Insight, "Sciences Ecclesiastiques, IX (1957),
263-95, esp. part III.

REVIEW ARTICLE

IN DEFENSE OF ETIENNE GILSON: CONCERNING A
RECENT BOOK ABOUT THOMISTIC METAPHYSICS 1
H THE attempt to proceed 'existentially'

in the Gilsonian
sense, is based upon a doctrinaire transformation of metaphysics into theology, a transformation which is applied
by assuming knowledge concerning God in order to present the
dubious interpretations of the quinquae viae as discoveries of His
existence." Such is the conclusion of a contemporary critic of
Gilson's concept of St. Thomas' philosophy. 2
What is this "Gilsonian concept" so far as metaphysics and God
are concerned? It is, according to this critic, the notion that Godipsum esse-is" the true object of metaphysics." 3 Does Gilson hold
this? Yes, if "object" be taken in the sense of end, definitely not
if taken in the sense of subject. For Gilson expressly acknowledges
"the distinction between natural theology, in which God is considered as cause of the subject of metaphysics (viz., being), and
revealed theology (viz., Scripture), in which God Himself is the
1 Thomas C. O'Brien, 0. P., Ph. D., Metaphysics and the Existence of God: A
Reflexion on the Question of God's Existence in Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics, Washington 17, D. C., The Thomist Press, 2nd printing, 1960. This book
has been reviewed briefly by Fr. Joseph Owens, C. Ss. R., in The New Scholasticism,
Vol. XXXVI, no. 2, April, 1962, pp. 2.50-253. More about this review later. (Also
see note 2, below.)
2 Fr. O'Brien, op. cit., p. 262. In this paper I am primarily concerned with Section
II of this book, entitled " The Question of God's Existence Among Contemporary
Thomists," and, within this Section, I deal only with what I take to be the crux
of the criticism that the author levels against the position of Etienne Gilson (and
other Thomistic " existentialists ") as to the fundamental nature of the relationship
between metaphysics and the existence of God. Fr. Owens' review has been objected
to by Fr. William A. Wallace, 0. P. (The New Scholasticism, Vol. XXXVI, no. 4,
Oct., 1962, pp. 529-531) as "misrepresenting Fr. O'Brien's teaching," and as
"obscuring the basic issue at stake in the controversy," viz., the so-called
Gilsonian School's misinterpretation of St. Thomas. Fr. Wallace's allegations are
substantially the same as those of Fr. O'Brien. It is the object of this paper to
assess their validity objectively.
3 Op. cit., p. 94.

378

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JAMES F. ANDERSON

very subject of that science." 4 And Gilson here cites St. Thomas'
Commentary on Boethius' De Trinitate (V, 4), where this wellknown distinction is made by the Angelic Doctor himself. True,
Gilson does speak 5 of the "inner reordering of metaphysics by the
final causality of its ultimate object" so that it becomes necessarily
and by full right scientia divina. But he nowhere says that God
becomes the very subject of metaphysics or of philosophical
theology.
It is perfectly true, as Fr. O'Brien remarks, 6 that since God is
attained as principle of the subject of metaphysics, viz., being-incommon, metaphysical knowledge concerning Him is formally and
exclusively knowledge about Him as this principle. On this point,
repeatedly stressed by the author, there should be no disagreement
among Thomists. Indeed I know of no Thomist who does not
subscribe to this doctrine. Nor do I see how one could call himself
a " Thomist " without doing so. (It is true that Gilson, and likeminded Thomists, do not stress the point because of their interest
in the "inner reordering " of the whole of first philosophy to the
knowledge of God-the emphasis is expressly upon final causality).
While Gilson maintains this teaching, he nevertheless forcefully
underscores the simple Thomistic point that God could not be the
primary principle of being-in-common were He not Being itself.
Of course this is not only Gilson's point, it is St. Thomas'. The
Angelic Doctor says, for example: "that which is said by essence is
the cause of all things that are said by participation. . . . But
God is a being-by-essence because He is Being itself (ipsum esse).
Every other being, however, is a being-by-participation .... Therefore God is the cause of being to all other things." 7 Neither St.
Thomas nor Gilson anywhere suggests that God as " principle of
being-in-common" is or could be anything other than Being itselfwhich, to use the more complete Thomistic phrase, means BeingSubsisting-Through-Itself-ipsum
esse per se subsistens. In a word,
to be being itself is to be self-subsisting Being.
Now, as Gilson has abundantly shown, St. Thomas derived this
notion of God's being primarily from revelation-from the Book
• Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1949, p. 157, note 9.
6 Ibid., p. 157.
• Op. cit., pp. 173, 261-262.
7 " Quod
per essentiam dicitur, est causa omnium quae per participationem
dicuntur .... Deus autem est ens per essentiam: quia est ipsum esse. Omne autem
aliud ens est per participationem. . . . Deus igitur est causa essendi omnibus aliis."
Summa Contra Gentiles, II, ch. 15, #5.

IN DEFENCE OF ETIENNE GILSON

375

of Exodus in fact. Still, there is no doubt that for St. Thomas
himself this concept is also rationally ascertainable: having proved
by purely philosophical argumentation that God's essence is His
existence, the Angelic Doctor states immediately: "This sublime
truth Moses was taught by Our Lord" (Exodus 3 13, 14). The
following is the argument immediately preceding that celebrated
text: "Every thing exists by the fact that it has esse. Therefore a
thing whose essence is not its esse, does not exist by its essence but
by participation in something, viz., in esse itself. But that which
is by participation in something cannot be the first being, because
prior to it is that wherein it participates in order to exist. But
God is the first being, to Whom nothing is prior.
essence, therefore, is His esse." 8
Fr. O'Brien accepts the "historical demonstration" 9 referred to
above, but then immediately proceeds to argue that Gilson has
wrongly allowed his " historical thesis concerning Thomism " to
dictate his interpretation of the nature of Thomistic metaphysics
itself, resulting in its transformation into theology. 10
Here we reach the center of the issue. Fr. O'Brien's metaphysics
is not formally a theology-not even a natural theology (a term to
which he objects). Gilson's metaphysics is formally and in full
right a natural theology (or, as Thomas Aquinas puts it, a "philosophical theology"), integrated into sacred theology, though
formally distinct from it, by its ordination to God. The reason
for this doctrine (which, like that of St. Thomas, stresses the
finality or final causality involved) is perfectly clear: metaphysics
is about being and being is first of all God. That is why our
indirect negative-analogical knowledge of God through creatures
is by its very nature ordered to a direct positive knowledge of Him
as He reveals Himself to be and as He really is in Himself. This is
not a transformation of metaphysics into theology, but the simple
recognition that meta physics is a theology.
Of course the ultimate end of man and of every intellectual
creature consists in an immediate intuitive knowledge (visio) of
8 " Omnis res est per hoc quod habet esse. Nulla igitur res cuius essentia non
est suum esse, non est per essentiam suam, sed per participationem alicuius, scilicet
ipsius esse. Quod autem est per participationem alicuius, non potest esse primum
ens: quia id quod aliquid participat ad hoc quod sit, est eo prius. Deus autem est
primum ens, quo nihil est prius. Dei igitur essentia est suum esse." Then in the
next paragraph St. Thomas says: "Hanc autem sublimem veritatem Moyses a
Domino est edoctus .... " Summa Contra Gentiles, I, ch. 22, par. 8-9.
• Op cit., pp. 172-178.
10 Ibid., pp. 178, :t6:t.

376

JAMES F. ANDERSON

God in Himself-a knowledge which, though not attainable by any
created thing by its natural power, is attainable because it alone
can satisfy the "natural desire" of such a creature; otherwise the
latter would in the end have no reason for being: "Since it is
impossible that a natural desire be in vain, which would be the
case were it not possible to attain to the knowledge of the divine
substance, which all minds naturally desire, it is necessary to say
that it is possible for the substance of God to be seen by an
intellect, both by separate intellectual substances and by our
souls." 11
What relevance to metaphysics has this "natural desire" of the
intellectual substance for seeing God Himself, or the "divine substance?" Quite simply, this: metaphysical science is formally and
terminally a philosophical theology, to wit, a natural knowledge
through creatures of the cause of universal being-God-, which,
since it is an imperfect knowledge of Him, is ordained finally to the
perfect knowledge of Him in patria, by way of vision. Were this
not the case, our life would be finally meaningless. Of course Fr.
O'Brien knows this, but he speaks as if metaphysics could prescind
from it.
It is true that Gilson emphasizes the way of final causality; he is
comparatively uninterested in the formal distinction between metaphysics and revealed theology, though he assuredly does not deny
it. On the contrary, he insists on it. For example, he says: "Although the relationship established between faith and reason is so
intimate, they still constitute two formally distinct types of knowledge, and the same can be said of philosophy and theology ....
Even where the two disciplines cover the same ground they keep
their specific characters and thus are distinguished from each
other." 12
Now this emphasis of Gilson's on finality is a function of his
" existential " approach. For indeed, not to see esse as the culminating act within ens-the perfectio perfectionu7rV-is not to see esse
Thomistically. This capital point Etienne Gilson has demonstrated
11 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, III, ch. 51, #I: "Cum autem
impossibile sit naturale desiderium esse inane, quod quidem esset si non esset possible
pervenire ad divinam substantiam intelligendam, quod naturaliter omnes mentes
desiderant; necesse est dicere quod possibile sit substantiam Dei videri per intellectum, et a substantiis intellectualibus separatis, et ab animabus nostris." Cf.
op. cit., III, chs. 87, 48, 52.
12 (The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. L. K. Shook, C. S. B.;
New York, Random House, 1956, pp. 20-21; Le Thomisme, 5th ed., Paris, Vrin,
1944, pp. 85-86) .

IN DEFENCE OF ETIENNE GILSON

377

more abundantly, I think, than any other modern Thomistic writer;
and we are all greatly indebted to him for having done so. To
formal causality in metaphysics, however, he has paid relatively
little attention. Why? Because, for one thing, on that plane alone
it would be impossible to distinguish Thomistic " existentialism "
from Aristotelian " substantialism," not to mention other forms of
" realism " wherein esse as existential act is considered to be either
peripheral or secondary or scientifically irrelevant. 13 In saying
what he has wanted to say, to the end of clearly distinguishing
Thomistic metaphysics from all other varieties, Gilson has had to
follow this path.
Certainly Fr. O'Brien is well aware that a natural theology cut
off from supernatural theology would leave the creature ultimately
frustrated. Nevertheless, he argues as if it were possible to have
a metaphysics which was not formally a " natural theology integral
with the metaphysics of existential being," to use the phrase by
which he adversely characterizes the position of Fr. Gerard Smith,
S. J., and, by implication, other Thomistic "existentialists." 14
To be sure, much more is involved here than mere personalities;
nothing is more futile than controversy on that level. What is
objectively at stake is the very existence of Thomistic metaphysics as a science of being: for in this context the" existentialist"
position, in its essentials, is a simple necessity. Let me underscore
this point: to say " being" is, at least Thomistically, to say " that
whose act is to be "-id cuius actus est esse-; and being is, in any
case, only because Being is. If this is so, then clearly a Thomistic
science of being which is not a theology is an utter impossibility.
How, then, is it possible to speak of such a thing? Only, so far as
I can see, because and in so far as esse is thought of essentialistically, or, in the usual phrase, as a "formality "-an intelligibility.
This, it seems, is just what Fr. O'Brien does. For after having
cor:rectly quoted St. Thomas to the effect that esse is the " actuality
of all that is," he immediately interprets this in terms of "formality," saying that esse is "the most formal of all formalities""the definitive note in the term ' being' as the subject of metaphysics." 15 But a " formality " or a " note" is a what-a noetic
what, if you like, but none the less an essence. And no matter how
primary or basic this essence may be thought to be, it can never be
other than what it is.
13 E. g., see Gilson, op. cit., Ch. V.
"Fr. O'Brien, op. cit., pp. 94-95.
15 Op cit., p. 164. True, there is a 'ratio e.ssendi"-for the word e.sseJ does have

meaning-, but esse itself is not a ratio.

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JAMES F, ANDERSON

The real problem, as Fr. Owens observes in his review of Fr.
O'Brien's book/ 6 lies in the notion of being with which the author
is actually operating, for this notion inevitably will govern his
whole conception of metaphysics. This notion Fr. Owens considers
to be " difficult to discover." H I think it is not, so far as its substance is concerned. Have we not recorded Fr. O'Brien's remark
that for him esse is "the most formal of all formalities," " the
definitive note in the term 'being' as the subject of metaphysics? "
Now a non-theological 'science' of 'being,' in the sense of that
whose 'act' is to be, is utterly impossible, because the only conceivable cause of the presence of beings is Being itself. But a nontheological ' science ' of ' being,' in the sense of that whose ' act '
is to be a 'formality,' is not only possible, it is ages-old, and may
be said to be perennially and even permanently popular.
To make a long story short, such a doctrine is possible because
if esse as existential act is eliminated from metaphysics in its
formal procedure as a demonstrative science of being qua being,
then its theological source-lpsum esse-is likewise formally eliminated therefrom. The only difficulty with such a doctrine is that it
will not be a metaphysics of being as be-ing.
On pain of being repetitious, be it noted once more that Thomistic
metaphysics says that its subject is universal being and that its
subject is scientifically known only when its principle or source is
proved to be; so that in this metaphysics the problem of the
establishment of God's existence is formally and actually the business, and the chief business, of the science. For, as St. Thomas
points out/ 8 this sapiential science is at one and the same time,
though of course in different respects, a "theology," a "metaphysics," and " first philosophy." Essentially and formally a
theology, the science of being-in-common thus will constitute itself
a science when and only when it resolves the question of God's
existence as the principle or cause of being-in-common.
In view of the fact that a Thomistic science of being that is not
formally a demonstrative knowledge of the cause of being is an
impossibility, how can it be said that the question of God's existence does not formally belong to metaphysics, but to sacred
P. 253. See above, note 1.
Ibid.
18 Preface to his Commentary
on Aristotle's
Cf. his Commentary
on Boethius' De Trinitate (V, 4), where he distinguishes between that kind of
theology "which is also called metaphysics," and which treats of "divine things
as the principles of its subject," and the theology of Sacred Scripture, which treats
of divine things " for their own sakes as the subject of the science."
16

17

IN DEFENCE OF ETIENNE GILSON

879

theology? 19 The reason given is that God is the subject, not of
metaphysical or philosophical theology, but only of sacred theoCertainly the latter statement is true. But how it can be
offered as a. reason for taking that position is difficult to comprehend. And here I am in the same boat with Fr. Owens, who, after
citing the" laudable purpose" of Fr. O'Brien's book, takes exception
to the author's "principle of extension" as involving the notion
that the consideration of God is an "extension of metaphysics." 21
"It is," Fr. Owens gently and ironically says, 22 "hard to see how
an 'extension' of St. Thomas' metaphysics is necessary or even
possible in order to treat of God as the principle of its subject."
Fr. Owens also objects to the author's "principle of limitation,"
as requiring that the subject of metaphysics be established formally
and solely through natural philosophy, on the score that this would
restrict metaphysics to what can be reached through the latter. I
agree, for I do not see how this position is compatible with that
metaphysics which St. Thomas actually practiced-for example, in
the De Ente et Essentia, where there is no such "limiting " procedure at all. As Fr. Owens again remarks, "to assert that metaphysics ' cannot assume the prerogative of beginning its pursuit
with an inquiry about God' 23 seems equivalent to saying that
metaphysics cannot begin by inquiring about the principle of its
subject." 24
Of course this statement of Fr. Owens' applies to the sapiential
science of being-in-common as philosophical theology, not as
"metaphysica "-the study of the " trans physical " or transcendental principles intrinsically common to that subject. N evertheless, as we have noted above, this science for St. Thomas is a
philosophical theology as a knowledge of the principle or cause of
being-in-common. Therefore, to prove that that principle exists is
to prove that God as ipsum esse exists, and this is formally the
task of philosophical theology. Nor is it possible for this task to
be accomplished, or even initiated, without some "nominal definition" of the word "God"; lacking that, the undertaking of course
would have no goal. Fr. O'Brien, however, says that "the function
Fr. O'Brien, op. cit., p. 210.
Ibid.
21 Fr. Owens' Review, p. 251. Italics mine. Cf. Fr. O'Brien, op. cit., pp. 115, 151,
re " the necessity of metaphysics' extension to the knowledge of God." (Italics
mine).
•• Ibid.
28 Fr. O'Brien, op. cit., p. 122.
•• Fr. Owens' Review, p. 258.
19
20

880

JAMES F. ANDERSON

of the nominal definition of God is inherently connected with the
scientific question an sit Deus" (which, he had said/ 5 pertains
formally only to sacred theology). "But the formal proposal of
this question by metaphysics," he goes on to say, 26 " is based upon
positions adverse to the principle of limitation, and thus to the
nature of metaphysics as a science." This "principle of limitation f•
here refers to the restriction of the subject of metaphysics to beingin-common. And indeed it is so restricted. Need it be said again,
however, that the principle of that subject can be none other than
Being itself, the demonstration of whose existence is precisely the
chief task of Thomistic metaphysics as a science-a task that
necessitates and presupposes some definition of the name " God "
to begin with?
Nothing could be more useless (nor less conducive to charity)
than personal controversy. Happily, however, the basic issue does
not lie there; it rather concerns the very existence of a metaphysics
(yes, taken formalissime !) of " existential being," viz. of thatwhose-act-is-to be, or exist. The purpose of this writing is, by
emphasizing the impossibility of a Thomistic metaphysics of being
as be-ing which is not formally a philosophical theology, to vindicate the existence of such an " existentialism." If the latter doctrine
is authentically Thomistic, then to ' defend' Etienne Gilson is to
' defend ' St. Thomas Aquinas. Such an apologia would indeed
seem presumptuous, if not absurd, were it not for the fact (as I see
it) that the core of this metaphysics is so widely misunderstood, or
missed, precisely by teachers of St. Thomas, and therefore inevitably
by their students.
Returning to the opening paragraph of this paper, let it be said
that if Gilson does " proceed existentially " in the most radical
sense it is because there is no other way of proceeding Thomistically
in metaphysics. Why? The reason is evident: the subject of that
metaphysics is ens, and ens means that-whose-act-is-to exist. The
movement of Thomistic metaphysics is from ens-of course grasped
in sensible entia-to that Ens which is lpsum esse-the Primum
Ens, God. What are the quinque viae except ways of attaining to
the existnece of this supreme Existent? Far from transforming
metaphysics into theology, Gilson insists upon the fact that it is a
theology. We are all immensely in his debt for his copious and
lucid exposition of this doctrine.
JAMES F. ANDERSON
ViUanova University
Villanova, Pennsylvania
•• Op. cit., p.

•• Ibid., p.

NOTES ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS
JoHN PATRICK REID, 0. P., S. T. L., Professor at Providence College,
Providence, R.I., recent lecturer for an educational television series
on Communism, has published several translations of scholarly works
for The Thomist Press and the Providence College Press, Providence,

R.I.
HARRY LA PLANTE, Ph. D., who attended the University of Notre Dame
and was an instructor in the Department of Philosophy, Marygrove
College, Detroit, Michigan, is presently employed at the Detroit
Institute of Technology, Detroit, Michigan.

Eow ARD M. MAcKINNON, S. J., Ph. D., (theoretical physics, St. Louis University) who has written for scientific journals and contributed
philosophical articles to The Modern Schoolman, Thought, The
International Philosophical Quarterly, is now engaged in post-doctoral
research in the philosophy of science at Yale University, New
Haven, Conn.
JAMEs F. ANDERSON, Ph. D., (University of Toronto) professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania has written
several books on philosophy, including The Bond of Being and
The Cause of Being, and translated several works and treatises of
St. Thomas, including Book II-Summa Contra Gentiles and Treatise
on Man from Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas.
CYRIL VoLLERT, S. J., Ph. D., S. T. D., who taught at the Gregorian University, Rome in 1949, and frequently contributes to scholarly
journals including Theological Studies, Gregorianum, is professor of
theology, St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas.
PHILIP L. B. HANLEY, 0. P., M.A., S. T. D., author of Collegiate Theology
for Catholic Living is an Associate Professor of Theology at Notre
Dame University, Notre Dame, Indiana.
FRANK KEEGAN, Ph. D., associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
Georgetown University, Washington, D. C., was instrumental in
establishing the Jacques Maritain Center at Notre Dame University.

:381

BOOK REVIEWS
The Wisdom of Evolution. By RAYMOND J. NoaAR, 0. P., Ph. D. Foreword
by Theodosius Dobzhansky. Garden City, New York: Doubleday &
Co., Inc., 1963. Pp. 408, with index. $5.75.
Publication of works on every aspect of evolution continues in undiminished flow to meet and stimulate interest in this engrossing subject.
Not many authors, however, can match Father Nogar's competence in
the various disciplines that contribute importantly to a balanced presentation of evolutionary doctrine. His scientific studies, concentrating on
biology, are crowned by a graduate degree in theology and a doctorate in
the philosophy of science. Such preparation has equipped him to write
a book having a definite objective which he himself regards as unique in
the field.
The point of view dominating the exposition is not that of the research
biologist or anthropologist, but rather that of the philosopher of science
who is concerned with the whole range of implications suggested by the
fact of evolution. Consequently the book is neither a specialized scientific
treatise nor a professional course in philosophy. The aim is threefold,
corresponding to the three major divisions of the volume. First, the proofs
for the fact of evolution are examined. Secondly, the limits of evolution are
carefully marked off. Thirdly, an attempt is made to give a synthesis of
scientific evolution and to outline a sound philosophy of life in agreement
with the facts as known at present. The exposition is clear throughout
and many technical terms, inevitable in such an enterprise, are lucidly
explained; the educated reader will seldom find himself beyond his depth.
Part One is a truly remarkable review of the evidence for evolution.
Beginning with paleontology, as is right, Fr. Nogar applies the "principle
of economy": God ordinarily works in an orderly fashion through natural
causes, not by miraculous intervention. The study leads to the reasonable
conclusion that creationism in the Linnaean sense is a wholly unsatisfactory
hypothesis. Unless one is willing to assume a host of creative acts to
account for the hundreds of thousands of different origins of species, some
form of evolution must be admitted. The only adequate explanation of
the facts unearthed by paleontology is organic evolution, defined as descent
with modification from common ancestry.
The witness of paleontology, strong though it is, merely opens the case.
A verdict in favor of evolution is the product of many lines of proof,
marshaled with mounting force in successive chapters. Perception that all
organisms which now live or have ever lived are the issue of genetic descent
from remote and simple beginnings gains increasing clarity. The evidence

382

BOOK REVIEWS

383

brought forward by paleontology, genetics, biography, taxonomy, comparative anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, embryology, and other sciences,
converge inexorably on a single conclusion: the evolution of life is undoubtedly the best explanation of the facts adduced by all these sciences.
The very power of evolution raises a question: is the process of
evolution limitless in extent, or does the mind in quest of truth have to
recognize limits in its applicability? Part Two faces this problem, and starts
out with an enquiry into human evolution. Has biological man originated
from a biological stock in common with other anthropoids? Biological
methods exhibit man's close structural and functional similarity to nonhuman primates. The same life procedures operate in man as in other
mammals, and the similarity increases as we come to the great apes. The
sciences of prehistory and biology, along with others, contribute testimony
pointing to the same general conclusion: descent with modification.
Nevertheless, the origin of man cannot be decided on the basis of his bodily
nature alone. Evidence fumished by psychology and the cultural sciences
brings out man's psychosocial superiority. Some of man's faculties and his
behavior must have a spiritual source. The human soul, the spiritual
principle of man's distinctive activities, lies beyond the scrutiny of the
natural sciences. The theory of evolution cannot explain the origin of man
as a whole, since it is unable to account fully for his spiritual and intellectual
life, his history, and his destiny.
In connection with the limits of evolution, Fr. Nogar takes pains to
describe the various senses and values of the term " evolution " as applied
to the organic and inorganic domains. Biological evolution is one thing;
psychosocial evolution is another. The origin of the elements, of stars and
galaxies, of planets, of life from non-life, is frequently regarded as an
evolutionary process. What is retained is the space-time concept of
continual, natural change and development. Beyond this diminished meaning, the word alters its definition and becomes equivocal. Misuse of the
term leads from evolution in the strict sense through a variety of ideologies
and isms, and ends up with a quite unscientific evolutionism, an illusion
that evolution explains all things and that absolutely nothing is fixed or
immutable.
Analysis of the power and limits of evolution manifests the need for an
integral philosophy of evolution. Development of such a philosophy represents a challenge to modem man. In Part III Fr. Nogar attempts a sketch
of some phases of a philosophy of evolution that will be cognizant of the
vast advances in science up to our day. The philosophy of the past is not
to be simply rejected; what is required is not so much a new look as a fresh
look, discarding only obsolete and erroneous aspects of former world views.
In particlar, the dimension of evolution must be dominant. The static order
of nature must be complemented by the dynamic order, which preserves

384

BOOK REVIEWS

all the harmony of the static order but adds to it the dimension of movement in time and space. Most important of all, evolutionary research, with
its accentuation of trends, tempo, direction, progress, and modes of
evolution, can conduce to new insights into the existence and providence
of God. In the contemporary view of the universe, in which order succeeds
order in a most orderly way, the activity of the Creator must be recognized
as necessary, not only to keep His creation in existence, but to guide the
continuance of the dynamic order toward its eventual consummation.
Considerations along these lines are developed clearly and cogently.
One cannot but wonder, however, why the author drew so sparingly, in
his final chapters, on the cosmic vision so inspiringly portrayed by Teilhard
de Chardin.
·
CYRIL VoLLERT, S. J.
St. Mary's College
St. Marys, Kansas

The Nature of the Mystical Body. By ERNEST MuRA, tr. from the French
by M. Angeline Bouchard. St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1963.
Pp. 293
The merit of this book is that it gathers together in one volume discussions of the seven kinds of union in the Mystical Body between Christ and
His members, unifies the multiplicity by one principle, and deepens understanding of that principle. The book is divided into two parts, with two
sections, or " articles," to the second part.
In the first the author gives forty-four pages of exegesis of the doctrine
of St. Paul as derived from our Lord's teaching and from his experience
with the faith given him so dramatically. Fr. Mura reveals an awareness
of modem methods of reading Scripture scientifically, by giving the development of St. Paul's thought according to the best chronology of his epistles.
A characteristic of the exegesis is both an absence of the melodramatic,
" It used to be thought St. Paul meant, but ... " and a courteous disagreement. with some exegesis on the implied grounds that the Church has not
said definitively. For example, on Genesis 3 :15, interpreted as containing
"implicitly the entire dogma of the Mystical Body" ... of "Jesus and the
faithful," the author notes: "This generally accepted exegesis would find
its confirmation in St. Paul's interpretation of the promise made to
Abraham: Gal. 3 : 16; Gen. 22:18. Thematically, the presentation of the
Pauline thought seems faultless."
The unifying principle of the second part is stated on pages 65-68. The
multiple principles of unity between Christ and His members are gathered
under the principle of Christ's supernatural efficient causality. Juridical

BOOK REVIEWS

385

unity, moral unity, union through efficient causality, sacramental union,
union in the Holy Spirit, union through exemplary causality and through
final causality-of all these principles of unity the most important one, the
one that more than any other accounts for the mysterious reality of the
total Christ, is the principle of efficient causality. Around the principle of
supernatural efficient causality, of the life-giving action of Christ the Savior
and His members, can be grouped all the other principles of unity, whether
because they are the presupposed conditions, or the means of applying the
vital influx of Christ, or because they are its necessary consequence and
complement. In chapters devoted to discussion of each kind of unity, the
author demonstrates his basic thought, bringing the whole together in a
thorough analysis of what St. Thomas meant by calling Christ and His
members "a mystical person" (Ilia., q. 48, a. fl, ad 1).
Somewhere between calling the Mystical Body a supernatural union, as
Fr. Mura develops at length in the Introduction, and falling into the error
of those who would make a physical unity of the whole Christ, many
stand who intue that there is something more than moral about the union
of Christ and the faithful. The author asks two questions: 1) Do the
Head and the members have a common being, a common subsistence?
2) Can we attribute to the same subject or person (supposit) what Christ
does and what His members do? His conclusion: "Through grace Jesus is
the subsistence of his Mystical Body." Following Fr. Chardon (La Croix
de Jesus, c. 1), the author opts for the expression "a mystical subsistence,"
while regretting (in a footnote) that the term "subsistence has a meaning
that is too precise, too profoundly hallowed in the mystery of the Trinity
and the Incarnation . . . to permit of transferring its meaning by analogy
to the order of esse secundum, or of operation, which is the order of grace."
This mystical subsistence, daring as the expression may seem, signifies nothing but
the multiple union that divine grace establishes between Christ and the members
of the Church, a dependence of being and of operation similar (not identical) to
that of the members with respect to the human person and to the head that governs
it ... Jesus Himself proclaimed a single Person and a single Jesus Christ when he
said to St. Paul ... " Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me? ... I am the Jesus
whom thou art persecuting." . . . In the mystical Christ we find analogically
realized through santifying grace the two essential marks of personality: (1) the
total Christ possesses a being in common with the Head and the members; (2) we
can attribute to the whole Christ and to his Head the actions and sufferings of the
members as such . . . (pp. 193-195).

Fr. Mura makes all the necessary distinctions in thus trying to deepen
understanding of the expression " a mystical person," but this is precisely
what makes for awkwardness in the analysis: by the time we have finished
with the distinctions we are left with the initial intuition-and, Fr. Mura's
encouragement that the intuition is a valid one. On the other hand, the
analysis is so carefully and cogently developed that the author does a

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valid work of theology in exposing the depth of the reality St. Thomas
designated " a mystical person."
The second section of this second part has to do with the various parts,
the Soul, the Head, and the members of the Mystical Body, with respect to
the Church Triumphant, Suffering, and Militant. This part is disappointing.
But the author expresses the hope that his second and companion work, on
the activity of the Mystical Body, will be published in English, in which we
would hope to £nd something more than we have here. Although the author
is well aware of what is "going on" with regard to the laity, he assures
them they are called to be saints and that the chief work of the hierarchy is
to make saints of them. Of the " separated brethren," Fr. Mura would not
think of speaking as " churches " or " communities " or " other believers in
Christ"; his language here is so "traditional" as to "be offensive to
modern pious ears." By treating of heretics and schismatics formally and in
an exclusively objective way, he can say: "deplorable" and "wretched"
state," separated,"" ceased to belong to the body," who" £nd consolation"
from "the division even yesterday." The "Mohammedan" (Muslim?)" fanaticism shuts them off from the light of revelation." The Jews-" the
blood they once called down upon their heads." A young man among
the Martyrs of Uganda became successively "Mohammedan" and Protestant, but found truth and tranquillity, as his father had prophesied, only
when converted by The White Fathers. Fr. Mura may be yet declared right
in his attitude; but it does not appear that we shall henceforth be
encouraged so to speak.
The translation is idiomatic, except for a few rare instances. Many
pertinent " small points " will be hard to find again because of the lack of
an Index. The scholarship is evident: up-to-date exegesis; integration with
the Fathers of the Church; sharp appraisals of the contribution of modern
and contemporary writers; a touch of the lives of the saints with the
intuitions of the mystics; and speculative theology carrying the burden of
bringing understanding to men of faith. A book not beyond the graduate
student, certainly for seminarians, and of .course the priest-teacher, and
anyone who is studious enough to want to know about the essence as well
as the existence of "the mystical person."
PHILIP HANLEY,

University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana

0. P.

BOOK REVIEWS

387

The Achievement of Jacques and Ra'issa Maritain: A Bibliography 19061961. By DoNALD and !DELLA GALLAGHER. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday & Co.,
Like other collectors, bibliographers know the scents of the hunt and the
delights of a good find. Donald and !della Gallagher have known many
such scents and delights in the ten years spent compiling The Achievement
of Jacques and Ra'issa Maritain.
Sensibly arranged with an excellent number system, it is copiously crossreferenced with significant annotations. Books and parts of books, prefaces
and articles by Maritain comprise the major, and most valuable portion,
Parts I-IV. Books and articles about Maritain make up Part V and VI
with Raissa 1.\'Iaritain's writings concluding the volume.
The Gallaghers wisely cross-referenced Maritain's books and articles.
Without it, the bibliography would have been only half as valuable.
Maritain's well-known practice of writing and rewriting original essayssometimes to the point of transmutation-make
it mandatory for the
bibliographer and scholar to follow the persistent themes of his writing
from article to book, from edition to edition.
Of course there are omissions, but of course there had to be. Here or
there one may note the absence of an article (" L' Allemagne et Ia philosophie moderne," La Foi Catholique, XVI (1915), Pp. 5-30), a manifesto
("Pour un parti de !'intelligence," Le Figaro, 19 juillet, 1919), a series
(Peguy's Cahiers de la Quinzaine or Lefevre's Une Heure avec ... ) , a
doctoral dissertation. (Marshall Suther's now published application of
Maritain's aesthetics, The Dark Night of Samuel Taylor Coleridge). But
the losses are slight. A learned guess is that nine of every ten pieces the
Maritains wrote for publication are contained here.
If one is indebted to a bibliographer, bibliographers are indebted to one
another. Unfortunately there is no acknowledgment of the earlier biblioto Charles O'Donnell
graphers of Maritain. To Wladimir Ghika in
in 1940, to Ruth Byrns in 1943, to Abbe Charles Journet in 1948, and
especially to Sister Carmelita in 1955, the Gallaghers are extremely indebted. Perhaps a half or two-thirds of the Gallaghers' bibliography of
Maritain's works could be assembled by a mere collation of the earlier
bibliographies. Some acknowledgement would have been appropriate.
And some criticism must be registered against the division of Maritain's
career in the introductory essay. That career does not fall so neatly into
1906-1918, 1919-1939, 1940-1961. These chronological divisions correspond
to the great wars of our time and to the residences of the Maritains. They
do not correspond to the development of Jacques Maritain's thought. In
other ways, this bibliography presents itself as a philosophical appreciation
of Maritain's vast corpus. Much strength would have been added to that

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appreciation if the divisions were more responsive to the internal necessities
of
thought and the genealogy of his ideas. One important
division is the year
the date of the condemnation of Action Francaise
by Pope Pius XI. Maritain's political and social philosophy did not exist
before
nor did it reach the maturity of his earlier metaphysical writing
until the 1930's.
But these are small caveats which do not affect the bibliography itself.
The achievement of Donald and !della Gallagher ranks immediately as a
handbook and indispensable tool for Maritain scholarship in the French
and English-speaking worlds.
FRANK

Georgetown University
Washington, D. C.

.J. KEEGAN

BOOKS RECEIVED
Alastruey, G., The Blessed Virgin Mary (vol. 2). Transl. by Sister M.
Janet La Giglia, 0. P. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder Book Co., 1964.
Pp. vi, 312. $6.00.
Christian, W. A., Meaning and Truth in Religion. Princeton, N. J.:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1964. Pp. 273. $6.00.
Daim, W., M.D., Depth Psychology and Salvation. Transl. by K. F.
Reinhardt. N. Y.: Frederick Ungar Publ. Co., 1963. Pp. 315. $8.50.
David Hume on Religion. Edited with intro. by R. Wolheim. N. Y.:
World Publ. Co., 1964 (ML 172). Pp. 287. $1.95.
Kahler, E., The Meaning of History. N. Y.: George Braziller, 1964. Pp.
viii, 224. $5.00.
Kemp, J., Reason, Action and Morality (International Library of Philosophy and Scientific Method). N. Y.: Humanities Press, 1964.
Pp. viii, 208. $6.00.
Kinzer, D. L., An Episode in Anti-Catholicism (The American Protective
Association). Seattle, Wash.: Univ. of Washington Press, 1964. Pp.
ix, 342. $6.50.
Klausner, S. Z., Psychiatry and Religion. N.Y.: The Free Press of Glencoe,
1964. Pp. xvi, 299. $6.95.
Lazerowitz, M., Studies in Metaphilosophy (International Library of Philosophy and Scientific Method). N. Y.: Humanities Press, 1964.
Pp. xi, 264. $5.00.
Lonning, Per, The Dilemma of Contemporary Theology. N. Y.: Humanities
Press, 1964. Pp. 140. $3.00.
-Munier, A., A Manual of Philosophy (vol. 1). N. Y-.: Desclee Co., 1964.
Pp. 580. $8.50.
O'Connor, D. J. (ed.), A Critical History of Western Philosophy. London:
The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. Pp. vi, 604. $9.95.
Pegis, A. C., St. Thomas and Philsophy (The Aquinas Lecture, 1964).
Milwaukee, Wise.: Marquette Univ. Press, 1964. Pp. 89. $2.50.
Santayana, The Wisdom of, selected and edited by I. D. Cardiff. N. Y.:
Philosophical Library, 1964. Pp. xvi, 325. $7.50.
Schleck, C. A., C. S.C., The Sacrament of Matrimony. Milwaukee, Wise.:
Bruce Publ. Co., 1964. Pp. xii, 290. $5.00.
Sullivan, D. J., An Introduction to Philosophy (revised and enlarged
edition). Milwaukee, Wise.: Bruce Publ. Co., 1964. Pp. xvi, 328.
$4.50.

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