So What's New About Scholasticism? : How Neo-Thomism Helped Shape the Twentieth Century

In __So What’s New about Scholasticism?__ thirteen international scholars gauge the extraordinary impact of a religiously inspired conceptual framework in a modern society. The essays that are brought together in this volume reveal that Neo-Thomism became part of contingent social contexts and varying intellectual domains. Rather than an ecclesiastic project of like-minded believers, Neo-Thomism was put into place as a source of inspiration for various concepts of modernization and progress. This volume reconstructs how Neo-Thomism sought to resolve disparities, annul contradictions and reconcile incongruent, new developments. It asks the question why Neo-Thomist ideas and arguments were put into play and how they were transferred across various scientific disciplines and artistic media, growing into one of the most influential master-narratives of the twentieth century. Edward Baring, Dries Bosschaert, James Chappel, Adi Efal-Lautenschläger, Rajesh Heynickx, Sigrid Leyssen, Christopher Morrissey, Annette Mülberger, Jaume Navarro, Herman Paul, Karim Schelkens, Wim Weymans and John Carter Wood reconstruct a bewildering, yet decipherable thought-structure that has left a deep mark on twentieth century politics, philosophy, science and religion. Acknowledgments Table of Contents Into Neo-Thomism: Reading the Fabric of an Intellectual Movement Part I .Shaping A New Society The Thomist Debate over Inequality and Property Rights in Depression-Era Europe Religion, human rights and democracy in post-1940 France in theory and practice: from Maritain’s Thomism to Vignaux’s secular realism Epistemological Tracks: On Religion, Words, and Buildings in 1950’s Belgium When Personalism Met Planning: Jacques Maritain and a British Christian Intellectual Circle, 1937–1949 Part II. Encountering Phenomenology, Existentialism, and Aesthetics Neo-Scholasticism, Phenomenology, and the Problem of Conversion A Great Deal of Controversy? A Case Study of Dondeyne, Grégoire, and Moeller Integrating Phenomenology and Existentialism in Louvain Neo-Thomism Gilson’s Poietics Part III. Reconciling Science and Religion Psychology from a Neo-Thomist Perspective. The Louvain-Madrid Connection Science contra Science. The Battle for Legitimate Knowledge in the Spanish Catholic Journals in the Early Twentieth Century Part IV. Mediating Tradition The Analogy of Marshall McLuhan Vetera Novis Augere: Neo-Scholastic Philosophers and Their Concepts of Tradition Thomas Aquinas or John Henry Newman? The Intellectual Itinerary of Johannes Willebrands About the Authors Index of Persons