Dissertation Fellow 2004-05
Florian Michel (Fall 2004)
École Pratique des Hautes Études
The Introduction of the European Thomistic Revival
in North America
The aim of my research is to study the presence and the influence
of some European Thomist philosophers in North America, tracing
the development there of a Thomistic network between the late 1920s
and the Second Vatican Council, inquiring into the reasons for the
expatriation of these Thomist scholars, evaluating the fecundity
of their influence on Catholic thought and religious life in North
America, and finally considering the notion of a possible Americanization
of Thomism. Basically, the plan of my research is to study six places
corresponding to six different institutions where Étienne
Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Yves Simon, Father Marie-Dominique Chenu,
O.P., and Charles De Koninck taught. As a matter of fact, this Thomist
presence was supported by a number of institutions, such as The
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, founded by
Étienne Gilson in 1929 with the help of the Basilian order;
the Institut d'Études Médiévales in Ottawa,
founded by Father Chenu in association with Gilson in 1930; the
philosophy department of Laval University in Québec, directed
by Charles De Koninck; the University of Notre Dame, which was one
of the great centers of Thomists; as well as Princeton University,
which welcomed Maritain from 1948 until 1960, and the Committee
on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, which offered a
chair to Thomist scholars passing through Chicago, thanks to Robert
Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, and John Nef.
The historical significance of the work I propose is situated at
the intersection of several intellectual currents. On the one hand
there is the "Thomist Revival" so eagerly sought after
by Leo XIII, a revival that first took place in Europe and whose
European aspects are well known, but whose passage to the New World
remains largely unexamined, despite the numerous fruits that it
produced. There is also the study of the American period of some
European intellectuals, a biographical element that is likewise
often unknown or ignored, resulting in a lacuna that flaws even
the best of their biographies. Finally there is also the classic
theme of cultural transfer (“translatio studii”)
between America and Europe, applied to Christian philosophy, which
will permit the explication of a significant aspect of American
Catholic thought and will shed light on an “Atlantist”
intellectual milieu.
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