The Most Gentle Philosopher

In: Worldview, Band 16, Heft 8, S. 11-11

Abstract

He was," Professor Donald Williams of Harvard once said, "the most gentle philosopher I ever met." Professor Williams had no great use for theism. We may be certain it was not the theories of Jacques Maritain, rather his person, that touched him. Maritain would have understood such praise. Theories are not the only carriers of truth. Persons carry truth too.The omnia opera of St Thomas Aquinas Maritain almost uniquely understood convey a nonrationahstic view of human intelligence For Aquinas intelligence operates in many modes with unfitting suppleness adaptability and wordlessness Intelligence exceeds logic Intelligence exceeds words Yet intelligence does not despise its own weak instruments—its poor words, its structures of logic, its painstaking formulation of reasons.