Scholasticism & Politics

Scholasticism and Politics, originally a series of lectures given at the beginning of World War II, is renowned philosopher Jacques Maritain’s description of the relation of Christian revelation to human political life. Maritain asserts that social order should be distinguished by a convivium among the citizens, resting on a degree of consensus regarding the nature and purpose of society but allowing variance in the means of embracing the former and accomplishing the latter. Scholasticism, per Maritain, bequeaths a rich philosophical patrimony that can provide clarity to questions regarding human nature, freedom and authority, reason and desire, and the role of religion in society. As Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., notes in the Introduction: “To reread these lectures some eighty years after their subsequent publication is to measure how much the world has changed since then. At the same time, the basic intellectual tools to understand man’s ultimate destiny and the place of politics in that destiny remain pretty much the same, however seldom we hear them spelled out as we do here.”