Maritain, Jacques, << ma ree TAN, zhahk >> (1882-1973), was a French philosopher and one of the most influential Roman Catholic scholars of the 1900’s. He was a leader of neo-Thomism, a revival of the philosophical system developed by the medieval theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas. The system attempted to reconcile faith and reason.
Much of Maritain’s work dealt with the theory of knowledge. In The Degree of Knowledge (1932), he analyzed the structure of thought, identifying three types of knowledge. They were, in ascending order, (1) scientific knowledge of empirical reality, (2) metaphysical knowledge of the principles of “being as such,” and (3) suprarational knowledge of God through divine revelation. By suprarational knowledge, Maritain meant knowledge beyond the comprehension of human reason.
Maritain was born on Nov. 18, 1882, in Paris. He converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism in 1906. He taught at the Catholic Institute from 1914 to 1939 and was the French ambassador to the Vatican from 1945 to 1948. Maritain’s other major books include Art and Poetry (1935), Integral Humanism (1936), The Range of Reason (1948), and Man and the State (1951). He died on April 28, 1973.
