Books by Jacques Maritain

The meaning of poetry and the sociological and political significance of art are dealt with in these letters. Jacques Maritain (18 November 1882–28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he is responsible for reviving St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pope Paul VI presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II to Maritain, his long-time friend and mentor. Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Along with other Surrealists of his generation (Jean Anouilh and René Char for example) Cocteau grappled with the "algebra" of verbal codes old and new, mise en scène language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Pablo Picasso, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Édith Piaf, whom he cast in one of his one act plays entitled Le Bel Indifferent in 1940, and Raymond Radiguet.

Originally titled Frontieres de la Poesie (1935), this book by Jacques Maritain, whose philosophical writings read as interestingly as a novel, will be welcomed by all who are seeking a better understanding of the art of our time. The book delves into Maritain's thoughts on the nature and subjectivity of art and poetry. As a philosopher, Maritain attempts to define the two concepts, describing art and poetry as virtues, and as being primarily concerned with beauty. Rather than focus on aesthetic theory, Maritain examines the concepts at a more tangible level, including a discussion of how they are made. The principles established with such precision and brilliance in his earlier work, Art and Scholasticism, which has had such a deep influence on contemporary artists, are successfully put to the test in illuminating the creative works of such diverse artists as Georges Rouault, Marc Chagall, Gino Sevirini, and Arthur Lourie.

At eighty-five, Jacques Maritain, the most distinguished Catholic philosopher of the twentieth century, has written what he offers as his last book, and it turns out to be a shocker. The ""peasant,"" as Maritain calls himself in the title, is a man who calls a spade a spade; and a storm of controversy descended immediately on the book's publication in France, as both Right and Left reeled from the force of Maritain's criticism.The Peasant of the Garonne is a sharp attack on the ""new philosophy,"" hoping to cool off the fever for change that Maritain believes is imperiling the church's traditional spirituality and even the substance of doctrine. There is sardonic humor in his treatment of Teilhardians, phenomenologists, existentialists, new-style biblical critics, and clerical Freudians, but Maritain is deeply serious in warning that their capitulation to fashioniable trends represents a kind of ""kneeling before the world.""

The most well known and enduring of Maritain's many books. It offers a clear introduction to philosophy and theology from the archaic era through to the Ancient Greeks right up to the 20th Century.

Presenting with moving insight the relations between man, as a person and as an individual, and the society of which he is a part, Maritain's treatment of a lasting topic speaks to this generation as well as those to come. Maritain employs the personalism rooted in Aquinas's doctrine to distinguish between social philosophy centered in the dignity of the human person and that centered in the primacy of the individual and the private good.

A group of essays prepared for publication by Maritain in the year before his death. The first series of articles consists of 10 philosophical essays, while second is made up of mainly theological articles. A meditation closes the volume.

The three books presented here were all written in the early 1930s, a time of troubles for France. It was then surrounded by enemies and was itself on the verge of civil war. Here, Maritain accepts the responsibility of a Christian philosopher to address the practical problems of the time.

This work is Maritain's masterpiece. Published as ""Distinguer pour unir, ou Les degres du savoir"" in 1932, the book proposes a hierarchy of forms of knowledge that culminates in mystical experience and that wisdom which is a gift of the Holy Ghost. His inspiration is St Thomas Aquinas.

This critique of Henri Bergson is Jacques Maritain's first book. In it he shows he has a grasp of the thought of St Thomas Aquinas and an ability to show its relevance to other systems such as that of Bergson. This text presents Jacques Maritain's as a philosopher, a Thomist and a critic.