“precious and seminal insights” (48/64). The pope claims a legitimate pluralism in philosophy since no philosophy can embrace everything adequately (51/68).
He goes on to recommend, in addition to twentieth-century Thomistic philosophers like Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson, late nineteenth-century Catholic thinkers who were not Thomists, thinkers like John Henry Newman and Antonio Rosmini, the latter of whom, remember, had been condemned by the Vatican for “ontologism.” He also recommends twentieth-century Catholic thinkers like phenomenologist Edith Stein (now Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross) and Maurice Blondel, as well as Russian thinkers lesser known in the West like Soloviev, Florensky, Chaadev, and Lossky (59/77; 74/93), to initiate dialogue with the Orthodox tradition. And with regard to earlier thinkers, in addition to Thomas Aquinas, he recommends non-Thomists like Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Anselm, and Bonaventure, who were philosophers of some stature and whose philosophic development served as the basis for their theologies. (Pope Benedict wrote his doctoral dissertation upon Bonaventure.)
The motto of Leo XIII’s encyclical was: Vetera novis augere et perficere, “To extend and perfect the old with the new.” That involves not only a recovery but also a renewal, exactly the twin movement behind Vatican II: aggiornamento and resourcement, an (Italian) updating of Catholic thought and a (French) return to the sources. However, the updating following from Vatican II involved a dialogue with modern thought which had been largely condemned from without by the papal tradition, and the return to the sources involved going back behind the Middle Ages for a recovery of the early Church Fathers and a methodically enriched study of the Bible. The latter was rooted in Pius XII’s 1943 encyclical, Divino afflante spiritu, which permitted the use of historical-critical method forbidden by previous Vatican pronouncements. So while John Paul explicitly underscores the continuity of Vatican II with the modern papal tradition, he also, subtly and without calling attention to it, reverses elements of that papal tradition in the light of the study and development of tradition as a whole launched by Vatican II.
The overall aim of the encyclical is to restore trust in reason and to recover philosophy’s dignity (6/16; 56/75) in order to “develop for the future an original, new, and constructive mode of thinking” (85/107), a philosophy not restricted to repeating antique formulae (97/119), but open to all that human inquiry uncovers. The understanding of the faith itself grows through that inquiry. That is why the pope underscores the importance—indeed, the indispensability—of the study of philosophy for the priesthood (62/81).
QUESTIONS
1. What is the main thesis of the book? What is its basic claim? What reasons are offered to support the claim?
2. What do you understand by “faith”? By “reason”? Identify the various passages in which the pope explains what he means by these terms.
3. Consider the basic outline of the text. Is it like a shopping list or is there some basis for the order?
4. What do you understand by “philosophy”? Do you have a philosophy? What is the basis for it?
5. President Bush said that his favorite philosopher was Jesus. Would the pope say that? What does the pope understand by “philosophy”? How is it related to “theology”? How are both related to “faith”?
6. List the thinkers favored by the pope. List the philosophical and theological positions he does not favor. What are his reasons for favoring or not?
7. What are we to do with the plurality of philosophies, theologies, and faiths? Why is there this plurality?
8. What are the “current requirements and tasks”?
FURTHER READINGS
1. Kenneth Schmitz, At the Centre of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla / Pope John Paul II.
2. George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II.
3. D. Foster and J. Koterski, eds., Two Wings of Catholic Thought: Essays on Fides et Ratio. An expository collection.
4. L. Hemming and S. Parsons, eds., Restoring Faith in Reason. A Latin-English text, a commentary, and a reaction by people from different traditions.
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PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE MAILBOX
Grant unto us men the skill, O God, in a little thing to descry those notions as be common to things both great and small.
—Augustine, Confessions, XI, 23
INTRODUCTION
Fides et Ratio spoke of several levels of truth: first of everyday experience, second of the sciences, third of philosophy, and fourth of religion (FR §30 / p. 42). They are all both distinguished and linked. The first three have their origins in common human experience independent of revelation; the fourth depends upon revelation, i.e., upon special human experience. That might be said of any religion. In this exercise we will focus attention upon common human experience—at least in our culture which is literate and has a mail system: we will explore the structures of experience found in doing a phenomenological description of a mailbox. Though not all cultures are literate and have mail systems, many of the features of experience involved in knowing and using the mailbox are found in cultures generally. And Fides et Ratio from the very beginning (FR 1/9) sets our sights upon Eastern as well as Western cultures.
Everyday experience is presupposed by the other levels. Even revelation is addressed to everyday experience. Fides et Ratio claims that God comes to us in the things we know best and can verify most easily, the things of our everyday life, apart from which we cannot understand ourselves (FR 12/21). Science itself takes root in and presupposes ordinary experience. The evidence that science appeals to is based upon looking and manipulating as well as upon linguistic communication. The latter is not only that which appears in scientific literature but that which is used by scientists when they talk to one another: Can you fix this spectroscope? How about a cigarette? (Horrors!) What are you doing for lunch? A scientist might even say, Lord, help me to see things aright and make a contribution to my field! None of this is communicated in scientific language.
We already know how to operate in the sensory environment and in the world of everyday linguistic communication before, during, and after we set about engaging in science. Being involved in the everyday world, doing science, and living religiously present the data that philosophers reflect upon. So, before we set about these other tasks, it is important to reflect upon what we always already know as fully formed adults. Such knowledge is purely functional and is usually not made explicit. Often what we might think about experience—our “theories” about it—do not match what we know in the mode of “how to,” but not in the mode of explicit description. We might, for example, think that knowing is a matter of sense experience alone and that it takes place inside our head, as a matter of brain processes—though the deliverances of ordinary experience speak against those views.
The article employs the method singled out by the John Paul as the phenomenological method (FR 59/78). (He wrote his own doctoral dissertation on the German phenomenologist Max Scheler.) The term “phenomenology” is derived from the Greek terms phainomenon or “appearance” and logos or the attempt to get at essential, universal, and necessary features (the same as in bio-logy, psycho-logy, theo-logy). The fancy term for the universal and necessary is “the eidetic” from the Greek word eidos which translates as “type” or “kind” or “form.” Phenomenology is based upon careful description of the essential types of features of things appearing and of modes of attending to that appearing. Using the phenomenological method of isolating essential features involved in such appearance, the piece that follows
