La Metafisica in questione. Orientamenti metafisici del Novecento a confronto

As part of the PRAGMATEIA philosophy workshop, and more specifically the history of metaphysical thought, the Faculty of Philosophy is launching a series of three lectures in which, through a critical comparison with classical authors of contemporary philosophy, three different “metaphysical orientations” of the twentieth century will be discussed, found respectively in phenomenology, the transcendental Thomism of Louvain, and analytical thought. In fact, beyond the repeated “proclamations” that accompany metaphysics in its historical unfolding, decreeing now its crisis, now its fulfilment, now its end, now its definitive overcoming, the radical nature of the metaphysical question continues to impose itself on reflection, allowing itself to be expressed in different forms and ways. With the help of three experts in Husserl’s phenomenology, Maréchal’s philosophy, and contemporary analytical thought, metaphysics will be taken up and discussed as a “question in itself”.

Paul Gilbert SI ( Pontifical Gregorian University)
Joseph Maréchal, From the Notion of Being to the Act of Being

Before being appointed to teach metaphysics at the Jesuit college in Leuven, Joseph Maréchal was interested in psychology. From this point of view, his career could be compared to that of Edmund Husserl. It was a question of rethinking the capacities of human intelligence engaged in the knowledge of reality. In 1899, the German philosopher sought to restore mathematics to its dignity as the most certain science by exploring the subjective dimension of objective knowledge. Twenty years after Husserl, the Belgian Jesuit, convinced of the importance of philosophy in the service of Catholic dogma and aware of the significance of Kant’s epistemological revolution, sought to draw from 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy the most useful elements for renewing the philosophy taught in Catholic student halls. Without abandoning the most characteristic features of Christian discourse, he insisted that an act of faith has a human dimension that is not only “factual” but also “transcendental” and cannot be overlooked.