Maurice Blondel

Maurice Blondel ( born November 2, 1861 in Dijon, † June 4, 1949 in Aix -en- Provence) was a French Christian philosopher.

Blondel developed a philosophy of action that he wanted to overcome the opposition between freedom and necessity. Human Activity and the being be regarded in this context as a dynamic- dialectical unity. His thinking covers a (possible) revelation of God in the Catholic tradition.

• 4.1 Bibliography
• 4.2 works
• 4.3 translations

Life and work

Blondel attended the Lycée in Dijon, where he studied at the university, where especially his studies at Henri Joly to Leibniz for him remained important ( statements: "license ès lettres ", " baccalauréat de droit "). He then attended the École Normale Supérieure in 1881 in Paris, where he wrote his first notes on the "Action" on November 5, 1882, the first cell of his dissertation.

Here were the " vitalistic " oriented Christian scholars Léon Ollé - Laprune (1839-1898) in addition to the historians of philosophy and science theorist Émile Boutroux his teachers. Even the thought of the " Kantian " Jules Lachelier (1832-1918) is important for him. From his classmates is to call his friend Victor Delbos whose thesis Le problème moral dans la philosophie de Spinoza et dans l' histoire du Spinozisme is a parallel work to Blondel's work in many ways. After Agrégation ( after two failures in 1884 and 1885) Blondel taught at the Lycée in Chaumont, Montauban and Aix -en- Provence.

In 1893 he received his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris with L' Action. Attempt at a Critique of Life and a Science of Practice with which he wanted to present a new Christian philosophy. In 1896 he took over after a ban on teaching teaching in Lille and Aix, where he was appointed titular professor in 1899, but never became a full professor. In 1927, he was prematurely retired because of his blindness.

Blondel thought in an independent way modern philosophy ( Descartes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Nicolas Malebranche, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, positivism ) on. He created a philosophy that emanated from the " immanence " of these thinkers, he sought to connect with the adoption of transcendence and the idea of ​​a historical revelation in Christianity.

L' Action (1893 )

Blondel's doctoral thesis at the Sorbonne was " l'action ," the study of the action, of doing, of life enforcement. A keyword that time was not to be found in the relevant philosophical lexicon of Adolphe Franck. Nevertheless, the issue of the metaphysical and spiritualistic aligned French thought of the 19th century was not far away. In the standard work "Rapport sur ​​la philosophie française " (1868 ) by Félix Ravaisson to read as a forecast for future philosophy: "After many signs we can look well predict a new era of philosophy, or their essential character by the predominance of a spiritual realism is obtained positivism [ réalisme ou positivisme spiritualiste ], which in the consciousness of the mind has its starting point from a reality contained within itself, from which is derived all other reality, and that is none other than his activeness [action ] ", which Ravaisson certainly not aimed at a solipsistic idealism, as his subsequent reference to Aristotle shows ( " Aristotle had shown that the positive principle of reality in action [action ] is ..."). With the implementation of its subject to Blondel does not preclude the empirical- positivist direction which at the time represented a philosophical possibilities in their environment and to which Henri Bergson referred stronger, but stood in the German transcendental philosophy - idealistic tradition, as the subtitle of the work shows: Essai d'une critique de la vie et d'une science de la pratique - attempt at a Critique of Life and a Science of practice. Thus Blondel refers to both Kant's critiques of pure and practical reason and judgment, to be led further to a criticism of life enforcement, as Hegel's "science" of logic, which will also be transferred to a logic of practice.

The preparation of Blondel's major work " L' Action " (1893 ) is exactly, as he has documented the preparatory studies and kept the editorial stages. The collection of his " notes philosophiques " is edited in electronic form, the simultaneous spiritual diaries - which also contain significant reflecting material for work - are partially published in book form. The material has Blondel concentrated in large "plans " and then a first elaboration ( Premier brouillon, 1888 /90) is written. The next version, he dictated a youthful " secretary " ( Dictee, 1890 ), and then designed his " Projet de thèse (1890 /91), he finally, in " manuscrit Boutroux " (1891 /92) and the final version (1893 ) worked out. The text versions are generally get in the Archives Maurice Blondel ( Louvain- la -Neuve ).

The work itself is a great philosophical litter. Among the admirers was Martin Heidegger, who had read the work in its training time and later a pupil of Blondel (Henry Dumery ) announced that he considered this the greatest contemporary philosophical thinkers in France. However, in the context of secular France of the late 19th century, the work is still an exception.

This is also clear from Alfred Lassons ' annual report on manifestations of philosophical literature in France from the years 1891-1893 " in the Journal of Philosophy and Philosophical criticism that should be cited as contemporary abstract detail here:

M. Conway also stresses the important role of epistemological considerations Blondel. Albert Raffelt (1978 ) has Blondel's " moralistic " criticism of contemporary decadence ( Maurice Barres, Paul Bourget and others) out. About the system shape his work writes A. van Hooff. Ulrich Hommes (1972 ) shows Bondels connectivity for modern phenomenology, George Schwind ( 2000), its influence on the thinking of Levinas. In German there now exists an extensive literature on Blondel.

Criticism from two sides

Lassons positive interpretation in Germany was in France over a double critical front. On the one hand saw the secular university philosophy here violated their fundamental principle, as expressed by Léon Brunschvicg in his review in the Revue de métaphysique et de morale:

"The modern rationalism has passed through the analysis of the thinking towards making the concept of immanence as the basis and even the condition of any philosophical doctrine. To keep on the contrary, to doing (action) to see in every deed ( acte ) an inevitable transcendence; from nothing, even to go to the negation of the ethical problem and to lead to anything, the literal practice of Catholicism, [ ... ]; Finally, to show that this transposes the total of philosophical problems in the area of ​​practice and is solved thanks to this transposition, this is the goal of Blondel. [ ... ] It should be added by. Their sincerity, the breadth of its conception and the dialectical subtlety acknowledges that he will find polite but resolute opponents among the defenders of the law of reason "

Brunschvicg acquired the factory in any case as a " thèse Remarquable " ( remarkable theory ) note. Later - after Blondel's detailed defense - both are on friendly terms.

The other opponents were representatives of neo-scholasticism, the Blondel imputed unauthorized and uninformed attack in Catholic theology.

Blondel Lettre sur les sought exigences de la pensée contemporaine en matière d' apologétique et sur ​​la méthode de la philosophie dans l' étude du problème religieux (1896 ), the German under the title On the Method of the Philosophy of Religion (1974 ) published in his work was to justify to both sides.

In the aftermath Blondel sought to spread his philosophical thinking in different ways: The publication of a font in the International Congress of Philosophy in Paris ( élémentaire Principe d'une logique de la vie morale, dt in Reifenberg ), systematic and historical essays as sought Le christianisme de Descartes ( 1896), L' illusion idéaliste (1898), finally, a number of more popular items (some under the pseudonym Bernard de Sailly ), the call also parallels in contemporary philosophy of pragmatism, of which Blondel sell later.

Modernism dispute

The release of "modernism dispute " is the dispute over the writing of Alfred Loisy exegetes L' Évangile et l' Église (1902, dt: Gospel and Church, 1904), in turn, be a refutation of the program font Adolf von Harnack The essence of Christianity should that saw satisfies turn of the century Christianity in Protestantism and Catholicism called the wrong path. Loisy was looking the other hand, the right to have legitimate development and explain this criteria. It starts from the most modern Protestant exegesis of his time.

Blondel reached into the debate about Loisys book while in mediating intention with his Histoire et dogme series of articles ( history and dogma ), but also could not contribute to any compensation in the church politically agitated situation. The dispute led - as well as the correspondence of both or the dispute over third parties ( Joannès Wehrlé, Friedrich von Hügel, etc.) - ultimately only leads to a strengthening of the respective positions, for Blondel the problem of eschatological " imminent expectation " of Jesus and his knowledge and Selbbewusstseins the main points of disagreement were. The Catholic theologian has these problems only in the middle of the 20th century in a more differentiated manner treated (Karl Rahner, Helmut Riedlinger, etc.).

The clashes at the beginning of the century led to church exclusions and subsequent dispute in the strongest possible terms. The religious convictions of the so-called " modernism" ( Lamentabili, Encyclical Pascendi ) and the forward end professional surveillance mechanisms poisoned for a long time, the working climate of Catholic theology. (see Christoph Theobald, Gerhard Larcher. )

In the aftermath Blondel intervened in another area of church conflict. He defended the movement of social Catholics to " Semaines sociales " against the right-wing conservative " Action Française " (see the book edition: M. Blondel: Une alliance contre nature 2000. ). Two of his most influential student, the Jesuit Pierre Rousselot and Guy de Broglie, however, were firm believers in the " Action Française ", the latter to the condemnation of Action by Pius XI .. His journal Annales de philosophie chrétienne could not appear on. This also led to an estrangement with the chief editor Lucien Laberthonniere ( 1860-1932 ).

The later work

Due to the controversy, and probably also by the First World War waned publishing activities Blondel up in the twenties. Blondel wrote philosophical essays ( in 1916 to Malebranche, Blaise Pascal in 1923, the Augustine Jubilee 1930), published to contemporary issues discussed as the question of mysticism ( see H. Wilmer ), etc. to the problem of Christian philosophy.

Finally, under the difficult conditions of blindness, he developed an extensive yet late work, the trilogy La Pensee (1934, 2 vols ) L' Être et les êtres (1935 ) and L' Action ( 1936/37, 2 vols, with resumption of work by 1893 in Volume 2, but in complete revision and supplement ), expanded to ( unfinished ) tetralogy La philosophie et l' Esprit chrétien ( 1944/46, 2 vols ). The volumes are difficult to read because they have under the condition of blindness weaknesses of composition, but rich in materials and reflections that are not yet fully rezipiert because the Blondel literature largely relates to the early work.

Effect story

The effect of history Blondel in French philosophy has not yet been posted. About his contributions to the discussions of the Société Française de Philosophie and the Société des Études philosophiques du Sud -Est, he was involved in many important discussions (about to works by Jean Baruzi ( 1881-1953 ), Édouard Le Roy, Jean Delvolvé, Léon Brunschvicg Gabriel Marcel ), to exchange views on the terminology of the decades the dominant French philosophy as a reference Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie (ed. André Lalande ) of the Société Française de Philosophie, he contributed many subtle individual comments. Many of his students are influenced by him, including about his successor Jacques Paliard (1887-1953), the first important mediator of Husserl's thinking Gaston Berger (1896-1960), temporarily the bulged as a Marxist Henri Lefebvre or later the religious philosopher Henry Dumery ( * 1920).

A great tradition led - especially on thinkers of the Jesuit order - in the space of the Catholic western and central European thought. The Jesuit Pierre Rousselot and Joseph Maréchal, intense correspondent of Valensin Auguste (1879-1953) - the brought about the mediation to Teilhard de Chardin - are influenced by Blondel. The so-called "nouvelle théologie " Henri de Lubac order is characterized by Blondel and the Belgian Maréchal - line and the thinking of Karl Rahner is influenced by this source; In addition, he worked among others on Bernhard Welte, Peter Henrici, Karl Lehmann and Hans Jürgen Verweyen.