Reviewed by Fr. Therasian Babu

What is it to be a philosopher in the 20th Century? What does it take? Is it a profession or vocation? Technically, utility is not the primary concern of Metaphysics, but still, what is the use of philosophy? Do philosophers contribute anything to the society they live in? Or better, do they reform the ills they see afflicting the society? If so, how so? All these questions are indirectly but satisfactorily answered by this brilliant biography of Étienne Gilson, one of the famous and important Thomists of the previous century. Fr. Laurence Shook, an ex-student who is very well-acquainted with ‘Monsieur Étienne Gilson’ is a capable person to do it. And he did the job perfectly. Obviously it is not an easy task. If it has taken Étienne Gilson so many books to say what he had to say (21 books according to his biographers, not counting the numerous articles and printed lectures), how can anyone condense his life into one book? Such was the herculean task Fr. Shook undertook—and the result is a masterpiece.

Born in Paris on Friday the thirteenth in June 1884, Étienne Henry Gilson was educated by Christian Brothers at the parish school of Ste-Clotilde (1890–1895); at an excellent Catholic secondary school, the Petit séminaire de Notre-Dame-des-Champs (1895–1902); and at the Lycée Henri-IV for one year, where he first encountered Lucien Leìvy-Bruhl, the philosopher and historian of philosophy, who was lecturing on David Hume and transitioning into sociology. After completing one year of military service, Gilson attended the Sorbonne (1904–1907) and the nearby College de France, where he heard the lectures of Henri Bergson.

Immediately after passing the agreìgation in philosophy in 1907, Gilson began his doctoral work. For his introduction to scholasticism and St. Thomas Aquinas, Gilson remained forever indebted to his Jewish thesis director Professor Leìvy-Bruhl. Leìvy-Bruhl, “who never opened one of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and never intended to,” recommended that for his major and minor doctoral theses Gilson “study the vocabulary and, eventually, the matter borrowed from scholasticism by Descartes.”

As Gilson’s doctoral work drew to a close, he experienced uneasiness and intellectual dismay at the “impoverishment metaphysics had suffered at the hands of Descartes” and “the casual way in which Descartes retained conclusions without going to the trouble of establishing them.” From there he started to abandon ‘Descartes’ (“There is more than one excuse for being a Descartes, but there is no excuse for being a cartesian…” p. 231) and turned his attention to St. Thomas Aquinas. For the rest his life, St. Thomas would occupy a primary role in Gilson’s research, thought and writings.

Gilson’s first university teaching appointment at the University of Lille was interrupted by the First World War when he was mobilized and fought at the Verdun front. Captured in February 1916, Sergeant Gilson spent two years as a German prisoner of war. During these years he studied St. Bonaventure, lectured on Bergson, published an article on aesthetic judgements, learned to play tennis, directed an orchestra of men from the camp, perfected his English and German, and became fluent in Russian. Gilson had the gift of languages. Besides Aristotle and Virgil, he read the original texts of Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, and Dostoyevsky. His magnum opus will always be ‘Le thomisme,’ compiled from his lectures on St. Thomas given at Lille, appearing in 1919 as a 174-page work. By its final edition of 1965 it had grown to 478 pages.

In more than one way, 1926 was Gilson’s annum mirabilis, as he calls it. That was the year he crossed Atlantic for the first time. And with it begins a dizzying series of events. After a brief visit to Montreal, he arrived in Virginia during the Summer of 1926. His first impression of American University students is rather interesting. They “all drive cars and carry no books; they appear to regard the university as occasion for meeting one another in a country setting. Courses being an afterthought” (p. 140). His wife, Thérèse, never came to like North America, though she accompanied Étienne several times. But it was not the same for Étienne. In spite of a few initial ‘cultural shocks’ (for instance, he could not eat corn on the cob using his hands), he came to love America. ‘Existence here goes on in a tranquil routine which amazes me. Why wasn’t I born in Virginia? And why haven’t I been teaching philosophy to young Americans!” (p. 143). Gilson did not fall into the error that many foreigners and sadly many Americans themselves fall: “Americans cannot philosophize.” No, Gilson asserted they could, and some of the best students of his time were Americans. But later he deplores the fact that their fanatic obsession for freedom destroys the ‘desire to serve Truth.’ We cannot ignore the fact that the American Universities paid him better. Not that he was in ‘the business for money,’ but he was desperately poor most of his life. Contrary to the wealthy Jacques Maritain, Gilson had some darker financial moments.

In 1924, with the help of Fr. Phelan, he set up a new Institute of Medieval Studies, which later was approved as a Pontifical Institute by Pope Pius XII. And with that, Gilson’s life started to move upward. He started to collaborate with Catholic magazines like La vie Intellectuelle and Catholic Matters. In 1946 he was elected as one of the ‘immortals’ of Académie Française. It is no doubt that he was elected in recognition of a wide array of achievements: his role in the development of Thomism; his grasp of languages and of language itself; his books and other writings; his manifest intelligence. At the acceptance ceremony he asserted yet again: ‘Thomism is bursting with life. it is the philosophy of the future’ (p. 267). It is interesting to note that though he was elected into the Académie, he soon realized the Académie was failing to exert a profound influence on French thought and language. ‘Once, when a Montreal taxi-driver spoke of ‘un building,’ Gilson countered with ‘un bâtiment.’ “But the Académie Française approved of un building” said the driver, and Gilson was shocked. Back in France, he checked the word, and found that the taxi-driver had indeed been right (p. 283).

This is not an attempt to canonize Étienne Gilson. He indeed had many flaws. He himself acknowledges his own short-comings, especially in his role as a Catholic father. He regretted that his long absences from home had caused his paternal failure (p. 293). His political views are not perfect either (p. 254). His siding with Chenu and de Lubac is a great theological flaw, even after being ‘warned’ by Cardinal Ottaviani. Even as a Thomist philosopher he erred in his ‘novel concept’ of Christian Philosophy. Not that ‘Christian philosophy’ is an erroneous concept, but that he erred in pushing it too far, per excessum, where Cardinal Mercier erred per defectum (p. 198). He drifted towards semi-fideism.

How did he redeem himself? Or did he? Well, the episode of l’affaire Gilson, during which Gilson recommended that the United States not ally itself with France in World War II, (p. 301–311) is crucial to understand Étienne’s spiritual life. It served as a ‘catharsis’ for him to come back to God—as everything he built collapsed in an ‘instant.’ He was termed as ‘traître’, ‘déserter’ in the media. Not a few articles in Paris declared that ‘Gilson was no longer a Frenchman’ (p. 305). He was even considered to be excluded from the Académie Française. In spite of all these tumultuous events, Gilson remained calm and became a more spiritual man, thanks to the monks of La Pierre Qui Vire. “It is the privilege of those who bear such spiritual fruit to feel abandoned and miserable and alone, for poverty of spirit is the patrimony of the children of God in this world and their pledge of glory in the world to come” (p. 309).

Though he thoroughly appreciated Pope Pius XII for his kind paternity (p. 277), he did not see eye to eye with him on many philosophical issues. He was too attached to Père Chenu and had a soft spot for his ex-student Père de Lubac. Surprisingly, his first meeting with Pope John XXIII did not go well either. Pope John XXIII had scandalized him when the Holy Father said “his deepest suffering as pope was not being able to relieve so many poor priests from the ‘martyrdom’ of celibacy”(p. 354). From then on Gilson became a ‘soft-critic’ of the conciliar and post-conciliar church. He was sad to see Vatican II downplaying St. Thomas Aquinas.

When Fr. Congar suggested that we should show some sympathy for Teilhard de Chardin on the grounds that de Chardin “at least succeeded in catching the attention of the contemporary world,” Gilson was furious. Luckily he was not there at the meeting in Saulchoir. He later wrote to his friend, “Had I been there, I would have observed that Luther too caught the attention of his contemporaries. What a criterion!” Gilson started to criticize the New Mass, and ‘in matters concerning the day-to-day life of the post conciliar church’ (p. 378). Jacques Maritain even cautioned him of not being “community minded”—when Gilson criticized the “wretched messe-farfelue,” the “abomination of mingling consecrated and non-consecrated hosts by some priests.” Soon Maritain too sensed (along with Gilson) that abandonment was real and they both saw the Church was changing for the worse.

Towards the end of his life, he was sorely missed in Paris. A certain friend, André Rousseaux, told him that some of his students wanted him back badly and they complained that France, which possesses the world’s greatest philosophe-médiéviste, allowed him to remain buried under snow in Toronto! (p. 333). To many requests for lectures during his old age, Gilson responded with his usual humour: “You have to be old to be known: you get invited when you no longer have the strength to accept…” Gilson spent his last few days in the company of the hospital chaplain. “Gilson had always known how to be at home with priests, no doubt because his memory was a storehouse of the truths and records of their sacerdotal nobility throughout history. In the hospital the chaplain, Abbé Bernard Gallet, asked Gilson if he might call him “maître.” Gilson answered immediately, and in Latin, “unus est enim Magister vester” from Matthew 23:8. Then, reflecting on what Christ had meant by these words, he said he would be happy to be called “maître.” (p. 391) Gilson died on Tuesday morning, 19th September 1978 after receiving the Sacraments.

Fr. Laurence Shook is a master in biography and English style. His ‘Étienne Gilson’ is a piece of art and learning with wealth of literary gems and historical detail which he visibly enjoys communicating to his readers. Indeed, truly has the author assimilated the writings and thought of Étienne Gilson. The literary art that fills these pages make of the reading a pleasure no less than a lesson for an intellect zeal in pursuit of truth. One can learn more about the intellectual life (practicalities on Lycées, Sorbonne, Académie Française). Certain interesting figures do cross the story like Abbé Combes, S. Radhakrishnan (first president of India and a philosopher himself), Adler, etc. The book may be daunting at first sight, at 400 pages long and with small print. But anyone who will plough through a few pages will not leave the book unfinished. One small regret is that the author did not mention anything about how Gilson organized his class, his own methodology, or his teaching style. This would have embellished the book even more.

In fine, what can we conclude of Étienne Gilson? Well, ‘He was a species all his own’ (p. 400). Of his kind, we may never see in this techno-dependent era. Warmly recommended for reading.