Cornelio Fabro (1911-1995)

Cornelio Fabro: Philosopher of Esse and of Freedom

Cornelio Fabro (1911 – 1995) is among the most important philosophers of the 20th century because of his studies of the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas and for his vast knowledge of modern philosophy and classical Christian realism from the perspective of Kierkegaard's metaphysical existentialism.

The goal of the Cornelio Fabro Cultural Project is to place the entire intellectual production of this Italian philosopher at the disposition of all, in both printed and digital form, including audio, video, and texts. The Complete Works will be translated into English and Spanish, and the most important volumes into other languages as well.

"The birth of freedom has been the only and essential task, the intensive point of my
journey which is still in motion, because the life of the spirit does not allow breaks... Truth,
therefore, in freedom, and freedom for the truth." C.F.[Hat tip to Prof. Mark Latkovic]

I bet he doesn't cover Ainu philosophy

Ambitious project -- this guy is doing a podcast history of philosophy (together with a book):

http://www.historyofphilosophy.net/

Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King's College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, "without any gaps." The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition.

Perhaps it should be called "History of Philosophy with almost no gaps."

[Hat tip to C.B.]

Key Letter by Descartes, Lost for 170 Years, Turns Up at Haverford

Mary Helen Miller, in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (February 25, 2010), reports that "the president of the Pennsylvania college, Stephen G. Emerson, said this week that when he found out the letter had been stolen—from Paris's Institut de France about 170 years ago—he knew it must be returned. So in June, Mr. Emerson will fly to France with the letter in his carry-on bag, and give it back."

I'm not sure the letter provides any substantial new information on Descartes' theories, but it does appear to shed some light on the structure and composition of his Meditations on First Philosophy, indicating that he made some significant rearrangements and extractions.

[Hat tip to N.B.]

Fr. Stanley Jaki, OSB (1924 - 2009)

Benedictine Father Stanley Jaki, died quietly in the company of friends, from complications after suffering a heart attack without knowing it, on 7 April 2009 [13:15 Spanish time], at Clinica de la Conception in Madrid, Spain where he was visiting friends following a lecture series in Rome for the Master in Faith and Science of the Pontificio Ateneo Regina Apostolorum.

As Paul Zalonski writes in the Communio obituary, "He was a monk and priest of the Archabbey of Saint Martin, Pannonhalma, Hungary. He entered the archabbey in 1941, professing solemn vows in 1944 and was ordained a priest in 1948. Like many other Hungarian priests, Jaki immigrated to the USA during Soviet persecution." Father Jaki was first and foremost a faithful priest and scholar -- a physicist as well as a theologian -- and a prolific writer. He had served as Distinguished Professor of Physics at Seton Hall University, New Jersey, since 1975. As Zalonski notes:

Jaki earned a doctorate in theology from Sant'Anselmo (Rome) in 1950 and another doctorate in (astro)physics from Fordham University in 1957. Since 1965 he has taught at Seton Hall University and honored as Distinguished Professor of Physics in 1975. After retiring he kept active by holding court, giving lectures and writing, often cantankerously.

Father Jaki was well-known for his writings on science and religion. He delievered the prestigious Gifford Lectures from 1974-1976, later published under the title of The Road of Science and the Ways to God. In 1987 Dom Stanley was award the Templeton Prize. He is considered one of the best scholars on the thought of Cardinal John Henry Newman in the U.S. His publishing record show he published 7 books and numerous articles on Newman.

Fr. Jaki was one of the premier contemporary minds in the fields of philosophy of science and theology, as well as on inter-disciplinary issues. He authored innumerable books, articles and essays covering everything from the metaphysics of the Eucharist, to Petrine primacy, to exactly where and how Charles Darwin went woefully wrong. In short, Fr. Jaki was one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century and his contributions to Catholic thought and culture will be difficult to quantify.

As one G.K. Chesterton fan comments: "In addition to so many other things, Father Jaki was also a beloved and much-sought after Chestertonian, and a true follower of the Rule of St. Benedict in every way imaginable; he was always teaching. He only had to be invited to speak once to the annual American Chesterton Society Conference....after that he would simply call Dale Ahlquist in advance and announce his topic! Such graceful moxie is very rare these days and those of us who have known him, learned from him, and love him have all been blessed and bettered by his initiative; it will be a palpable loss not to have this spiritual and intellectual giant in our midst any longer."

I am amused that Zalonski mentions that Fr. Jaki could be "cantankerous." A couple of friends of mine report that in conversations with him he would without any hesitation simply declare: "You are no physicist!" or "You are no philosopher!" I say amused, because he was usually quite right in his judgments, even if a trifle tactless. Socrates keeps good company.

Another feature of Fr. Jaki that goes unmentioned, however, is how he was almost always peddling his personal publications. One friend of mine mentions that he met Fr. Jaki at a conference on the East coast. My friend mentioned that Fr. Jaki recruited him to the task of helping him cart books (and flyers promoting them) from the trunk of his automobile and to help market and distribute to those assembled. I have to confess that in phone conversations with him, Fr. Jaki was a persuasive salesman and managed to sell to me about two dozen of his books and publications he warehoused in his basement. I should add, however, that he gave me a significant discount and that I have profited immensely from the books I have read, though I have yet to tackle his huge tome on physics!

Fr. Jaki will be missed. Let us pray for the merciful repose of his soul.

[Hat tip to Fr. Zuhlsdorf and Chestertonian, Miki]

Manfred S. Frings (1925-2008) -- Requiescat in pace

Manfred Frings, the world's leading Scheler scholar, is dead. Frings was the editor of Max Scheler's Collected Works (Gesammelte Werke), translated many of Scheler's works into English, and was singlehandedly responsible for introducing Scheler's phenomenology into the English-speaking world.

Born on 27 February 1925 in Cologne-Lindenthal, Germany, Frings was the third son of Gottfried and Maria Frings. He attended a Catholic elementary school, lived close to a Jewish community where he forged significant friendships shaping his later antipathy towards Nazism. Both his school and home were destroyed during the bombing of Cologne in WWII, and he remembered rescuing his mother from the ruins of their house. He was drafted into the German military near the end of the war, and was captured by American forces and sent to a POW camp near Rouen, France, where he made the first of many lifelong friendships with Americans.

Following the war, Frings attended the University of Cologne, where he studied philosophy, English and French. He earned his doctorate in philosophy in 1953. In 1958 his dream of emigrating to America was realized when he accepted an invitation to teach philosophy at the University of Detroit. In 1962 he accepted an appointment in philosophy at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. From 1966 to his retirement in 1992, he taught at DePaul University in Chicago. He subsequently continued teaching part-time at the University of New Mexico. At various points throughout his career, he served as visiting professor and lecturer at the Universities of Cologne, Freiburg, Oxford, and Sorbonne.

Frings initiated the annual International Heidegger Conference at DePaul in 1966. He was one of six scholars chosen by Martin Heidegger to be the original editors of Heidegger’s Collected Works (Gesamtausgabe). He edited Heidegger’s 1942-1944 lectures on Parmenides and Heraclitus (volumes 54 and 55 of the Gesamtausgabe). Since 1970, he served as editor of the Collected Works (Gesammelte Werke) of Max Scheler (1874-1928), a task completed with the publication of vol. 15 in 1997. He was President (then President Emeritus) of the international Max Scheler Society (Max-Scheler-Gesellschaft), as well as a founding father of the Max Scheler Society of North America.

The principal focus of Frings’s career was Scheler’s phenomenology of values, sociology of knowledge, ethics, political theory, and philosophy of time. Among Frings' major contributions are the recognition he brought to Scheler’s phenomenology as a credible alternative to Edmund Husserl’s, his clarification of the relationship between Scheler and Heidegger in his seminal Person und Dasein (1969), and his concept of absolute time in his LifeTime: Max Scheler’s Philosophy of Time (2003). He has published well over a hundred articles, and edited twenty-four books, including his notable The Mind of Max Scheler: The First Comprehensive Guide Based on the Complete Works (1997, 2nd ed. 2001). His publications have been translated into Chinese, French, Japanese, and German. His work was recognized in a special audience with Pope John Paul II, himself an accomplished Scheler scholar, and by Martin Heidegger in personal meetings in Freiburg.

Frings is survived by his wife and long-time companion, Karin.

Select Bibliography

• Max Scheler: A Concise Introduction into the World of a Great Thinker (Pittsburgh, 1965; 2nd ed, Milwaukee, 1996).
• Person und Dasein: Zur Frage der Ontologie des Wertseins (The Hague, 1969).
• “Max Scheler: Rarely Seen Complexities of Phenomenology,” Phenomenology in Perspective, ed. F. J. Smith (The Hague, 1970).
• Zur Phänomenologie der Lebensgemeinschaft: Ein Versuch mit Max Scheler (Meisenheim, 1971).
• Philosophy of Prediction and Capitalism (Dordrecht, 1987).
  “Scheler, Max,” Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle, III, Les Ouvres Philosophiques (Paris, 1992).
• “The Background of Max Scheler’s 1927 Reading of Being and Time: A Critique of a Critique Through Ethics,” Philosophy Today 36 (1992): 99-113.
• “Max Scheler,” Encyclopedia Americana (Danbury, Connecticut, 1994).
• “Max Scheler,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed (1994).
• “Max Scheler,” Dictionaire d’éthique et de philosophie morale (Paris, 1996).
• “Max Scheler,” The Encyclopedia of Phenomenology (Dordrecht, 1997).
• The Mind of Max Scheler: The First Comprehensive Guide Based on the Complete Works (Milwaukee, 1997).

Goodbye, dear friend. You carry away a whole world with you. Requiescat in pace.

Beatification of Rosmini: wonders never cease

Sandro Magister, "Blessed Liberty: The Posthumous Miracle of Antonio Rosmini" (www.chiesa, November 12, 2007), writes:

ROMA, November 12, 2007 – A beatification ceremony is approaching that is a miracle in its own right: the beatification of the priest and philosopher Antonio Rosmini.

It's a miracle because just six years ago, the new blessed was still under a condemnation issued in 1887 by the congregation of the Holy Office, against 40 propositions drawn from his writings.

Magister remarks: "The philosopher Dario Antiseri paints the portrait of this teacher of a form of liberalism open to religion." Rosmini fast tracked ahead of the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman?