Acquaintance With the Absolute: The Philosophical Achievement of Yves R. Simon 9780823295128

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ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE ABSOLUTE

Acquaintance with the Absolute The Philosophy if Yves R. Simon ESSAYS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edited by ANTHONYO. SIMON

Introduction by James V. Schall, S.J.

FoRDHAM UNIVERSITY PREss

New York 1998

© Copyright 1998 by Fordham University

All rights reserved. LC 98-19888 ISBN 0-8232-1751-5 (hardcover) ISBN 0-8232-1752-3 (paperback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Acquaintance with the absolute: the philosphy ofYves R. Simon : essays and bibliography I edited by Anthony 0. Simon ; introduction by James V. Schall. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0-8232-1751-5 (he).- ISBN 0-8232-1752-3 (pbk.) 1. Simon, Yves Rene Marie, 1903-1961. I. Simon, Anthony 0. B2430.S5464A24 1998 194-dc21 98-19888 CIP

Printed in the United States of America

For Richard Marco Blow George S. Stratigos and Meg Donohue Spitznogle with gratitude and affection

CONTENTS Editor's Note Acknowledgments A Brief Chronology Introduction by James V. Schall, S.J.

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XV XVll

1

Part I ESSAYS 1. Yves R. Simon's Metaphysics of Action RAYMOND L. DENNEHY

19

2. Yves R. Simon's Philosophy ofScience

57

RALPH NELSON

3. Yves R. Simon and the Neo-Thomist Tradition in Epistemology JOHN F. X. KNASAS 4. Yves R. Simon on Natural Law and Reason

83 101

RussELL BITTINGER

5. Yves R. Simon on Liberty and Authority VuKAN

128

Kmc

6. Practical Wisdom in the Thought ofYves R. Simon

147

ROBERTJ.MULVANEY

Part II BIBLIOGRAPHY Yves R. Simon: A Definitive Bibliography, 1923-1996 ANTHONY 0. SIMON

185

Indexes Notes on the Contributors

295 327

EDITOR'S NOTE YvEs R. SIMON (1903-1961) was born in Cherbourg, France, the son of an industrialist, and was educated at the Lycee Louis-leGrand, the Sorbonne, and the Catholic Institute ofParis. He studied natural science, economics, and medicine as well as philosophy and initially thought of pursuing a literary career. Despite being handicapped during childhood with tuberculosis of the bone, he completed his studies and began teaching in 1930. He began writing in his early twenties. Simon made a strong entry into the world of philosophy with an impressive list of articles on both theoretical and practical topics, followed by the publication of his first two books, An Introduction to Metaphysics cif Knowledge and Critique cif Moral Knowledge. 1 During the last decade Yves R. Simon's fame as a master teacher and thinker has been greatly enhanced by the steady stream of posthumous books and articles as well as by the reprinting of many of his early works. He is once again teaching a new generation in the same renowned fashion, marked by great lucidity and the ability to explain profound and complex problems through the perceptive use of everyday examples. Many philosophers and teachers are in agreement that Simon's writings could be read ten years ago or a decade hence with equal profit because they retain their modernity and contemporaneous value. A non-specialized philosopher by principle, Simon made major contributions in political philosophy, logic, ethics, philosophy of science, epistemology, and metaphysics, and wrote insightful texts on a variety of other topics. He had a rare genius for friendship and was very devoted to his students-a devotion they fully returned. His mentor was Jacques Maritain, with whom he carried on a treasured forty-year friendship and collaboration. That relationship was notably preserved I The French titles of these volumes are Introduction a ['ontologie du connaltre (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1934) and Critique de la connaissance morale (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1934). An English edition of the latter is forthcoming.

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EDITOR'S NOTE

by the publication of Simon's last public lecture, occasioned by the inauguration of a Jacques Maritain Center at the University ofNotre Dame. 2 His philosophical thinking was formed by Aquinas, but unlike many other Thomists his thought went far beyond any narrow, strident Thomism. Educationally he felt ''that on a college level not philosophy but man considered in the contingencies of his concrete existence should be the main subject of liberal studies. " 3 Before coming to the United States in the fall of 1938 as a Visiting Professor, Simon taught philosophy for eight years at the Catholic Institute of Lille, simultaneously directing a series of weekly public philosophy lectures at the Catholic Institute of Paris, where he regularly delivered his own papers. In addition, he was managing editor of the Revue de Philosophic and editor of two book series entitled Cours et Documents de Philosophic and Les Beaux Voyages d'Autrifois, published by Pierre Tequi. Simon was very active in political and cultural movements, frequently contributing to avant-garde as well as to conservative journals. For nearly two years during the 1920s he was active in Marc Sangnier's league of the ]eune-Republique, which supported FrancoGerman reconciliation and the League of Nations during the early years after World War I. Later he joined numerous committees dedicated to mediating the Spanish Civil War and aiding its refugees who were pouring into France. He was a prominent signatory of a series of important political and ethical manifestoes published during the 1930s. The most important and well-known of these manifestos was "For the Common Good," signed by fifty-two leading French literary, cultural, and political figures. 4 Simon was also, along with Georges Bernanos, Emmanuel Mounier, Stanislas Fumet, Gabriel Marcel, Franyois Mauriac, and others, one of the founding members of and a frequent contributor to Temps Present (1937), the influential Parisian newspaper 2 John Howard Griffin and Yves R. Simon, jacques Maritain: Homage in Words and Pictures (Albany, New York: Magi Book, 1974), pp. 3-15. 3 Ibid., p. 4. 4 The original French edition was Pour le bien commun: Les Responsabilites du chretien et le moment present (Paris: Des dee de Brouwer, 1934). This manifesto was published on April 19, 1934 and had an important impact on the critical political affairs of the time. For the English edition see "For the Common Good: The Christian's Responsibility in the Present Crisis," trans. with an introduction by Bernard E. Doering in Notes et Documents (Rome), 5, No. 20 (1980), 1-20.

EDITOR'S NOTE

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published after the suppression of Sept, its controversial predecessor. Temps Present was to suffer a similar fate at the hands of the Nazi-controlled Vichy government. Having spent a year teaching in Germany during the early 1930s, he foresaw with an awesome precision where the Nazi policies would inevitably take Germany, France, and the world. His passionate reflections were laid out in articles and in three books written during the war: The Road to Vichy, 1918-193 8; The March to Liberation; and the Community of the Free. 5 He believed that France had been defeated from within and that a major cause was that the French had lost their understanding of the meaning of authority in democracy and that conservatives had willingly yielded to fascism. Once established in America, Simon continued his political writings in journals, newspapers, and books in defense of liberty, democracy, and the efforts of the Free French and the Allies. These books, written in French, were promptly translated into English; two of them were reprinted four decades later. Simon's analysis of the causes of social problems transcends the specific events to which he applied it. No philosopher in this century has demonstrated so lucidly how a free and ordered society depends on political liberty as a necessary complement to legitimate political authority. In America he first taught philosophy for ten years at the University ofNotre Dame before accepting an invitation from Chancellor Robert M. Hutchins to join the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. The Committee at the time (1948) consisted of members from diverse academic fields, including: John U. Nef, F. A. Hayek, David Grene, Peter H. von Blankenhagen, Edward A. Shils, Mircea Eliade, Marshall Hodgson, Frank H. Knight, James M. Redfield, and Otto von Simpson, and a host of lecturers such as T. S. Eliot, Jacques Maritain, and Marc Chagall. Simon's colleague in Chicago's department of political science, Hans]. Morgenthau, wrote that "he had a profound impact at both Schools and that . . . one is struck by one quality that distinguishes the whole ofSimon's work: the combi5 See the original French editions, La grande crise de Ia Republiqu~ Franfaise: Observations sur Ia vie politique des Franfais de 1918-193 8 (Montreal: Editions de L'Arbre, 1941); Lamarche a Ia delivrance (New York: Editions de la Maison Fran