Integral humanism (Maritain)

For other uses, see Integral humanism (India).

Jacques Maritain, the French Catholic philosopher and author of over 60 books, advocated what he called "Integral Christian Humanism". He argued that secular forms of humanism were inevitably anti-human in that they refused to recognize the whole person.

Once the spiritual dimension of human nature is rejected, Maritain has argued that we no longer have an integral, but merely partial, humanism, one which rejects a fundamental aspect of the human person. Accordingly, in Integral Humanism he explores the prospects for a new Christendom, rooted in his philosophical pluralism, in order to find ways Christianity could inform political discourse and policy in a pluralistic age. In this account he develops a theory of cooperation, to show how people of different intellectual positions can nevertheless cooperate to achieve common practical aims. Maritain's political theory was extremely influential, and was a primary source behind the Christian Democratic movement.

References

1. Jacques Maritain -Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy