Integral Humanism, Freedom in the
Modern World, and A Letter on
Independence, Revised Edition (ND
Maritain Collected Works) by
Jacques Maritain
Towards A New Christian Civilization
The three books presented here were all written in the early 1930s, a time
of troubles for France. It was then surrounded by enemies and was itself
on the verge of civil war. Here, Maritain accepts the responsibility of a
Christian philosopher to address the practical problems of the time.
Personal Review: Integral Humanism, Freedom in the Modern
World, and A Letter on Independence, Revised Edition (ND
Maritain Collected Works) by Jacques Maritain
The book Integral Humanism can be considered as one of the most
important books of the twentieth century. It is Maritains masterwork on

social philosophy. It was first published in Spain as a result of six lectures
on the university of Santander in 1934. The whole idea of the book, is that
the crisis of the Modern times is a problem of the question of what
humanism is? He shows that the great problems of communism and
liberalism is that it is based on an antropocentric humanism. Against this
form of humanism Maritain defends a theocentric humanism, which gives
meaning and value to the human person. His idea of the human person
has been known as Personalism. The person is more important than the
totality of society. As an individual he belongs to society and therefore he
has to obey the laws etc. But as a person, society must be serving his
neccessary rights to live a full human life, which also means for men to
find his supernatural destiny. Only a society which has a notion of a
common good can provide meaning for the human life. The society is
organic, build up of lower relative autonomous groups. This idea is
consistent with the earlier encyclical views of a Pope like Leo XIII and the
ideas or roman catholicism on social issues. Maritain has been praised for
the book, but also been criticized because of his lack of insight on
economic issues. Altought he rejects marxism, he also has an anti-
capitalist attitude. Maritain can be considered as one of the most influential
roman catholic philosophers of the twentieth century and I think this work
has still a lot of value for the problems of our time.Cornelis van Putten
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