Jacques Maritain - Political Theory

Political Theory

Maritain advocated what he called "Integral 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, 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.

Maritain also corresponded with the revolutionary community organizer Saul Alinsky and French Prime Minister Robert Schuman.

Read more about this topic:  Jacques Maritain

Famous quotes containing the words political and/or theory:

    How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Thus the theory of description matters most.
    It is the theory of the word for those
    For whom the word is the making of the world,
    The buzzing world and lisping firmament.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)