Etienne Gilson (1884-1978) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy, as well as a scholar of medieval philosophy. In 1946 he attained the distinction of being elected an ""Immortal"" (member) of the Academie francaise. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1959 and 1964. The appearance of Gilson's Metamorphosis of the City of God, which were originally delivered as lectures at the University of Louvain, Belgium, in the Spring of 1952, coincided with the first steps toward what would become the European Union. The appearance of this English translation coincides with the upheaval of Brexit. Gilson traces the various attempts of thinkers through the centuries to describe Europe's soul and delimit its parts. The Scots, Catalonians, Flemings, and probably others may nod in agreement in Gilson's observation on how odd would be a Europe composed of the political entities that existed two and a half centuries ago. Those who think the European Union has lost its soul may not be comforted by the difficulty thinkers have had over the centuries in defining that soul. Indeed the difficulties that have thus far prevented integrating Turkey into the EU confirm Gilson's description of the conundrum involved even in distinguishing Europe's material components. And yet, the endeavor has succeeded, so that the problem of shared ideals remain inescapable. One wonders which of the thinkers in the succession studied by Gilson might grasp assent and illuminate the EU's path.

Imagine you suddenly find yourself in the control room of a vast technological apparatus, sometime in the future, where you are told that science has satisfied all the needs of all living humans. Furthermore, you learn, the next generation of the species will not be produced in the usual way, but instead by this machine, provided only that somebody push a little red button. The catch: you have to give a reason for pushing it. You hesitate: what do you say? Our own world is more like this scenario than we at first may be inclined to admit, not least in the fact that, mutatis mutandis, we seem to be struggling to come up with a good answer. The problem, says Remi Brague, is fundamentally a metaphysical one. Now, mention of 'metaphysics' in decent society these days is likely to elicit a smile or an unimpressed shrug. If there is a shelf with that label on it in your typical bookstore you are as likely to find guides to crystals, chakras, or hemp care there as you are treatises by Aristotle, Aquinas, or Kant. And, in spite of the ongoing revival of academic interest in metaphysics, it remains a rather specialist domain, a marginal sub-discipline in departments of philosophy, be they analytical or continental in cast. If you should take it too seriously, you'll lose your bearings in the real world, and you'll go adrift in some ethereal sea of dreams. It is, in a word, irrelevant - right? Wrong, Brague writes. Sustained reflection on the nature of being, undertaken in the hope that something can indeed be said about it, was for millennia considered to be among the most important of intellectual pursuits, and not without reason. With his characteristic combination of erudition and wit, Brague takes us on a sweeping tour of the discipline's varying fortunes, from its early Athenian practitioners through its Jewish, Muslim, and Christian heirs, to the chorus of critics who in the last few centuries succeeded in putting an end to its dominance. But the questions that metaphysics was asking, Brague shows, did not disappear with its demise, and so, whether implicitly or explicitly, metaphysics itself has resisted relegation to the history books. For the nature of being, and especially our relationship to it, has continued to haunt its triumphant critics. One quintessentially metaphysical claim above all, as Brague suggests, seems to have horrified them: the doctrine that all that is, insofar as it is, is good. And yet, in rejecting the "convertibility" of the "transcendentals" of being and goodness, critics of the old metaphysics - Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Carnap, and Levinas among them - in their own ways offered metaphysical counter-claims, even as they turned increasingly anthropological in their interests. They also raised the stakes. For, whether the denial of the goodness of being can legitimately be attributed some causal responsibility for a world in which our species could rapidly and deliberately ensure its own extinction, this is the world we live in, and that denial does form the basis of the intellectual background from which we tend to begin our speculations. If we need to be able to articulate reasons for our project not to end, then we also need to rethink the rejection that we have come to take for granted. What Brague offers us here is not a narrative of decline, not a Jeremiad, not a nostalgic lament for the thought-world of a bygone era, but a sympathetic outline of some of the major tensions in the philosophical underpinnings of the modernity that we all inhabit. As such, it forms a part of his ongoing effort take modernity "more seriously than it takes itself", to expose its hidden foundations, and to push it to its logical conclusions. In so doing, he hopes to help clarify where it is that we are going as a species, and to ensure that wherever it is, there is room for us humans in it.

When the ancient Greeks looked up into the heavens, they saw not just sun and moon, stars and planets, but a complete, coherent universe, a model of the Good that could serve as a guide to a better life. How this view of the world came to be, and how we lost it (or turned away from it) on the way to becoming modern, make for a fascinating story, told in a highly accessible manner by Remi Brague in this wide-ranging cultural history.
Before the Greeks, people thought human action was required to maintain the order of the universe and so conducted rituals and sacrifices to renew and restore it. But beginning with the Hellenic Age, the universe came to be seen as existing quite apart from human action and possessing, therefore, a kind of wisdom that humanity did not. Wearing his remarkable erudition lightly, Brague traces the many ways this universal wisdom has been interpreted over the centuries, from the time of ancient Egypt to the modern era. Socratic and Muslim philosophers, Christian theologians and Jewish Kabbalists all believed that questions about the workings of the world and the meaning of life were closely intertwined and that an understanding of cosmology was crucial to making sense of human ethics. Exploring the fate of this concept in the modern day, Brague shows how modernity stripped the universe of its sacred and philosophical wisdom, transforming it into an ethically indifferent entity that no longer serves as a model for human morality.
Encyclopedic and yet intimate, "The Wisdom of the World" offers the best sort of history: broad, learned, and completely compelling. Brague opens a window onto systems of thought radically different from our own.

This volume presents a penetrating interview and sixteen essays that explore key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy. With characteristic erudition and insight, RemiBrague focuses less on individual Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers than on their relationships with one another. Their disparate philosophical worlds, Brague shows, were grounded in different models of revelation that engendered divergent interpretations of the ancient Greek sources they held in common. So, despite striking similarities in their solutions for the philosophical problems they all faced, intellectuals in each theological tradition often viewed the others' ideas with skepticism, if not disdain. Brague's portrayal of this misunderstood age brings to life not only its philosophical and theological nuances, but also lessons for our own time.

Dieses Buch entfaltet das christliche Menschenbild in seinen Umrissen. Die Frage nach dem Menschen verdient es namlich, wieder neu gestellt zu werden, weil heute der 'Humanismus' von einem zerstoererischen 'Antihumanismus' bedroht ist. Warum besitzt der Mensch eine Wurde und mithin Rechte? Die Antwort auf diese Frage fallt sehr unterschiedlich aus. Entsprechend unbestimmt, verschwommen und vieldeutig bleibt das Lippenbekenntnis zu Menschenwurde und Menschenrechten. Wer also ist jenes Lebewesen, das wir 'Mensch' nennen? Jeder Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen 'Definition' fuhrt theoretisch und praktisch zu unmenschlichen Folgen, wie zahllose Beispiele in der Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts auf erschreckende Weise zeigen. Das christliche Menschenbild verzichtet auf eine solche Definition und zeichnet jene Kontur eines Vorbildes, auf die hin der Mensch in Christus seine vollkommene, abgeschlossene Gestalt gefunden hat. Die anthropologischen, sozialen und politischen Folgen eines so gepragten Menschenbildes werden in diesem Buch eroertert: als Pladoyer fur die Achtung der Natur des Menschen, die nicht der eigenen Verfugungsgewalt noch der Beherrschung durch Dritte in die Hand gelegt ist.

The Legitimacy of the Human presents itself as a satellite work to a more voluminous effort by Remi Brague, The Kingdom of Man. The larger book argues the thesis of the increasingly visible failure of the modern project, founded upon a view of man as thoroughly emancipated and autonomous, his own sovereign and the world's. This is most visible in our technological powers and predicaments, with their ever-growing capacity to destroy or fundamentally transform our humanity, but understandings of freedom and equality unable to justify themselves before the bar of reason, but willfully asserting themselves, complement the picture. If modernity's precious gains are to be preserved, and with them their beneficiaries, modern human beings, then the founding thoughts of the modern world need to be revisited and revised, often in terms of a creative reengagement with premodern ones. A new, truly humanistic, culture needs to be sought. The Legitimacy of the Human drives home that basic argument, surveying contemporary challenges to the very existence of humanity, then interrogating modern thought and philosophy for reasons it might have for the continuation of the human adventure. Brague finds the self-proclaimed advocates of the modern strikingly silent or even negative about the proposition. To be sure, in many instances modern philosophy has helped humanity organize itself better in terms of justice, peaceful coexistence, and prosperity. But on the basic question whether it is good that humans exist, it is strangely tongue-tied. Other authorities must be consulted, other sources drawn from, to credibly answer that fundamental existential question. The last two chapters of the book hearken to the answer of the biblical God, as expressed in Genesis 1 and recapitulated by the Word Incarnate of the Gospels.

Metaphysik ist kein Phantom. Sie bewohnt kein Wolkenschloss, sondern hat ihren Platz mitten im Alltag der Menschen und ist zu einer unverzichtbaren Lebensnotwendigkeit geworden. Denn nachdem der Mensch das Projekt der Moderne in die Tat umgesetzt und sein Geschick selbst in die Hand genommen hat, kann er frei entscheiden, zu sein - oder auch nicht zu sein: Die Entscheidung uber Fortbestand oder Ausloeschung der Menschheit liegt in seinen Handen. Damit aber stellt sich unausweichlich die Frage nach der Rechtmassigkeit unseres Daseins. Es genugt nicht, das Leben immer angenehmer zu machen fur diejenigen, die schon auf der Welt sind - das zu tun stellt niemand in Abrede. Die Frage heute lautet sehr viel grundsatzlicher: Ist menschliches Leben ein so grosses Gut, dass man selbst das Recht hat, andere in dieses Leben zu rufen? Wer behauptet, das Sein sei mehr wert als das Nichts, trifft eine metaphysische Entscheidung. Man braucht eine starke Metaphysik, um die Frage zu beantworten, ob es rechtmassig ist, dass der Mensch auch zukunftig die Erde bevoelkert. Der AutorDr. Remi Brague ist Professor em. fur Philosophie an der Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne und der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen. Seine Bucher sind in 18 Sprachen ubersetzt. Der HerausgeberDr. Christoph Boehr ist ao. Professor am Institut fur Philosophie der Hochschule Heiligenkreuz/Wien.

Europa besitzt keine Identitat im Sinne eines kulturellen oder religioesen Erbes, sondern definiert sich durch seine Spannung zwischen einer Klassik der Anderen, die es anzueignen, und einer Barbarei im Inneren, die es zu uberwinden gilt. Das Besondere der europaischen Identitat liegt in ihrer 'kulturellen Zweitrangigkeit': in dem Wissen, nicht ursprunglich zu sein, sondern vor sich Anderes, Fruheres zu haben - kulturell die griechische Antike, religioes das Judentum. 'Roemisch' ist die Haltung der Aneignung, der UEberlieferung und der Weitergabe: Europas exzentrische Identitat ist die Quelle aller Renaissancen, deren dieser Kontinent fahig gewesen ist, von der karolingischen Renaissance bis zur Renaissance des Hellenismus der deutschen Klassik. Das 'Roemertum' der Europaer ist zum Ursprung ihres kulturellen Reichtums geworden. Und heute stellt sich die Frage, ob wir noch 'Roemer' sind und sein wollen: aneignend, uberliefernd, weitergebend. Wer Europa verstehen lernen will, muss zu diesem Buch, das inzwischen in dreizehn Sprachen ubersetzt wurde, greifen.

This volume presents a penetrating interview and sixteen essays that explore key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy. With characteristic erudition and insight, RemiBrague focuses less on individual Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers than on their relationships with one another. Their disparate philosophical worlds, Brague shows, were grounded in different models of revelation that engendered divergent interpretations of the ancient Greek sources they held in common. So, despite striking similarities in their solutions for the philosophical problems they all faced, intellectuals in each theological tradition often viewed the others' ideas with skepticism, if not disdain. Brague's portrayal of this misunderstood age brings to life not only its philosophical and theological nuances, but also lessons for our own time.

The law of God: these words conjure an image of Moses breaking the tablets at Mount Sinai, but the history of the alliance between law and divinity is so much longer, and its scope so much broader, than a single Judeo-Christian scene can possibly suggest. In his stunningly ambitious new history, Remi Brague goes back three thousand years to trace this idea of divine law in the West from prehistoric religions to modern times--giving new depth to today's discussions about the role of God in worldly affairs.
Brague masterfully describes the differing conceptions of divine law in Judaic, Islamic, and Christian traditions and illuminates these ideas with a wide range of philosophical, political, and religious sources. In conclusion, he addresses the recent break in the alliance between law and divinity--when modern societies, far from connecting the two, started to think of law simply as the rule human community gives itself. Exploring what this disconnection means for the contemporary world, Brague--powerfully expanding on the project he began with "The Wisdom of the World"--re-engages readers in a millennia-long intellectual tradition, ultimately arriving at a better comprehension of our own modernity.
"Brague's sense of intellectual adventure is what makes his work genuinely exciting to read. "The Law of God" offers a challenge that anyone concerned with today's religious struggles ought to take up."--Adam Kirsch, "New York"" Sun""" "Scholars and students of contemporary world events, to the extent that these may be viewed as a clash of rival fundamentalisms, will have much to gain from Brague's study. Ideally, in that case, the book seems to be both an obvious primer andlaunching pad for further scholarship."--"Times Higher Education Supplement"

When the ancient Greeks looked up into the heavens, they saw not just sun and moon, stars and planets, but a complete, coherent universe, a model of the Good that could serve as a guide to a better life. How this view of the world came to be, and how we lost it (or turned away from it) on the way to becoming modern, make for a fascinating story, told in a highly accessible manner by Remi Brague in this wide-ranging cultural history.
Before the Greeks, people thought human action was required to maintain the order of the universe and so conducted rituals and sacrifices to renew and restore it. But beginning with the Hellenic Age, the universe came to be seen as existing quite apart from human action and possessing, therefore, a kind of wisdom that humanity did not. Wearing his remarkable erudition lightly, Brague traces the many ways this universal wisdom has been interpreted over the centuries, from the time of ancient Egypt to the modern era. Socratic and Muslim philosophers, Christian theologians and Jewish Kabbalists all believed that questions about the workings of the world and the meaning of life were closely intertwined and that an understanding of cosmology was crucial to making sense of human ethics. Exploring the fate of this concept in the modern day, Brague shows how modernity stripped the universe of its sacred and philosophical wisdom, transforming it into an ethically indifferent entity that no longer serves as a model for human morality.
Encyclopedic and yet intimate, "The Wisdom of the World" offers the best sort of history: broad, learned, and completely compelling. Brague opens a window onto systems of thought radically different from our own.

The law of God: these words conjure an image of Moses breaking the tablets at Mount Sinai, but the history of the alliance between law and divinity is so much longer, and its scope so much broader, than a single Judeo-Christian scene can possibly suggest. In his stunningly ambitious new history, Remi Brague goes back three thousand years to trace this idea of divine law in the West from prehistoric religions to modern times--giving new depth to today's discussions about the role of God in worldly affairs.
Bringing to the work his characteristic brilliance and clarity of thought, Brague explains how divine law, which served in ancient Greece as a metaphor for natural law, was seen in ancient Israel as divine revelation. Later, in the Middle Ages, it took on new sacred meanings: within Judaism, it represented the sole presence of God among a people deprived of a temple and kingdom. For Islam, it served as direct dictation from God that came to rule all human practices. Christianity, meanwhile, conceived a relationship to God that went beyond legislation, turning away from the idea of revealed law and toward the Greek notion of law that was divine "because" it was natural.
Masterfully illuminating these ideas with a wide range of philosophical, political, and religious sources, Brague's history concludes by addressing the recent break in the alliance between law and divinity--when modern societies, far from connecting the two, started to think of law simply as the rule human community gives itself. Exploring what this disconnection means for the contemporary world, Brague--powerfully expanding on the project he began with "The Wisdom of the World"--re-engages readers in amillennia-long intellectual tradition, ultimately arriving at a better comprehension of our own modernity.