The essential apologetics of Louis Jugnet

After republishing Problèmes et grands courants de la philosophie [Problems and major movements in philosophy] and Doctrines philosophiques et systèmes politiques [Philosophical doctrines and political systems], publishing house Chiré is releasing Thomistic philosopher Louis Jugnet’s Catholicisme, foi et problème religieux [Catholicism, faith and religious problem] this month.

As we noted in the preface we were invited to write, “Republishing Louis Jugnet today is above all allowing readers to open a treasure and discover a profoundly current manner of thought, current thanks to its foundation on philosophia perennis, the ‘natural metaphysics of the human intellect.’ (…)

“At the beginning of his book, Louis Jugnet calls it an ‘opuscule’, or minor work, and at the end refers to it as merely a note. Indeed, it is not quite 100 pages long: yet what richness is found in these pages, at once concise and vibrant! It cuts straight to the essential, to what Thomists call the formal—and it clarifies numerous points on which other books have dwelt in profuse detail without fully elucidating the profound meaning. The author’s secret is that he follows the method of the Summa, which “distinguishes in order to unite”, and not that of the Encyclopedia whose alphabetical order offers a mass of information that caters to curiosity without feeding the mind, that offers material but without intelligent order.

Catholicisme, foi et problème religieux [Catholicism, faith and religious problem] is not a book that should merely be read: it should be the object of study and meditation.

Father Alain Lorans