Further reflections on a Catholic Philosophy of Education

Abstract

Readers of this journal will recall two articles on the Catholic philosophy education: ‘Towards a contemporary Catholic philosophy of education,’ by Brendan Carmody SJ, [Carmody, Brendan. (2011). “Towards a Contemporary Catholic Philosophy of Education.” International Studies in Catholic Education 3 (2): 106–119], and ‘Towards a contemporary philosophy of Catholic education: Moving the debate forward,’ by Sean Whittle [Whittle, Sean. (2014). “Towards a Contemporary Philosophy of Catholic Education: Moving the Debate Forward.” International Studies in Catholic Education 6 (1): 46–59]. Both contributions have helped to revitalise interest and discussion in this field by reflecting in quite distinct ways, one philosophical the other theological. The recent book, A Catholic Philosophy of Education: The Church and Two Philosophers, by Mario O. D’Souza, takes a philosophical approach, and is another recent contribution to the field. This essay is divided into three parts. The first considers the contribution of Carmody’s article; second, what Whittle has added to the field; and finally, the light that D’Souza’s book sheds on this discussion.

Keywords:

• Philosophy of Education
• Bernard Lonergan
• Karl Rahner
• Jacques Maritain
• the student as person
• teaching as vocation

Notes on contributor

The late Mario O. D’Souza, CSB, was a Visiting Research Associate at St. Mary’s Catholic University, London and had published an important book, A Catholic Philosophy of Education: The Church and Two Philosophers (2016) before his untimely death in 2017. He was a rising star in the international study of Catholic Education and his death is a great loss to scholarship and research. May he rest in peace.

Notes

1. The term transcendental identifies a ‘distinctive claim to have retrieved the thought of Aquinas in the light of the epistemological and the existential concerns of Kant and Heidegger’ (Egan 2009, 159).

2. What Lonergan means by transcendental method differs subtly but radically from what Rahner and most continental philosophers influenced by Joseph Maréchal, such as Emerich Coreth and Otto Muck.

3. The application of Thomistic philosophical and theological principles and methods, for a diversity of contexts and pastoral situations, mainly to do with the preparation and active engagement of priestly ministry, were concretized in manuals, hence the manualist method. Many Neo-Thomistic and other philosophers and theologians rejected this method, seeing it as closed and static, and not just in the face of developments in knowledge and learning, including the social sciences, but also as indifferent to the human spirit in coming to personally appropriate knowledge and understanding.