The Philosophical Thought of Jacques Maritain: A Reassessment - Introduction

Abstract

This article investigates Jacques Maritain’s distinction between individuality and personality. Drawing on several contemporary Thomistic thinkers, Maritain conceives individuality as situating a human being within the physical and social world, while he grounds personality in the subsistence of the spiritual soul, underpinning freedom, dignity, and moral agency. This distinction functions as a philosophical critique of both individualism, which reduces the human being to a self-enclosed ego, and collectivism, which subsumes the person into the social whole. The paper first traces the development of this distinction from Maritain’s early works to his mature thought. It then examines the principal objections raised by Thomistic critics, who contend that the distinction misinterprets Aquinas and engenders both theoretical and political challenges. The article concludes by arguing that this distinction is ultimately difficult to defend, both as an interpretation of Thomistic thought and as a theoretical construct in its own right. It also considers whether the most significant insights of Maritain’s personalist philosophy can nevertheless be retained independently of this distinction, notwithstanding the central place that Maritain accords it in his philosophical and political theory.