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The Reverend Joseph Maréchal SJ
Born	1 July 1878 Charleroi,Belgium
Died	11 December 1944(1944-12-11) (aged 66) Leuven, Belgium
Education
Education	Catholic University of Leuven (1901–1905;D.Sc., 1905)
Philosophical work
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Transcendental Thomism
Main interests	Metaphysics,philosophical theology
Notable ideas	Introducingtranscendental Thomism

Joseph Maréchal,SJ (French:[maʁeʃal]; 1 July 1878 – 11 December 1944) was a BelgianJesuit priest, philosopher, theologian and psychologist. He taught at theHigher Institute of Philosophy of theUniversity of Leuven and was the founder of the school of thought calledtranscendental Thomism, which attempted to merge the theological and philosophical thought of St.Thomas Aquinas with that ofImmanuel Kant.

Maréchal joined the Jesuits in 1895 and after a doctorate inbiology at Leuven (1905) he first specialized inexperimental psychology, spending some time inMunich withWilhelm Wundt (1911). Until the end of his life Maréchal would say that his real interest was more in psychology than in philosophy.

Prompted by the call ofPope Leo XIII to revitalize Thomist theology, he started studying in depth the works of St.Thomas Aquinas in order to understand the inner coherence of his system, along with the works of otherscholastic thinkers, modern philosophers and scientists of the day. From this, and in particular from Kant'stranscendental idealism, emerged a new and more dynamic Thomism, recapturing the union of 'act and power' in Aquinas. The development of his thought can be grasped in the fivecahiers (see bibliography) in which, after exposing the weaknesses of traditional Thomism, he evaluated Kant's philosophy (3rd cahier) with whose help he proposes a modernized Thomism in the 4th and 5th cahier. The work of Maréchal had a great influence on such contemporary theologians and philosophers as Andre Marc, Gaston Isaye,Joseph de Finance,Karl Rahner,Bernard Lonergan,Johannes Baptist Lotz,Bernard O'Brien andRichard De Smet.

In the same way, he proceeded to study the psychology of the mystics. Until his death on 11 December 1944 he taught philosophy and experimental psychology at the Jesuit House of Studies in Leuven (St Albert of Leuven's Philosophical and Theological College). He was a great friend ofPierre Scheuer, the Belgian Jesuit who has been described as a metaphysician and mystic.

• Maréchal, Joseph (2004).The Psychology of the Mystics. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications.ISBN 9780486436944.
• Le point de départ de la métaphysique: leçons sur le développement historique et théorique du problème de la connaissance,5 vols, (Bruges-Louvain, 1922–47).
• Études sur le psychologie des mystiques, 2 vols, (1926, 1937) [translated asStudies in the Psychology of the Mystics,tr. A. Thorold, (New York, 1964).
• Précis d'histoire de la philosophie moderne, (Louvain, 1933).
• Mélanges Joseph Maréchal,2 vols, (Brussels / Paris, 1950).
• "The Intellectual Dynamism in Objective Knowledge." Tr.Richard De Smet and others. [Original, 'Le dynamisme intellectual dans la conaisance objective', inRevue néoscolastique de Philosophie 28 (1927) 137–165 =Mélanges Joseph Maréchal (Brussels / Paris, 1950) 1:75–101.] Poona: De Nobili College, 1963–65. 1–37. Unpublished. Available at Jnana Deepa, Institute of Philosophy and TheologyLibrary, Pune, N13/M332.
• "At the Threshold of Metaphysics: Abstraction or Intuition?" Tr.Richard De Smet and others. [Original inRevue néoscolastique de Philosophie 31(1929) 27–52, 121–147, 309–342.] Poona: De Nobili College, 1963–65. 38–149. Unpublished. Available at Jnana Deepa, Institute of Philosophy and Theology Library, Pune, N13/M332.
• "The Natural Desire for Perfect Happiness." Tr.Richard De Smet and others. [Original inMélanges Joseph Maréchal (Brussels / Paris, 1950) 2:323–337.] Poona: De Nobili College, 1963–65. 150–170. Unpublished. Available at Jnana Deepa, Institute of Philosophy and Theology Library, Pune, N13/M332.
• A Maréchal Reader, edited and translated byJoseph Donceel (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970)

• List of Jesuit scientists
• List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics

• Casula, M,Maréchal et Kant, Rome, 1955.
• Lonergan, B.F, "Metaphysics as Horizon", inGregorianum 44 (1964) 307–318 = "Metaphysics as Horizon," inCollection, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan 4, ed. F.E. Crowe and R.M. Doran (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988) 188–204.
• Donceel, Joseph F.,Philosophical Psychology (later titledPhilosophical Anthropology), New York, 1961.
• John, Helen James,The Thomist Spectrum, (1966), pp139–49
• Kristo, J.,Maréchal's approach to Mysticism, Notre-Dame, 1979.
• Matteo, Anthony M,Quest for the Absolute: The Philosophical Vision of Joseph Maréchal, (1992)
• McCool, Gerald A,From Unity to Pluralism, (1989), pp87–113
• Savignano, A.,Joseph Maréchal, filosofo della religione, Perugia, 1978.
• Rieß, Klaus,Gott zwischen Begriff und Geheimnis. Zu einem Ende natürlicher Theologie als Aufgang neuzeitlicher Religionsphilosophie, St. Ottilien, 1991.

• 1878 births
• 1944 deaths
• 20th-century Belgian Jesuits
• 20th-century Belgian Roman Catholic theologians
• Belgian male non-fiction writers
• Belgian Roman Catholic writers
• Jesuit philosophers
• Catholic philosophers
• Writers from Charleroi
• Thomists
• Jesuit scientists
• Belgian psychologists

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