SOURCE: "Orestes Brownson and Christian Philosophy," in The Monist, Vol. 75, No. 3, July, 1992, pp. 341-53.

In the following essay, Maurer, a Roman Catholic priest and educator, examines Brownson's views on Christian philosophy as evidenced by the author's writings.

If, then, one must be a philosopher in order rightly to read the past and explain the course of history, one must also study the past, study history, and concentrate in himself, so to speak, his whole race in order to be a great philosopher. Our experiments must extend over nations and centuries.

—Orestes Brownson

It has recently been said that only since the 1930's has the notion of Christian philosophy become "an object of explicit discussion" [L. B. Gieger, "Christian Philosophy," New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967]. No doubt the writer had in mind the lively controversy over the validity of the concept of Christian philosophy that came to a head in the...