Mass Society and Its Culture, and Three Essays concerning Etienne Gilson on Bergson, Christian Philosophy, and Art

Étienne Gilson, Henri Gouhier, James G. Colbert

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781666717945
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Letteratura e arti nel cristianesimo

A medievalist and defender of the notion of Christian philosophy, Etienne Gilson had a lifelong interest in the philosophy of art. He questioned whether what is reproduced as art in contemporary society is art at all. This is not a simple issue. A cheap version of a novel is still a novel. A picture of a statue is not a statue, nor indeed is a photograph of a painting a painting. Recorded music has particular complications.The organizer of an industrial assembly line is neither an artist nor an artisan. Yet, thanks to such mass production, a much broader population has knowledge of artworks than would otherwise be possible.Religions must minister to mass societies and provide appropriate liturgies. But in the process, there is a danger of misrepresenting complex religious teachings. At the end of his own life, Henri Gouhier, Gilson's first doctoral student, prepared three essays on Gilson. The first, on Bergson, gives a sense of Gilson's formation in early twentieth-century French philosophy. The second reconstructs the development of the notion of Christian philosophy and the heated controversy it provoked. Finally, Gouhier presents Gilson's general philosophy of art and gives a helpful framework to Gilson's comments on art in a mass society.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Translator’s Preface
• Étienne Gilson, Preface to Mass Society and Its Culture
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Mass Visual Arts
• Chapter 2: Mass Music
• Chapter 3: Mass Literature
• Chapter 4: Liturgy and Mass Society
• Three Essays concerning Étienne Gilson on Bergson, Christian Philosophy, and Art
• Gouhier’s Preface
• First Essay
• Second Essay
• Third Essay
• Appendix to the Third Essay
• Bibliography