Emerich Coreth (10 August 1919 – 1 September 2006) was an Austrian Philosopher, Jesuit and Catholic Priest. He is well known for his works on

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

and

philosophical anthropology Philosophical anthropology, sometimes called anthropological philosophy, is a discipline dealing with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person. History Ancient Christian writers: Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo wa ...

. A close associate of Karl Rahner, Coreth is a renowned

neo-Thomist Neo-scholasticism (also known as neo-scholastic Thomism Accessed 27 March 2013 or neo-Thomism because of the great influence of the writings of Thomas Aquinas on the movement) is a revival and development of medieval scholasticism in Catholic t ...

of 20th century. He was the Rector of the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

and the Provincial of the Austrian Province of the

Society of Jesus , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

. Born into an aristocratic family at

Raabs an der Thaya Raabs an der Thaya is a municipality with 3,114 inhabitants in Waidhofen an der Thaya (district) in the Waldviertel of Lower Austria, near the Austrian border with the Czech Republic. About 27.6 percent of the municipality is forested. The German ...

, a small village in Lower Austria, near the border to Chez Republic, he grew up in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and joined the Jesuits in 1937. His sister Anna Coreth (1915–2008) was the director of the Austrian National Archives. Emerich's studies of philosophy in Pullach were interrupted by military service during the war. He completed his theological doctorate in Innsbruck and his philosophical doctorate in Rome, where he also worked as a tutor at the Germanicum. He then began teaching at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Innsbruck in 1950. Since 1955 he was Professor of Philosophy, and President, at the church-established Institutum Philosophicum Oenipontanum, and Head of the Institute for Christian Philosophy at the Faculty of Theology. In addition, he fulfilled leadership tasks in the Jesuit Order's administration of Innsbruck University: as Dean of the Faculty of Theology in 1957/58 and 1968/69, as Rector of the University of Innsbruck 1969-1971, and 1972-1977 as Provincial of the Austrian Province.

Philosophy

Coreth specialised in

, and

history of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

. He was one of the philosophers who sought the creative recovery of

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...

' metaphysics through the transcendental method introduced by

Joseph Maréchal Joseph Maréchal, SJ (; 1 July 1878 – 11 December 1944) was a Belgian Jesuit priest, philosopher, theologian and psychologist. He taught at the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the University of Leuven and was the founder of the school of ...

. Particularly, Coreth and other theologians attempted to revive the metaphysics of realism (Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics) by addressing the failure of

Kantian philosophy Kantianism is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mind, ...

using its presuppositions. One of Coreth's most important works was ''Metaphysik''. This book refuted critics such as Etienne Gilson, who argued that transcendental turn among Thomists can only lead to

phenomenalism In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist in themselves, but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in sp ...

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ide ...

. Coreth maintained that instead of having an objective, metaphysics only has a subjective function. Metaphysics may thereby lose its foundation in being, but Coreth said that "our a priori knowledge is metaphysical knowledge of being, which opens for us the absolute horizon of being as such." He based his metaphysics on the human ability to ask questions and on the "conditions for the possibility" of questions. Using the transcendental method, questions attain better clarity.Otto Muck. Christliche Philosophie im katholischen Denken des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Bd. 2. Hg. von Emerich Coreth und Georg Pfligersdorffer. Graz: Styria 1988, 590 622. Abdruck in: Otto Muck SJ, Rationalität und Weltanschauung. Philosophische Untersuchungen. Hg. von Winfried Löffler. Innsbruck-Wien Tyrolia 1999, 439.

Books

* Das dialektische Sein in Hegels Logik. Wien: Herder 1952 * Grundfragen des menschlichen Daseins. Innsbruck; Wien; München: Tyrolia 1956 * Metaphysik: Eine methodisch-systematische Grundlegung. Innsbruck; Wien; München: Tyrolia 1961 * Grundfragen der Hermeneutik: Ein philosophischer Beitrag. Freiburg i. Br.; Basel; Wien: Herder 1969 * Was ist der Mensch?: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Anthropologie. Innsbruck, Wien, München: Tyrolia 1973 * With Harald Schöndorf: Philosophie des 17. und. 18. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart u.a.:

Kohlhammer Verlag W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart. History Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-law ...

1983 * With Peter Ehlen und Josef Schmidt: Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart u.a.: Kohlhammer Verlag 1984 * Vom Sinn der Freiheit. Innsbruck; Wien: Tyrolia 1985 * With Peter Ehlen, Gerd Haeffner und Friedo Ricken: Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart u.a.: Kohlhammer Verlag 1986 * (Ed.): Christliche Philosophie im katholischen Denken des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts. 3 Bde. Graz; Wien; Köln: Styria 1987-1990 * Grundriss der Metaphysik. Innsbruck; Wien: Tyrolia 1994 * Die Theologische Fakultät Innsbruck: ihre Geschichte und wissenschaftliche Arbeit von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Innsbruck: Leopold-Franzens-Univ. 1995 * Beiträge zur christlichen Philosophie. Hrsg. von Christian Kanzian. (Bibliography E. Coreth, pp. 409-415) Innsbruck; Wien: Tyrolia 1999 * Gott im philosophischen Denken. Stuttgart u.a.: Kohlhammer Verlag 2001 * Otto Muck (Hg.): ''Sinngestalten. Metaphysik in der Vielfalt menschlichen Fragens. Festschrift für Emerich Coreth''. Innsbruck/Wien 1989. (Bibliography E. Coreth, pp. 389 - 408): Tyrolia 1989

References

External links

*
Kurzbiografie und Publikationen ab 1989
* Józef Niewiadomski
Aus einem Guss – In Memoriam Emerich Coreth SJ
* Emerich Coreth in German Wikipedia: In German {{DEFAULTSORT:Coreth, Emerich Thomists 20th-century Austrian Jesuits 20th-century Austrian philosophers 20th-century Austrian Roman Catholic theologians Roman Catholic religious educators 1919 births 2006 deaths German male non-fiction writers Deaths in Austria 20th-century German Jesuits Jesuit philosophers