Quentin Lauer, S.J. (April 1, 1917 – March 9, 1997) was an American
Jesuit
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, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
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priest, philosopher and
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
scholar. Lauer’s academic work helped introduce Hegel's thought to the American philosophical community.
He was President of the
American Philosophical Association
The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarly ...
, Eastern Division from 1985–1986, and a President of the Hegel Society of America.
Quentin Lauer was also a scholar of
Edmund Husserl
, thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations)
, thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view
, thesis1_year = 1883
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.
He was a professor of philosophy at
Fordham University
Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...
from 1954 to 1990. Important works by Lauer which helped disseminate the ideas of Hegel and Husserl in the United States include: ''A Reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit'' (1977), ''The Triumph of Subjectivity'' (1958) and ''Edmund Husserl: Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy'' (1965).
Life and Academic Career
Quentin Lauer was born in Brooklyn on April 1, 1917. At the age of 18, Lauer joined the Jesuit novitiate, entering the seminary of the
Society of Jesus
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, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
in Poughkeepsie, New York. This began his lifelong journey with the Society of Jesus, the order through which, after attaining his and AB and MA (1943) from
St. Louis University, he would be ordained in 1948.
During his time at St. Louis, Lauer became exposed to the ongoing debates within
Thomism
Thomism is the philosophical and theological school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Aquinas' disputed questions a ...
centering around interpretation of the metaphysics of
St. 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 ...
. The interpretation of St. Thomas's metaphysics presented by
Etienne Gilson and
Jacques Maritain
Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas fo ...
had become prevalent at St. Louis University at this time. Gilson and Maritain emphasized the "existential" aspect of Thomistic metaphysics and the distinctly philosophical significance of his thought. This conception of Thomism challenged earlier, more strictly theological forms of Thomism.
Lauer had sympathies with this new presentation of St. Thomas's thought, though he would distance himself from St. Thomas when he began studying at the Sorbonne, where he would attain a doctorate and the prestigious
Docteur ès lettres
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...
. Lauer became known in Paris as the "motorcycle philosopher” because of his habit of soaring through the streets of Paris on his motorcycle during the four year period in which he wrote his dissertation, ''La genèse de l'intentionnalité dans la philosophie de Husserl''.
After finishing his doctorate, Lauer would return to the United States, taking a position at
Fordham University
Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...
, where he would continue to work and live for virtually the rest of his life. Quentin Lauer would help introduce
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
in United States, which was rather unstudied and new to the U.S.
Aron Gurwitsch
Aron Gurwitsch (russian: Аро́н Гу́рвич; 17 January 1901, Vilnius, Vilna Governorate – 25 June 1973, Zurich) was a Litvak American phenomenologist.
Work
Gurwitsch wrote on the relations between phenomenology and Gestalt psychology ...
wrote that Lauer had "rendered a valuable service to both the cause of phenomenology and American philosophy" by presenting "the scientific spirit, in a radical sense, which was alive in Husserl". From the mid fifties to sixties, Lauer would publish several books and articles on Husserl.However, Lauer would eventually become disillusioned with this philosophical system, seeing it as failing to create a dialogue between ideas and history, ethics and religion. Lauer became briefly engaged in dialogue with
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
, co-publishing with French Marxist
Roger Garaudy
Roger Garaudy (; 17 July 1913 – 13 June 2012) was a French philosopher, French resistance fighter and a communist author. He converted to Islam in 1982. In 1998, he was convicted and fined for Holocaust denial under French law for claiming that ...
in 1968 ''A Christian-Communist Dialogue'' (published in France as ''Marxistes et chrétiens face à face; Peuvent-ils construire ensemble l'avenir?''). This work was noted for successfully presenting a frank and genuine dialogue between Christians and Marxists.
After this rather brief engagement with French Marxism, Lauer began his study of the thought of
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
, for which he devoted the rest of his career. He wrote four books and dozens of papers on Hegel, including ''Hegel's Idea of Philosophy(1976)'', ''Studies in Hegelian Dialectic''(1977), and ''Hegel's Concept of God''(1982).
Lauer also initiated and became General Editor in the
SUNY series of Hegelian studies, which published works by international Hegel scholars, including
William Desmond and H. S. Harris. As General Editor of the SUNY series, Lauer helped encourage other publishing houses in America to publish works on Hegel at a time when many were not willing to. Lauer was elected President of the
American Philosophical Association
The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarly ...
, Eastern Division in 1985. Lauer was elected as a "pluralist" candidate and partially as response to hegemony of
analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...
in America. At this time some members of the APA began to formerly protest the monolithic hold that
analytic philosophers
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...
had in the APA and in most American philosophy departments. Lauer's presidential address was titled, "Why Be Good?"
After a couple years of illness, Quentin Lauer died on March 9, 1997.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lauer, Quentin
1917 births
1997 deaths
20th-century American Jesuits
Jesuit philosophers
Hegel scholars
Catholic philosophers