Edward Baring is Associate Professor of Modern European History at Drew University and was a Guggenheim Fellow. He is author of The Young Derrida and French Philosophy, 1945-1968, which won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize from the Journal of the History of Ideas.
Baring has achieved something very significant...Not just a story
of ideas...but a story of how ideas spread across the boundaries
between national communities or between secular and Catholic
thought. -- Sarah Shortall * Commonweal *
An important book that should appear on the shelves of every
serious scholar committed to the study of either of its chosen
fields. -- Jeffrey Bloechl * Theological Studies *
Brilliantly conceived...By showing how Catholicism nourished the
roots of modern European philosophy, Baring sheds invaluable light
on ongoing discussions of the persistence of Christianity in a
not-so-secular age. -- Brandon Bloch * Church History *
A story of thought as an inter-personal, inter-institutional
happening, where events of thinking take place between
works, between thinkers...Baring tells continental
philosophy's church history. -- Elad Lapidot * Phenomenological
Reviews *
An impressive work that combines a broad scope and fluent,
accessible style with the kind of deep detail usually confined to
specialist studies. -- Clare Carlisle * Times Literary Supplement
*
Socrates modestly described himself as a midwife, helping others to
give birth to a wisdom that was their own. The analogy springs to
mind when reading this fascinating, well-researched and imaginative
book by Edward Baring. His aim is to show something both striking
and unexpected: that Catholicism is 'the single most important
explanation' for the international success of phenomenology. --
Maximilian de Gaynesford * The Tablet *
[A] very rich book...It is both profound and sweeping in its scope;
it is almost a history of twentieth-century philosophy. -- Jude P.
Dougherty * Review of Metaphysics *
Baring's history of phenomenology is itself phenomenological in its
attention to hundreds of dramas of belief, the outcomes of
which-contextualized but not determined by the Catholic
Church-helped imprint the continental philosophy of the twentieth
century with the strangeness of their unforeseen patterns...[A]
rich, deeply researched book. -- Martyn Wendell Jones * Hedgehog
Review *
An exemplary model of the scholarship that is so needed in
continental philosophy of religion: historically and
philosophically learned, attuned as much to archives as to
arguments. It is accessible without being simplistic, driven by
narrative without sacrificing detail. -- Vincent Lloyd * Journal of
the American Academy of Religion *
A scholarly achievement of the highest order...a profoundly
original and painstakingly detailed history of the shared
conceptual spaces of phenomenology and Catholic
thought...Successfully lay[s] out a genealogy of continental
philosophy that spans (and indeed, calls into question) the
separation of sacred and secular...As much a normative attempt to
resolve a host of philosophical and theological disputes as it is a
work of transnational intellectual history...Converts to the
Real is a work of great erudition. -- Piotr H. Kosicki *
Journal of Modern History *
Well-written and direct, Converts to the Real is bold and
well worth reading by all interested in philosophy or Catholicism.
-- Graham McAleer * Law & Liberty *
Excellent and exhaustively researched...A major contribution to the
history of European philosophy in the 20th century, and of
phenomenology more particularly. * Choice *
Through archival research and an analysis of philosophical
affinities, Baring traces the influence of neo-scholasticism on
continental philosophy...A detailed study of the tight but often
awkward relationship between Catholicism and continental philosophy
in the first half of the twentieth-century and its philosophical
and political implications. * Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal
*
Converts to the Real tells an intriguing, valuable, and
timely story about the religious leanings of European
phenomenology, especially with respect to its associations with
Neo-Scholasticism and the Catholic Church. Baring has done
impressive archival research to create a narrative with
considerable detail. An excellent book. -- Kevin Hart, University
of Virginia
The virtues of Edward Baring's superb book are many. Converts to
the Real demonstrates the importance of phenomenology-typically
viewed as a philosopher's philosophy-not only for twentieth-century
European intellectual life but for key social and political trends
as well. Its great achievement is to merge two contemporary
histories by showing how transformations in modern Catholic thought
turned phenomenology into the continental philosophy. --
Michael Gubser, author of The Far Reaches: Phenomenology,
Ethics, and Social Renewal in Central Europe
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