The Mental Philosophy of John Henry Newman

Barry J. Martin taught in the Anthropology Department at the University of Toronto.

Nineteenth-century Christian thinker John Henry Newman was known for his writings in theology, apologetics, history, poetry, and educational theory, but mostly through his celebrated Grammar of Assent. This present study examines the sources, aims, and implications of Newman’s philosophical work. It also analyzes the weaknesses and dangers of Newman’s phenomenology and epistemology. The foci concern modes of apprehension and belief, religious belief as “real,” degrees of belief, formal and informal inference, and the illative sense (including brief considerations of models by D’Arcy, Schiller, Vaihinger, and Freud).

While Newmanists see their master as a spiritual giant, most Catholics have little interest in his philosophy. The writer’s main conclusions are that most of the major theses in the Grammar are false and its arguments unsound; it is denominationally biased. Yet it appeals to “rational irrationalism,” which may point to the touch of mysticism in all of us. Although the teachings of the Grammar are “harmful” and “false,” it is still an impetus to reflection and spiritually uplifting. To quote the author, “Much of the analysis in this study has been rather tedious, and ... a thankless task” (p. 194).