Emerich Coreth


Emerich Coreth was an Austrian Philosopher, Jesuit and Catholic Priest. He is well known for his works on metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. A close associate of Karl Rahner, Coreth is a renowned neo-Thomist of 20th century. He was the Rector of the University of Innsbruck and the Provincial of the Austrian Province of the Society of Jesus.

Philosophy

Coreth specialises in metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, and history of philosophy. He is considered one of the philosophers who sought the creative recovery of Thomas Aquinas' metaphysics through the transcendental method introduced by Joseph Maréchal. Particularly, Coreth and other theologians attempted to revive the metaphysics of realism by addressing the failure of Kantian philosophy using its presuppositions. One of Coreth's most important works was Metaphysik where he wrote about the Christian metaphysics of Being so that it presented a completely transcendentally reformulated version. This book also refuted critics such as Etienne Gilson, who argued that transcendental turn among Thomists can only lead to phenomenalism or idealism.
Coreth maintained that instead of having an objective, metaphysics only has a subjective function. Here, metaphysics loses 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."

Books