Jean Daujat was a French philosopher of neo-Thomism, a disciple of Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

, and the founder of the Centre d'études religieuses, the Center for Religious Studies, specializing in teaching Christian doctrine.

Early Life & Education

Jean Daujat was born on 27 October 1906 , in Paris to parents who were non-practicing believers. Daujat was home schooled by his mother until he entered the Lycee Pasteur in 1918. He obtained a BA in philosophy, with honors in mathematics.

In September 1923, Daujat entered Lycée Janson-de-Sailly where he studied mathematics. Meanwhile, his former high school biology teacher Pastor Jules Lefevre directed him toward the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Daujat also discovered the philosophy of Jacques Maritain, who greatly influenced his own work. Jules Lefevre then introduced him to Amedee Yvignac, who had founded the French Gazette, which was subtitled "organ of Christian politics." Jean Daujat collaborated in this review along with Maritain, Henri Massis and Henri Gheon.

Center for Religious Studies

In the fall of 1925 Jean Daujat and a group of seven men began the Centre d'études religieuses. The creation of the Centre d'études religieuses would be the focus his work for the rest of his life.

In 1926, Jean Daujat entered the Ecole Normale Superieure

École Normale Supérieure

The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

 to study science. Fellow classmates included Etienne Borne

Étienne Borne

Étienne Vincent Borne was born in Manduel . He was a professor of philosophy Hypokhâgne at Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. Étienne Borne founded the Mouvement Republicain Populaire , and the French Christian Democratic Party. He was a columnist in the newspaper La Croix...

 and Merleau-Ponty in the literature department, the mathematician Chevalley, and the physicist and geneticist Rosenfeld Heir. Other influential men who attended along side Daujat were Raymond Aron

Raymond Aron

Raymond-Claude-Ferdinand Aron was a French philosopher, sociologist, journalist and political scientist.He is best known for his 1955 book The Opium of the Intellectuals, the title of which inverts Karl Marx's claim that religion was the opium of the people -- in contrast, Aron argued that in...

, Paul Nizan

Paul Nizan

Paul Nizan was a French philosopher and writer.-Biography:He was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire and studied in Paris where he befriended fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre at the Lycée Henri IV...

, Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

, Henri Cartan

Henri Cartan

Henri Paul Cartan was a French mathematician with substantial contributions in algebraic topology. He was the son of the French mathematician Élie Cartan.-Life:...

 and Jean Dieudonné

Jean Dieudonné

Jean Alexandre Eugène Dieudonné was a French mathematician, notable for research in abstract algebra and functional analysis, for close involvement with the Nicolas Bourbaki pseudonymous group and the Éléments de géométrie algébrique project of Alexander Grothendieck, and as a historian of...

, two of the founders of the Bourbaki group, Louis Neel, Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 laureate in physics, Olivier Lacombe, also a disciple of Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

 and specialist in Oriental languages, Henri Marrou Irenaeus, Maurice Bardeche

Maurice Bardèche

Maurice Bardèche was a French essayist, literary and art critic, journalist, and one of the leading exponents of Neo-Fascism in post-World War II Europe...

, Robert Brasillach

Robert Brasillach

Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...

, Thierry Maulnier

Thierry Maulnier

Thierry Maulnier was a French journalist, essayist, dramatist, and literary critic.-Before 1940:...

 and Simone Weil

Simone Weil

Simone Weil , was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.-Biography:Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. She grew up in comfortable circumstances, and her father was a doctor. Her only sibling was...

.

During this period, Daujat continued his philosophical and spiritual training. With Maritain, he became acquainted with Bishop Ghika, a Romanian prince who became a Catholic priest. Daujat dedicated a book to Ghikas some fifty years later, as well as Father Garrigou-Lagrange. For several years he has collaborated with writer Yvonne ERC Estienne.

Marriage

In 1930 Daujat's married Danish painter Sonia Hansen, a talented portraitist and landscape painter.

Work

In 1931, Daujat began teaching himself at the Centre d'études religieuses, supported by Cardinal Verdier. He begins to write a treatise on theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 and spirituality

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

, The Supernatural Life, which appeared in 1938 with a preface by Archbishop Beaussart and Father Garrigou-Lagrange. In 1933 he founded the Monthly Magazine which was published until 1939. In addition to its own articles and those of Yvonne Estienne, there were many prestigious authors who wrote for the magazine, such as Father Garrigou-Lagrange, Mgt Ghika, Father Lallement, Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

, Henri Gheon

Henri Ghéon

Henri Ghéon , born Henri Vangeon in Bray-sur-Seine, Seine-et-Marne, was a French playwright, novelist, poet and critic. Brought up by a devout Roman Catholic mother, he lost his faith in his early teens, while still at the Lycée in Sens...

, Charles Du Bos

Charles Du Bos

Charles Du Bos was a French critic who was born 27 October 1882, Paris, France and who died 5 August 1939, La Celle-Saint-Cloud...

, Stanislas Broth, Robert of Harcourt, Gustave Thibon

Gustave Thibon

Gustave Thibon was a French philosopher.He loved poetry very early although he left school at the age of thirteen, especially Victor Hugo and the Parnasse. He was very impressed by First World War, what led him to hate patriotism and democracy. Young Gustave Thibon travelled to London and to Italy...

, Henriette Charasson, Olivier Lacombe, Merleau-Ponty, and Jacques Madaule.
Daujat published several books on philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

. In 1970 The Christian Social Order. And In 1974 Y a-t-il une Verite? was published.
After the war, his teaching affected thousands of students. He wrote for several magazines like The New Man or The Catholic France. He published over thirty books, some of which were translated into several languages.
In December 1946, he defended a thesis on the history of science on the theory of electric and magnetic phenomena before a jury that included Gaston Bachelard

Gaston Bachelard

Gaston Bachelard was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter he introduced the concepts of epistemological obstacle and epistemological break...

 and Louis de Broglie. He published two books on the philosophy of science: Modern Physics and Traditional Philosophy.

Because of a Communist threat he received after publishing a booklet showing the perversion of communism, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies, Daujat was asked to speak at numerous conferences on this subject. He published his last book in 1996.

Theology

• The Faith Applied
• The Theology of Grace
• Prayer
• La Face Interne de L'histoire
• Y a-t-il une Verite?