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The historical imagination of Christopher Dawson
No full textChristopher Dawson (1889-1970) was one of his generation's most
important historians and religious thinkers, and was a significant
influence on many contemporaries including T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis,
and Russell Kirk. This dissertation is a study of his most
fundamental ideas concerning history and culture.
Chapter one examines Dawson’s sociological view of history.
Convinced that history was more than a scientific enterprise, he
believed that the true historian is one who reaches beyond the
material world to understand the essence of history’s dynamics. In
this way, the world can be conceptualized as a united whole,
separated by regional differences as a result of environment, race,
material, psychological, and religious factors. Dawson believed
that the political histories of the past several centuries failed to
grasp the undercurrents of historical change, and that the best way
to understand the past is to appreciate culture as an expression of
primeval religious traditions.
Chapter two treats Dawson’s understanding of progress. Dawson
was convinced that progress had become the “working-religion” of our
age. This secular faith, founded on scientific rationalism, first
pledged to fix the material failures of Western culture, but
unwittingly eroded its faith in God, and eventually, its moral
fiber. Dawson believed that true progress was progress of the soul
in its ordering toward the Creator.
Chapter three is a study of Dawson’s Christian, and more
specifically, his Catholic beliefs. Informed by religion, his
historical and cultural visions are not dogmatic, nor are they
polemical. He conceived of history as the unfolding of a divine
economy in the temporal world. Although Dawson is a proponent of
Roman Catholicism, his scholarship is an objective treatment of
history shaped by an undisguised, Christian worldview.
Additionally, the appendix is an introduction to Dawson’s life
and the circumstances surrounding his conversion to Roman
Catholicism. Particular attention is paid to the development of his
moral and historical imagination — both of which became intertwined to
form the basis of all of his scholarship
Textos: Nota sobre Christopher Dawson
Full text linkEl filósofo de la cultura e historiador Christopher Dawson nació en Wye Valley (frontera de Gales) en 1889. Hizo estudios en Winchester y el Trinity College, de Oxford. Su carrera universitaria, como profesor, conferenciante e investigador, se ha desarrollado principalmente en el University College, de Exeter, y en las Universidades de Liverpool, Edimburgo, etc. Son célebres los cursos que ha dado sobre historia de la cultura y teología natural, acogiéndose a la invitación de los círculos intelectuales escoceses e ingleses (por ejemplo, su colaboración en las “Gifford Lectures” ). A los veinticinco años Mr. Dawson abrazó la fe católica, después de una fecunda crisis espiritual cuyos frutos no tardaron en presentarse: trátese de ensayos y cuadros históricos de conjunto, muy lúcidos, penetrantes, en los que su autor muestra las íntimas relaciones entre fe cristiana y civilización, así como los nexos que universalmente ligan toda creación humana al factor religioso, especialmente en las culturas orientales *. Dawson es, sin duda alguna, el pensador católico de habla inglesa más sagaz y ponderado. Sus reflexiones en tomo a la crisis presente del mundo occidental, de su amada Europa, figuran ya al lado de páginas clásicas en filosofía de la historia: junto a Spengler, Huizinga, Toynbee, Hazard, Jaspers o Lówith, salvando, claro está, las distancias ideológicas y de método que los separan. Christopher Dawson tiene sesenta y nueve años, pero mentalmente se conserva joven, ‘en forma’ y atento siempre al latido de la historia, sea remota o próxima. Vive polarizado, sin embargo, en la contemplación de un ayer grandioso, de una edad orgánica estructurada sobre firmes bases morales, diáfana y bella: el Medioevo. Nadie como él ha logrado plasmar una imagen de aquellas centurias más objetiva y apasionante, sin caer —es necesario subrayarlo— en trasnochadas apologías románticas, influidas por inactuales confesionalismos historiográficos, que él censura con severidad2; pero esforzándose, y lográndolo, en hacer simpática la Edad cristiana por excelencia. Dawson es uno de los pocos filósofos de la cultura inmersos en el presente, en su “circunstancia” : nos descubre las raíces que nutren el ya venerable árbol, tan frondoso, de nuestra cultura occidental, y dirige sus miradas escudriñadoras a un pretérito caducado históricamente, aunque todavía vivo, actuante en orden a los principios rectores. Sin negar las infinitas posibilidades del presente, afirma, pues, Dawson la vigencia de principios cuya eficacia en el pasado, cuando Europa se hacía y maduraba, puede manifestarse aún
Literary Executor of the Estate of Christopher Dawson
Full text linkChristopher Dawson was a historian of religion and culture who wrote and lectured in England and America between the 1920s and his death in 1970. The author of this review, Dawson’s grandson and literary executor, argues not only that Dawson is very interesting to read as a historian, but also that many of his insights and proposals — such as his writing on European unity, nationalism, the consequences of a secularized culture and the conflict between humane individualism and state totalitarianism — remain highly relevant today. This article highlights some of Dawson’s most interesting and insightful ideas and aims to encourage readers to rediscover the writings of Christopher Dawson through his twenty-three books
Filosofia de la historia en Christopher Dawson. [Reseña]
No full textReseña de Jaime ANTÚNEZ ALDUNATE, Filosofia
de la historia en Christopher Dawson,
Encuentro («Ensayos», 310), Madrid
2007, 15 X 23, ISBN 978-84-7490-
838-1
Christopher Dawson. — Progrès et Religion, trad. par P. Belperron, préface de Daniel Rops. Paris, Plon, 1937
No full textBlondel Georges. Christopher Dawson. — Progrès et Religion, trad. par P. Belperron, préface de Daniel Rops. Paris, Plon, 1937. In: Revue internationale de l'enseignement, tome 93,1939. pp. 112-113
Christopher Dawson. — Progrès et Religion, trad. par P. Belperron, préface de Daniel Rops. Paris, Plon, 1937
No full textBlondel Georges. Christopher Dawson. — Progrès et Religion, trad. par P. Belperron, préface de Daniel Rops. Paris, Plon, 1937. In: Revue internationale de l'enseignement, tome 93,1939. pp. 112-113
Making Sense of Christopher Dawson
No full textChristopher Dawson identified with sociology, wrote extensively for the original Sociological Review, was a stalwart of the Sociological Society in the interwar years, achieved international recognition as a sociologist, engaged with Karl Mannheim and the Moot, and in the postwar period defended meta-history and the sociologically oriented historical work of people like Marc Bloch. He ultimately became regarded as the greatest Catholic historian of the twentieth century, and became a Harvard Professor and a cult figure for American and European Catholics. This paper describes this remarkable trajectory, his absence from the later self-understanding of British sociology, and his key ideas, including his Bellah-like account of the axial age and his extensive response to Weber’s Protestant Ethic and to the extension of these ideas in Ernst Troetlsch
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