Pesch, Tillmann

PESCH, TILLMANN. - Jesuit, brother of the preceding, philosopher, b. at Cologne on 1 February 1836, d. at Valkenburg on 18 October 1899.

Having entered the Society of Jesus (1852) and been ordained priest (1866), he was professor of philosophy to his confreres at Maria Laach (1867-69). Even then he distinguished himself by his love and esteem for Aristotelian-Scholastic philosophy, which at that time was considered by many to be outdated in content and method; and he conceived the idea of a restoration of Christian philosophy in Germany through an effective defense and exposition of medieval philosophy, enriched and adapted to the conquests of modern science. Indeed he had a great part in the renewal, begun by Fr. Kleutgen (v.), of Catholic philosophy, contributing, even before the encyclical Aeterni Patris (v.), to the return to the fundamental theories of Scholasticism, in accordance with the will of Leo XIII. After a brief interval devoted to the priestly ministry (1870-1872) he moved to Tervueren (Belgium) to the editorship of the periodical Stimmen aus Maria Laach and there began the companion publication of the Ergänzungshefte. From 1876 to 1884, while continuing his work as a writer, he again taught philosophy at Blüenbek, Exaeten and Valkenburg.

Besides his numerous articles in Stimmen in defense of medieval philosophy, he composed for the series of the Ergänzungshefte, against the theories of Kant: Die moderne Wissenschaft betrachtet in ihrer Grundfeste (Freiburg im Br. 1876); Haltlosigkeit der modernen Wissenschaft, eine Kritik der Kant'schen Vernunftsbricht (ibid. 1879); Das Weltphänomen. Eine erkenntnistheoretische Studie (ibid. 1881). Meanwhile he matured the plan of a complete course of philosophy, under the title Philosophia lacensis, and opened the series with the Institutiones philosophiae naturalis (Cosmogonia [2 vols., ibid. 1880; 2nd ed., ibid. 1887]), which earned him appointment as a member of the Academy of St. Thomas of Bologna. There followed: Institutiones logicales (3 vols., ibid. 1888-90; new ed. edited by Fr. C. Frick, Institutiones logicae et ontologiae, 2 vols., ibid. 1914-19); Institutiones psychologiae (3 vols., ibid. 1896-98). Another notable publication is Die grossen Welträtsel. Philosophie der Natur allen Naturfreunden dargeboten (2 vols., ibid. 1883-84; 3rd ed., ibid. 1907), in which he refutes, with the help of all the sciences, the multiform aberrations, then very much alive, of materialism, atheism and monism. Against Lutheranism, on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of Luther in 1883, he brought out a nimble work of apologetics, under the pseudonym of "Gottlieb": Briefe aus Hamburg (2 vols., ibid. 1883-89; 5th ed., ibid. 1905), a defense of the Church against the assertions of seven well-known adversaries of the divinity of Jesus Christ; which then formed the first vol. of the work Christ oder Antichrist, to which he added as vol. II Der Krach von Wittenberg (ibid. 1890; 2nd ed. 1894). In the ascetical field he wrote Das religiöse Leben (ibid. 1878; 23rd ed., ibid. 1922), a little book of prayers and counsels for educated men, and Christliche Lebensphilosophie (ibid. 1895, 22nd ed. 1923). He also founded the apologetic collection Flugschriften zur Lehr und Wehr, circulated in more than a million copies.

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