Ubaghs, Gerhard Casimir

UBAGHS, GERHARD CASIMIR. - Filosofo belga, n. a Berg-le-Jaquemont il 26 nov. 1800, m. a Lovanio il 15 febbr. 1875.

Ordinato sarcedote, insegnò prima nel piccolo Seminario di Rodule, poi (1834) a Lovanio. Dal 1846 diresse, insieme con Arnold Tits e Lonay, la Revue catholique, divenuta organo dell'ontologismo (v.) cui l'U. aderì nel 1850.

Principal works: Logicae elementa (Louvain 1834; 6th ed. 1860); Ontologiae... elementa (ibid. 1835; 5th ed. 1864); Theodiceae... elementa (ibid. 1841, 4th ed. 1863); Anthropologiae philosophicae elementa (ibid. 1848); Du réalisme en théologie et en philosophie (ibid. 1856); Essais d'idéologie ontologique (ibid. 1860). Ubaghs's thought, like that of the traditionalists in general, is a reaction against Enlightenment rationalism and sets out to reconcile faith and reason, in such a way that the latter has a guarantee of its own subsistence by virtue of the former (Log. elem., 3rd ed., 1839, p. 161). Notions and ideas are distinguished; notions, derived from sensibility, have only a relative universality; ideas concern truths of the moral and metaphysical order (the natural moral law, the existence of God, etc.) and are innate. This innatism (v.) is of the Leibnizian type (ibid., pp. 17-18 and 124). The development of these ideas is made possible by social teaching, understood as every form of help deriving from social coexistence: articulated language, as a means of expression and communication, likewise has a social origin (ibid., pp. 144-48 and 167). But such teaching or tradition, indispensable to man, presupposes in turn a first divine teaching in the form of natural revelation: it is in this sense that Ubaghs speaks of a "primitive faith" (ibid., p. 161), to which he further assigns the task of correcting psychologism (v.), since it guarantees the communication of the subject with the object, beyond representation (cf. Théol. elem., p. 84). The foundation of certainty consists in man's own rational nature, which expresses itself in common sense (v.). In the final analysis every individual is bound to his contemporaries and predecessors and derives from teaching the use of reason, even though, once the ideas and principles have been received from tradition, reason is capable of understanding them (Log. elem., pp. 128-29).

With regard to the idea of God, it is an original datum of reason; God is therefore indemonstrable. Demonstrations and proofs are nothing but clarifications and explanations. Hence the adherence to ontologism as the only solution to the difficulties of intermediarism. Ideas are posited as «the same truth to be known, identical with the intelligible perceived immediately»; «absolute truths existing really and independently of every operation of the human spirit»; and finally as «the being that is pure act and that is nothing other than the Divine Being» (Essais d'idéologie ontologique, pp. 33, 75, 88). The natural presence of God to the mind must not, however, be confused with the beatific vision, which has as its object the divine essence in itself and belongs only to the separated soul (ibid., p. 58).

The doctrine aroused bitter controversies. After a warning, in 1843, regarding 5 of his propositions, the Congregation of the Inquisition condemned (18 Sept. 1861) a series of propositions concerning ontologism (Denz-U, nos. 1659-65). U., after submitting (Henry, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 113-49), left teaching.

Enzo Maccagnolo