WUST, PETER. - German Catholic thinker, b. 28 Aug. 1884 at Rissental near Treviri, d. at Münster on 3 Apr. 1940.
After an initial phase of adherence to Neo-Kantianism alongside Paulsen, he turned towards metaphysics through the influence of Kentenich and Troeltsch. Max Scheler, whom he met in Cologne (1921-28), drew him to phenomenology, which W. regarded as the most effective method for the “resurrection of metaphysics” in contemporary culture. The task of metaphysics is to found and interpret the “person” as a spiritual reality in the Augustinian and Bonaventurian sense, directed towards accepting the demands of modern thought (especially Nietzsche and Kierkegaard) for the establishment of an authentic Christian existentialism.
BIBL.: principal works: Die Auferstehung der Metaphysik, Salisburgo 1920; Naivität und Pietät, Tubinga 1925; Die Dialektik der Geistes, Augusta 1928; Ungeistheit und Wagnis, 4th ed., Monaco - Kampion 1937; Der Mensch und die Philosophie, Einführung in die Hauptfragen der Existenzphilos., Regensburg-Münster 1947 (posthumous, edited by A. Borgolte, who provides the biography and a concise outline of W.’s thought, pp. 117-46). Cornelio Fabro