Consent to Being
- Philosophy
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2026
FritzSearch.com earns a commission on purchases made through Bookshop.org links.
Publisher's Description
Aimé Forest (1898–1983) was a French metaphysical philosopher and historian of medieval philosophy who taught at the universities of Grenoble and then Montpellier. Consent to Being, published in 1936, was his first book, and it, along with the ones that followed, such as Consentement et Création (1943), La vocation de l’Esprit (1953), and L’avènement de l’âme (1973), established him as a leading figure among the twentieth-century French Catholic “philosophers of the spirit.” In this book he is concerned with bringing to light the spiritual significance of what he calls the philosophical method of consent to being. His insistence on the profound connection between the spirit and being underlies his ambitious project of resurrecting metaphysical thought in the modern day by rescuing it from the abstractions of the scientific understanding. This first English translation of any of Forest’s books introduces a Christian philosopher of great significance and originality to the anglophone intellectual world.
Endorsements (2)
“Readers owe a debt of gratitude to Bruce K. Ward for his translation and edition of this book of Aimé Forest. Forest is not well known in the Anglophone world, but he is well worth philosophical introduction, indeed resurrection, not least for his finessed introduction here to the nature of metaphysical thinking. Consent to Being is a work of singular excellence. It calls out the evasions of those who claim to have overcome metaphysics or to be post-metaphysical. It does so by exemplifying the excellences of the true metaphysician: not a Laputan abstractionist, floating high above being, but one whose thought is firmly of the given earth and the gift of being. Mindful of being as showing forth the inexhaustibility of what one might call being’s intimate universality; the book also brings us back to the birth of philosophy as metaphysics. Preceded by an engaging foreword by John Milbank, and an informative introduction by Bruce Ward, the work reads fluently and engagingly. It is a very welcome introduction into contemporary conversation of a thinker who not only talks about metaphysical thinking but embodies in act what it asks of us. Warmly recommended.”
See something wrong on this page? Report a problem