La mémoire douloureuse et la justice rendue : un ouvrage de G. Losito sur Lucien Laberthonnière

The important work by G. Losito Cristianesimo e Modernità. Studio sulla formazione del personalismo di Laberthonnière - 1880-1893 (Christianity and Modernity. A Study of the Development of the Personalism of Laberthonnière - 1880-1893) should be read as the logical continuation of the works of R. Aubert, P. Beillevert and L Pazzaglia. It is both a biography of the «young» Laberthonnière, concerned with the relationship between Christianity and modernity, and a rigorous research into the philosophical grounding of his «Personalism», conceived as an «ontology of the individual». This critical study shows how his intellectual development is rooted in a critical sympathy towards modernity. Formed in a Kantian university culture, this Kantian but heteredox thinker was saved from the contradictions of a certain kind of Thomism by the literature he read (Chateaubriand, Musset, Hugo, Lamartine and Pascal) and by the philosophy of his different «masters» (Ollé-Laprune and Boutroux to whom he owed a profound knowledge of 17th century philosphy, Gratry, Maret and Baunard). Yet, the same man was also well-read in late 19th century French philosophy: Janet, Bourget, Ribot, Taine, Rauh, Boirac, Fouillée, Secrétan, Delbos or Tarde were costant interlocuters and important sources of reflection. The study conludes with a subtle account of the beginning of the tragic friendship between Laberthonnière and Blondel (1893)