Grammar of Assent

An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent by Bl John Henry Newman, 492 pages

It is possible to divide this brilliant classic by Bl John Henry Newman into two intertwined halves, one philosophical, one apologetical, though in truth the two are mutually dependent.  Newman uses a proto-phenomenological approach to the key questions of epistemology, distinguishing between the calculations of deduction and the act of assent to propositions.  This latter forms the key component of every kind of belief, and its recognition serves as a defense against the acid of radical skepticism.  For Newman, truth is not understood as the result of cold calculations, but glimpsed through an "illative sense" analogous to the aesthetic sense, and then embraced by the will.  This returns the human person to the center of understanding, displacing the impersonal observer favored by modernity, and serves to reconnect Newman to the whole Western tradition going back to Athens and Jerusalem.

For most thinkers, A Grammar of Assent would be their masterpiece, but with Newman it must compete with his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Idea of a University, and the Apologia Pro Vita Sua.  His mastery of the English language makes the book surprisingly readable despite its philosophical subject matter and chronological distance.