Volume 2 of The Writings of Charles De Koninck carries on the project begun by volume 1 of presenting the first English edition of the collected works of the Catholic Thomist philosopher Charles De Koninck (1906–1965). Ralph McInerny (1929–2010) was the project editor and prepared the excellent translations.


This volume begins with two works published in 1943: Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary, De Koninck's first study in Mariology, and The Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists (with The Principle of the New Order), which generated a strong critical reaction. Included in this volume are two reviews of The Primacy of the Common Good, by Yves R. Simon and I. Thomas Eschmann, O.P., and De Koninck's substantial response to Eschmann in his lengthy “In Defence of St. Thomas.” The volume concludes with a group of short essays: “The Dialectic of Limits as Critique of Reason,” “Notes on Marxism,” “This Is a Hard Saying,” “[Review of] Between Heaven and Earth,” and “Concept, Process, and Reality.”