Inventing the Individual

by Larry Siedentop, book review: An engrossing book of ideas that redefines liberalism as a 'child of Christianity'

By Kenan Malik

The Independent - Friday 24 January 2014

Towards the end of this illuminating book, Larry Siedentop describes a fourteenth century battle between two Christian monastic orders. The Dominicans and the Franciscans were mendicant orders, begging monks who had abandoned the comforts of the cloisters to preach among the poor.
Dominicans emphasised the role of rationality and 'correct' doctrine; Franciscans highlighted the importance of moral equality and human agency, emphasizing the 'spirit' rather that the 'letter' of faith. Dominicans were deeply influenced by Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the greatest of theologians, and the driving force in the reintroduction of Aristotelian ideas into Christian thought. Franciscans worried that such borrowing from Aristotle's theory had corrupted Christian belief.

One way to think about Inventing the Individual is as an attempt to restore the Franciscan spirit to both intellectual history and the Christian tradition. Siedentop rewrites the story of Western liberalism not merely to establish it as a Christian project, but also to infuse it with the Franciscan view of faith, politics and human nature.

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