Detroit -- Archbishop Allen Vigneron, himself a former philosophy professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, has said his two favorite philosophers are St. Thomas Aquinas (c.1227-74) and Edmund Husserl (1859-1938).

“My attraction to Husserl and St. Thomas I’d attribute, first, to the rigor of their analysis. Each gets to the very basis of a question; they’re not content to simply stay on the surface. They really get to the heart of questions and come up with answers. And they don’t get caught up in philosophical bypaths,” he said in a Jan. 16 interview.

While each have an approach to philosophy that is quite distinct and different from the other, Archbishop Vigneron said he sees them as complementary,

And he said he believes this complementarity was also appreciated by St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, the former Edith Stein (1891-1942), who wrote of the influence of both philosophers on her thought. The archbishop has said this is part of what has drawn him to the work of the work of St. Teresa Benedicta, a Carmelite nun who was killed by the Nazis during World War II.

A priest of the Dominican order, St. Thomas is credited with integrating the thought of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in a Christian system of theology and philosophy. Although sometimes controversial in his day, St. Thomas was later declared a doctor of the Church, and often referred to as “the angelic doctor.”

His ideas have helped shape Catholic thinking about the sacraments and other matters to this day.

Husserl was born into a Moravian Jewish family, and converted to Lutheranism at the age of 28.

In his philosophical writings, Husserl provided a way around the dilemmas posed by modern philosophy as to how people can gain a reliable knowledge of reality.

Besides St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Husserl’s thought also influenced the writings of Pope John Paul II.

For those wishing to learn more about the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, Archbishop Vigneron recommended the works of Ralph McInerny, a professor at Notre Dame University, or the works of Joseph Pieper.

“For Husserl, I don’t know any better introduction than the books written by my dissertation mentor, Fr. Robert Sokolowski (of the Catholic University of America),” he added.