Paola Premoli

This paper aims to investigate the nature of trust in others. First, we argue that the feeling of trust is an important phenomenon of human existence, but it is not the true root of trust in others. Trust is above all an intentional response of the person, one that must be motivated and adequate to its object. When we trust, we entrust a good that is important to another person so that he or she can take care of it. For trust to be authentic, the other must be trustworthy. The feeling of trust, then, arises as a spontaneous response when we are aware that our trust is properly placed. When we have understood that trust is a response, it is possible to examine the ethical relevance of trust in others: trust fulfils morally relevant values, is the source of moral duties, introduces the person in the logic of self-giving and is nourished by a variety of moral virtues.

The Nature of Love has rightly been defined as a Summa of von Hildebrand’s thought, but Hildebrandian philosophy is an organic whole, and many insights contained in that treatise are rooted in works written many years before. Understanding his other inquiries into the essence of the spiritual relations which can be performed only by persons is a necessary prerequisite for understanding the significance of von Hildebrand’s masterpiece on love. This paper focuses on von Hildebrand’s phenomenological investigations into the “birth” of human relationships and their effects on the self-realization of the person as they are described mainly in Metaphysik der Gemeinschaft, in some other works, and in a few unpublished pages. This paper, then, is divided into three parts: (1) The first part is dedicated to summarizing von Hildebrand’s analysis of the essence of personal relationships as spiri­tual acts, as social acts, and as acts which involve value responses. Von Hildebrand’s anthropology is essentially a metaphysical and relational philosophy of the person: the person is a spiritual substance—an individual subject—and at the same time a subject who is called to realize himself through his relationships to the world, to other human subjects, and to God. (2) On the basis of this framework, the second part of the paper develops a phenomenological description of the path that begins from the initial spiritual contact between persons and leads to the I-Thou relation. This analysis, according to von Hildebrand, must consider above all the communication between persons and the conditions for interpersonal reciprocity, union, and communion. On the basis of these investigations, we can understand why love is the most perfect kind of relationship. This is true from the point of view of the relation in itself, since love is the relationship which can produce the deepest link between persons; but it is also true from the point of view of the relata (the terms of the relation), since love fosters the highest realization of the persons as individuals. This inquiry also reveals the deep connection between von Hildebrand’s works Metaphysik der Gemeinschaft and The Nature of Love. (3) The third and final part of the paper aims to further deepen our understanding of von Hildebrand’s insights into the effects of love on the human person by drawing on some of his minor works and unpublished writings. Von Hildebrand’s crucial argument in this regard is that love is the most perfect act, since it affects the perfection of the persons involved, that is, both the lover and the beloved. Only in loving and in being loved is the human being re-affirmed in his being and awakened to his full personal existence and essence.

In what follows, I would like to trace Dietrich von Hildebrand’s thinking on the nature of axiological properties. Hildebrand begins his analysis from the phenomenology of what we experience as important and distinguishes three categories of importance: the subjectively satisfying, the value and the objective good of the person. He then moves on to metaphysical analysis to clarify whether the categories describe properties of objects and concludes that the foundation of all importance is value, the intrinsic preciousness. He also examines the families of values and the relations between being and value. This analysis has an important completion in the investigation of the types of oughtness, which allow us to understand the foundation of norms. Hildebrand’s value theory makes it possible to address some crucial metaphysical problems, in particular the question of whether good ultimately triumphs. The epistemological premise of Hildebrand’s perspective, however, is the thesis that man experiences not only facts, but also values.