Étienne Gilson (1884-1978), French philosopher and teacher, whose research into medieval philosophy contributed to the 20th-century revival of Thomism, the philosophical method based on the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and influenced generations of scholars. Gilson was born in Paris. He studied at the Sorbonne and was professor of the history of medieval philosophy there (1921-32), then at the Collège de France. In 1929 he helped found the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto. He was admitted to the French Academy in 1947.

Besides histories of philosophy, Gilson wrote on Saint Augustine, Peter Abelard, Saint Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, Dante, and many works on Aquinas. He insisted that the Judeo-Christian revelation of God as Creator and Existence itself profoundly affected the character of Christian philosophy. His major works include The Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1924), The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy (1936), The Unity of Philosophical Experience (1937), God and Philosophy (1941), Being and Some Philosophers (1949), Painting and Reality (1957), and the autobiographical The Philosopher and Theology (1962).