Political Philosophy, Revelation, and Modernity

James V. Schall. Roman Catholic Political Philosophy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004. xx + 209 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $68.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-0745-4.

Reviewed by: William F. Byrne, Department of Government and Politics, St. John's University, New York.

There is a real need for a book on Roman Catholic political philosophy. The Catholic tradition has generally placed a great premium on philosophical study, including political philosophy. There are many Catholic political philosophers, some of whom are quite explicit in their efforts to integrate their understanding of Christian revelation into their work. However, it remains difficult to say just what "Roman Catholic political philosophy" is, or to identify the precise characteristics (other than perhaps authorship) which distinguish any particular political-philosophical thought as Roman Catholic.

One of the most fitting authors for a book entitled Roman Catholic Political Philosophy would certainly be James Schall. A fixture of Georgetown's Department of Government, and a prolific writer for decades on matters of both political philosophy and religion, Fr. Schall is without question one of the most well-known and respected Catholic political philosophers in America. His more recent books often take the form of long reflective essays, or a series of linked reflective essays; this one is no exception. The present book makes for an illuminating and inspiring read. However, despite its title, it is not the book on Catholic political philosophy; that book remains to be written, if indeed it can be.

Fr. Schall makes clear what this book is not. It is not a book "on what is called 'the social doctrines of the Church'" (p. xiii). Nor is it an effort to reconcile Catholicism with any particular strain of modern political thought, or to explain which regime types are most compatible with Catholic thought. Notably, it is also not "a history or summary of the views of classic or modern Catholic thinkers on politics"; nor is it a book "on comparative religion or philosophy" in a political context (pp. xii-xiii). While each of these topics would, at a minimum, require a sizable book of its own, greater incorporation of at least some of this material would help to justify this book's title. Nevertheless, it should be appreciated for what it is.

The book's actual subject is a very important one. It is political philosophy itself, in relation to the Roman Catholic account of revelation. This work is "a relaxed, literate 'attempt' to present from various angles a rarely heard argument about how the highest things of philosophy, politics, and revelation relate to each other" (p. xiii). Schall's explorations are indeed literate, and go beyond political philosophy narrowly construed to take in broadly the relationship between reason and revelation. To Schall, political philosophy provides a context in which to illuminate and develop some of the themes of Fides et Ratio. It is a sort of nexus at which the relationships of reason and revelation, and of philosophy and faith, play out.

The distinction between political and religious concerns, though important to recognize, is not as great as is supposed by many--especially by modern secularists, who tend to compartmentalize religion when they think of it at all. For one thing, every person, no matter how oriented toward revelation, must live in the world, and cannot wholly escape political matters or the concerns of the social sciences. Moreover, because politics does not represent humankind's ultimate end, good political philosophy must point beyond itself, and the good state must point beyond itself. A point central to Schall, and in his view a key mark of Roman Catholic political philosophy, is this recognition that "the ultimate destiny of each human being, the political animal, is not located in politics" (p. 158). Following Eric Voegelin, Schall recognizes the rise of ideology, and then the exhaustion of ideology, as symptoms of modern society's failure to recognize this basic reality. In closing itself to revelation and rejecting metaphysics, politics becomes its own monstrous metaphysics. Paralleling the phenomenon of political modernity is modern philosophy's hubristic tendency to identify the wholeness of reality with what is knowable through philosophy's methods. We neglect the vital role of revelation at our peril.

Negotiating the relationship between revelation and reason, or between the things of God and things of Caesar, is not easy. Openness to revelation does not, of course, imply some sort of biblically driven public policy in the crude sense; indeed, care must be taken not to put religion in service to a political ideology. Schall explains, "revelation … does not directly teach us about tax policy.... But it does indicate the immense importance of each human being" and gives us some sense of the meaning of the world (p. 76). This does not make political philosophy unimportant; it has its own extremely important (but not completely independent) sphere, and is in need of greater attention. In particular, those with a religious orientation must pay more attention to political philosophy--and, ideally, those already engaged in political philosophy must become more open to revelation--since, "indirectly, revelation has the effect of confirming or strengthening philosophy and political philosophy by providing answers that, when sorted out, make philosophy to be more philosophic and politics to be more 'politic'" (p. 179).

In his reflections Schall draws not only upon key Catholic Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Aquinas, and John Paul II, but on a great variety of other classic and modern sources including Plato and Aristotle and, a Schall trademark, the Peanuts comic strip. Indeed, the book's bibliography could be adopted as a wonderful life reading list. However, Schall identifies his most important sources as Voegelin and Leo Strauss, and it is Strauss's presence which is most heavily felt. This is somewhat problematic in a book on "Roman Catholic political philosophy," not simply because Strauss does not speak from a Catholic or Christian tradition, but because some of Strauss's writings suggest belief in a sharp divide between reason and revelation as well as incompatibility between philosophy and religion. One could argue that Strauss would deny that there could be such a thing as Roman Catholic political philosophy--either it would not really be Roman Catholic, or (more likely) would not really be philosophy.

This is not to say that Schall should not draw upon Strauss. Schall makes excellent use of Strauss; in fact, one of this book's greatest strengths is its effective synthesis of elements of Strauss with elements of Catholic and related thought. It would be helpful, however, if Fr. Schall acknowledged (beyond a passing reference) the tensions which appear to exist among his sources, and engaged those tensions more directly.

Nonetheless, Schall's message is an important one. Once upon a time, much of what he says would have been taken for granted--although it may not have been expressed so precisely or eloquently. Today, he is a much-needed corrective to a de-sanctified world and its fragmented pursuit of knowledge.

Citation: William F. Byrne. "Review of James V. Schall, Roman Catholic Political Philosophy," H-Catholic, H-Net Reviews, July, 2007. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=237531213374361.

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Famous Quotes about Life and Living (519 Quotations)

	A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs... Epicurus
	A life is like a tree -- if you don't make it straight when its young and green, you'll never do it when it's old and dry. Anonymous
	A life of ease is a difficult pursuit. William Cowper
	A light heart lives long. Proverb
	A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. James Allen
	A man's life is 20 years of having his mother ask him where he is going, 40 years of having his wife ask the same question and, at the end, perhaps having the mourners wondering too. Anonymous
	A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope. Epictetus
	Accept life, take it as it is? Stupid. The means of doing otherwise? Far from our having to take it, it is life that possesses us and on occasion shuts our mouths. Albert Camus
	After all, life is really simple; we ourselves create the circumstances that complicate it. Anonymous
	All of life is a foreign country. Jack Kerouac
	All that man has will he give for his life. Bible
	Always take hold of things by the smooth handle. Thomas Jefferson
	An unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates
	And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
	And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last. Marcus Aurelius
	Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse. Charles Dickens
	Attack life, it's going to kill you anyway. Steven Coallier
	Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for. David Starr Jordan
	Be glad of life because it gives you a chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at stars. Henry Van Dyke
	Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. Henry James

Quotations 1 to 20 of 519

Next Last

Does the universe have a purpose?

This is the first in a series of conversations about the “Big Questions” the John Templeton Foundation
is conducting among leading scientists and scholars.

Unlikely. Lawrence M. Krauss is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.

Yes. David Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale and a National fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Perhaps. Paul Davies is a physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist. He is the director of the Beyond Center at Arizona State University.

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No. Peter William Atkins is a Fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Indeed. Nancey Murphy is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Yes. Owen Gingerich is Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and of the History of Science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

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Very Likely. Bruno Guiderdoni is an astrophysicist and the Director of the Observatory of Lyon, France.

No. Christian de Duve is a biochemist. He received the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.

Yes. John F. Haught is Senior Fellow, Science & Religion, at the Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University.

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Not Sure. Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and the Director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium.

Certainly. Jane Goodall is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace.

I Hope So. Elie Wiesel is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston

John Templeton Foundation
BIG Questions

The Foundation has sponsored three online exchanges on questions that illuminate our philanthropic mission.

• Does science make belief in God obsolete?
• Will money solve Africa's development problems?
• Does the universe have a purpose?

. Join the conversation»

Science and Religion, 400 B.C.-A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus

Edward Grant. Science and Religion, 400 B.C.-A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus. Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion Series. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004.
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Reviewed by: Anna Marie Roos, Wellcome Unit, Oxford University.
Published by: H-Ideas (October, 2007)
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Objective and Subjective Insights: Theology, Natural Philosophy, and the Medieval World View

Medievalist Edward Grant has devoted much of his career to analyzing to what extent modern scientific culture had its origins in the work of medieval theologians. Countering the popular perception that science and religion have always been at historical odds, a view promulgated by Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896 and still in print), Grant has convincingly demonstrated that the medieval Church was favorably disposed towards natural philosophy, using its principles in theological discussion and analysis.

Science and Religion, 400 B.C.-A.D.1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus is a lucid and erudite synthesis of Grant's past work. Part of the Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion, this volume is designed as an introduction to laymen and students so they might understand how religious traditions from throughout the globe have interacted with scientific disciplines. Hence, Grant devotes the last chapter of his piece to an erudite consideration of the relationships between science and religion in Byzantium as well as in the medieval Islamic world. The books in the series also provide primary source documents, an annotated bibliography, and a timeline of significant events. As a testament to its popularity for history of science pedagogy, Grant's particular volume has also been republished in paperback by John Hopkins University Press (2006).

Grant begins his largely successful survey with the claim that the "real beginnings of science and religion commenced with Plato and his student Aristotle" (p. 1). Although one could argue that the pre-Socratics in Miletus began such discourse, Grant is right to devote much of the first part of his work to Aristotle's overweening influence in the science-religion dialogue. Aristotle's conception of the Prime Mover which ultimately caused all interaction and change by being an object of desire and love, the Stagyrite's spatial and material distinction between the heavenly and sublunar realms, and his teleological cosmos were all part of a metaphysics that became a "dominant analytical tool" when applied to the Christian God in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (p. 19). Particularly strong is Grant's overview in chapter 2 of the sheer scope of Aristotle's corpus of work as well as his techniques for analyzing philosophical problems.

Grant then analyzes early Christianity, demonstrating that the early Church fathers studied natural philosophy largely to comprehend the Christian faith, rather than for the sake of knowledge itself. Natural philosophy was a handmaiden to theology. Since God had "created the world as an essentially self-operating entity" functioning by its own laws, it was thought "the mind must penetrate nature to find God" (p. 135). Grant takes the time and care to introduce students to lesser-known theologians such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and John of Damascus, and recounts their attempts to reconcile pagan Greek philosophy with Christianity, rather than just jumping ahead to St. Augustine and his assimilation of Neo-Platonism with Christianity.

In chapter 4, there is also an excellent section on early hexameral literature (commentary on the six days of creation). Grant notes that the problems concerned with the creation of light in the first day (optics), the role of astronomy and astrology in the events of day two, and meteorological analysis of the third day when God made the elements and sublunar region demonstrate the use of hexameral literature as a important and logical means for theologians to discuss natural philosophy. Further, Grant's explanation of why logic became a major subject of study in the eleventh century, his analysis of the extent to which logic was applied to medieval questions of divine revelation, and the role logic played in later struggles between science and religion is also particularly noteworthy. Undergraduates reading this will understand what questiones, scholasticism, and the sententiae of Peter Lombard were all about, mostly likely to the great relief of their instructors.

After a brief discussion of the Latin encyclopedists in the fifth to eighth centuries, the work turns to the twelfth-century medieval Renaissance. As this is a work of science and religion, it is natural that Grant would concentrate upon medieval scholasticism and the rise of universities, as well as the influx of Greco-Arabic natural philosophy and the bearing it had on theological deliberations. However, in his contextual section for the twelfth century, I was a bit surprised that there was little discussion of technological innovations other than the horse collar and three-field system of crop rotation. Since one of its book's purposes is to show the harmony of medieval philosophy and religion with the study of the natural world, it couldn't hurt to mention that medieval engineers created innovations such as the water wheel and water pumps, the lateen sail, or most importantly, the mechanical clock. The mechanical clock was thought to have been invented in 996 to call monastic brethren to prayer by Brother Gerbert, later Pope Sylvester II (999-1003 A.D.), in itself a nice confluence of applied sciences and religious purpose.

I was, however, pleased to see a thorough section describing the work of what Tina Stiefel has termed the "impious men" of the twelfth century--William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres, and Adelard of Bath.[1] This trio attempted to create a rational methodology for the investigation of nature well before the appearance in the West of the Aristotelian corpus and the university. When Aristotle did become part and parcel of the medieval university, their methodology contributed to powerful changes in the relationship between science and religion in the following two centuries, the subject of the masterfully written chapters 6 and 7.

In the thirteenth century, the extensive application of logic and region in the new universities to divine questions produced tensions between faculties of arts and theology in the medieval university, as natural philosophy became more than theology's handmaiden. Utilizing the 1277 papal condemnation of heretical opinions at the University of Paris as a backdrop, Grant shows how the condemned precepts included ideas of the eternity of the world, and limitations on God's power. These precepts reflected the natural philosophers' use of pagan philosophy and reasoned speculation about creation, both of which were seen as threatening theology's primacy as "queen of the sciences." As Grant astutely comments, "The thirteenth century laid a foundation for the interrelations between science and religion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries…. Theology and the power of the church were sufficient to curb and limit the ambitions of the arts masters, who sought … to give free reign to their efforts to interpret the physical cosmos in straightforward Aristotelian terms, unencumbered by theological restrictions and limitations. As the dust settled in the fourteenth century, it became obvious that theologians had an enormous degree of latitude to use natural philosophy … as they pleased in their theological treatises…. By contrast, arts masters usually sought to avoid introducing theology into their commentaries and questions on the books of Aristotle's natural philosophy" (p. 189).

Using examples from his previous work, Grant analyzes the treatises of Jean Buridan to show the limitations arts faculty in the thirteenth century experienced in their speculative work, sometimes with unexpected consequences.[2] If God could indeed do anything in his power, Buridan reasoned God could create a vacuum within or outside of the world, despite Aristotle's denial of the possibility. Albert of Saxony also speculated if a "body could move in a vacuum that God had supernaturally created," which led other scholars such as Nicolas Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine to consider rectilinear motion as an absolute motion independent of place (p. 196). In a lovely example of the interaction of science and religion, Grant demonstrates to what extent the condemnation of 1277 had unexpected effects on the development of physics.

As the fourteenth century progressed however, the restrictions of the 1277 condemnation did not last. Theology became more of an analytic discipline, using the logical methods of the natural philosophers. Interest in divine infinity was analyzed using tools concerned with the infinite divisibility of a mathematical continuum. Grosseteste's work on optics used theories of illumination to analyze the intensification of grace, and the Mertonian school at Oxford in the 1330s and 1340s "measured" subjective qualities like justice and honor quantitatively.[3] The one area of theology closed to such analysis was that related to revelation, such as the Trinity and the Eucharist. Their inherent paradoxes were regarded beyond the reach of reason and logic.

From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, the revelations of Holy Scripture and where they contradicted observed natural phenomena were also accommodated, the mysteries as the Bible seen as allegorical. Despite the later clash (Grant calls it a "debacle") in the seventeenth century over Galileo's adoption of Copernicus' heliocentrism in contradiction to biblical geocentrism, medieval philosophers had little interest to "convert the Bible into a book that allegedly contained the secrets of nature and its operations" (p. 224). So far, so good. In these areas of Grant's expertise, this book shines and demonstrates to its readers the interaction between science and religion in the medieval period with erudition. But I did note a few omissions. First of all, Copernicus and his significance are given very short shrift (approximately six to eight sentences scattered throughout the book). Perhaps the Copernican debt to earlier belief systems such as the cult of Pythagoras and Neo-Platonism could have been covered more thoroughly to foreshadow the growing influence of Plato in the Renaissance. This approach may have not fit into as neat of a pattern or argument, but the volume does claim to end with the Copernican hypothesis which perhaps should do more than mark the "beginning of the end for the medieval worldview" (p. 1).

Secondly, the choice of primary sources, while offering some excellent selections, starts with Roger Bacon and ends with Nicolas Oresme, and could have been a bit more comprehensive. If the book is used as a pedagogical tool, primary sources from ancient world and the beginnings of the early modern period should be represented.

Third, Grant then claims in his last chapter that the division of the medieval university into faculties of arts and theology foreshadowed the later division in Western societies of church and state, and that was a very good thing for science indeed.[4] For this reader, the Galileo affair which helped precipitate this division was more of a tragedy then something that resulted in an ultimate good. As an early modernist, it seems to me that the church and state were intertwined for a very long time in a complex dialogue which resulted in both benefits and tragedies; in the human condition, it seems realistically one cannot have one without the other. Galileo was condemned by the Church being caught in the political snares of the Counter-Reformation, but he also benefited from the knowledge of its Jesuit astronomers and mathematicians. As Wallace has demonstrated, Galileo's very lecture notes from his student days at the University of Pisa had as their source the lectures of the Jesuits at the Collegio Romano, considered the best in their field.[5] Copernicus, who inadvertently started the whole firestorm, was a church canon, whose motivation for his science was often frankly quite mystical and precipitated a watershed in thought. In the early modern period, the sense of awe at nature and a celebration of scientific discovery were not incompatible with a religious worldview, nor is that necessarily the case now. But that is getting into a wholly different debate outside the scope of this review.[6]

Nonetheless Grant's book is very fine and a pleasure to peruse. For those who want or need to understand the fascinating and often surprising world of Western medieval religion and its interaction with natural philosophy, this book is the one to read. I highly recommend it.

Notes

[1]. Tina Stiefel, "'Impious Men'": Twelfth-Century Attempts to Apply Dialectic to the World of Nature," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 441, no. 1 (1995): 187-204

[2]. Edward Grant, Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

[3]. Grant here relies on the work of Edith Sylla, "Medieval Quantifications of Qualities: The "Merton School," Archive for History of Exact Sciences 8, nos. 1-2 (1971): 9-39.

[4]. Grant's conclusion seems a variation of Steven Jay Gould's concept of science and religion being described as "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), which each concerns themselves with fundamentally separate aspects of human experience, coexisting peacefully when each stays within its own domain.

[5]. William A. Wallace, Galileo and his Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); James M. Lattis, Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

[6]. For the recent state of affairs, see George Johnson, "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion," New York Times, November 21, 2006.

Source: H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online
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Pearls of Wisdom (VII) / Mevlana Rumi

The Rumi: The Card and Book Pack by Eryk Hanut, Michele Wetherbee, Michele Wetherbee, Michele Wetherbee (Tuttle Publishing, 2006).

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Synopsis (Barnes & Noble)
Thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi remains one of the world's most popular mystics and poets; his fans include PBS' Bill Moyers, among others. Tuttle is proud to offer a beautifully produced package of Rumi's peerless wisdom, in a new translation text and 54 interactive cards. The book explores the history of Rumi and his career as a spiritual instructor and sage. The colorful cards are divided into six families-birth, love, ordeal, transformation, warnings, and rewards-and come with interpretations and instructions for using them for meditation, inspiration, and to answer life's questions. Attractive, handy, and easy-to-use, Rumi: The Card and Book Pack is a fun, enlightening way to arrive at greater self-knowledge through the insightful words of one of the greatest sages of all time. Eryk Hanut is the author of Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom, and co-author of Mary's Vineyard: Daily Meditations, Readings and Revelations. His articles have appeared in many national publications, including Yoga Journal, Body, Mind, & Spirit, and the Los Angeles Times. Michele Wetherbee, a resident of Petaluma, California was formerly Creative Director at HarperCollins San Francisco and art director for Giftworks, a division of Chronicle Books.

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Open your heart, and you will hear the lutes of the Angels.
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The mirror of the heart must be polished constantly Before you can see clearly in it Good and Evil.
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It is certain that an atom of goodness on the path of faith is never lost.
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Happiness is more precious than wealth; May millions of mercies rain on your dancing!

Look for the soul, you become soul; Hunt for the bread, you become bread. Whatever you look for, you are.

You want everything to be yours? Become nothing to yourself and all things.
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Whoever doesn’t show himself humble today Will tomorrow be humiliated like Pharaoh.
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The more you strive to reach the place of Splendor, The more the invisible Angels will help you.
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After despair, many hopes flourish Just as after darkness, Thousands of Suns open and Start to shine.
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Before death takes what has been given to you, you must give away everything you can give.
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Put your trust in him who gives Life and Ecstasy. Don’t mourn what doesn’t exist; Cling to what does.
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How can victory be won without spiritual war and patience? Give proof of patience; Faith is the key to joy.
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If you know how to be patient, He’ll offer you the seat of honor; He’ll show you a hidden way that no one will know.

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If it is love you are looking for, Take a knife and cut off the head of fear.
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Through Love, disaster becomes good fortune. Through love, a prison becomes a garden.
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Love has come to rule and transform; Stay awake, my heart, stay awake.
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Do not call a cup Sea; Do not call mad the sage of Love.
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Eat on and on, you lovers, at Eternity’s table; Its feast is forever; And spread out for you.
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Picture: flickr.com

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20th Century (Western) Philosophers - Videos

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J.P.Sartre

M.Heiddeger

F.Nietzsche

Lacan

Foucault

Gadamer

G.Deleuze

P.Bourdieu

E.Husserl

B.Russel

Ortega Y Gasset

Derrida

J.Habermas

N.Chomsky

Wittgeinstein

W.Benjamin

J.Boudrillard

Simone de Beaouir

M.Horkheimer

E.Fromm

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Source: http://dusundurensozler.blogspot.com

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A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues

(Barnes & Noble Review)

An utterly original exploration of the timeless human virtues and how they apply to the way we live now, from a bold and dynamic French writer.

In this graceful, incisive book, writer-philosopher André Comte-Sponville reexamines the classic human virtues to help us under-stand "what we should do, who we should be, and how we should live." In the process, he gives us an entirely new perspective on the value, the relevance, and even the charm of the Western ethical tradition.

Drawing on thinkers from Aristotle to Simone Weil, by way of Aquinas, Kant, Rilke, Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Rawls, among others, Comte-Sponville elaborates on the qualities that constitute the essence and excellence of humankind. Starting with politeness -- almost a virtue -- and ing with love -- which transcs all morality -- A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues takes us on a tour of the eighteen essential virtues: fidelity, prudence, temperance, courage, justice, generosity, compassion, mercy, gratitude, humility, simplicity, tolerance, purity, gentleness, good faith, and even, surprisingly, humor.Sophisticated and lucid, full of wit and vivacity, this modestly titled yet immensely important work provides an indispensable guide to finding what is right and good in everyday life.

Kirkus Reviews

An energized discussion of essential virtues for everyday living, by a young French philosopher. Comte-Sponville (Sorbonne), author of scholarly philosophy texts, targets a wider contemporary audience with this title, so far translated into 19 languages. His premise is elegant: a linked series of 18 essays on the virtues most consistently explored and advocated in world philosophy. Roughly speaking, he begins with virtues that are exterior and personal (politeness, fidelity, prudence, temperance), moves through necessary "social" virtues (courage, justice, generosity, compassion, mercy), to more ethereal, "Zen"-like qualities (gratitude, humility, simplicity, tolerance), and on to those that permit the previous virtues to enhance society (purity, gentleness, good faith, humor, and love). His exploration of each virtue is detailed and limber, reliant both on the work of his predecessor philosophers (Aristotle and Plato, Thomas Aquinas and Spinoza, Simone Weil) and on his own hypothetical situations to "test" such virtues. For example, he frequently considers the Third Reich as a society that burnished essential values in the context of perverting them, noting that a polite Nazi is arguably crueler than a brutish one. Comte-Sponville relishes challenging the paradoxes inherent in contemporary mores, as in his assertion that "universal tolerance would also be self-contradictory in practical terms and thus not just morally reprehensible but also politically doomed." Elsewhere, he explores the fine distinctions that are obliterated by monolithic conceptions of virtue, William Bennett-style, as regarding "Purity," which he demonstrates does not exclude the range of human sexuality,evident in Lucretius' conception of pura voluptas, "pure pleasure." Throughout, Comte-Sponville captures (and sometimes confounds) our attention with a wry, prickly tone, expanding the understanding of how philosophy addresses human traits, and forcing us to confront our social behavior relative to our highest (and lowest) impulses. An effervescent primer of the morally examined life.

André Comte-Sponville is one of the most important and popular of the new wave of young French philosophers. Now in his early forties, he teaches at the Sorbonne and is the author of five highly acclaimed scholarly books of classical philosophy. A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues spent fourteen months on the French bestseller list and is being translated into nineteen languages. He lives in Paris.


Full-text of the book is available at Google, click here.

Socrates' Defense (Apology)

Apology, Plato

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How you have felt, O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was - such was the effect of them; and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth. But many as their falsehoods were, there was one of them which quite amazed me; - I mean when they told you to be upon your guard, and not to let yourselves be deceived by the force of my eloquence. They ought to have been ashamed of saying this, because they were sure to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and displayed my deficiency; they certainly did appear to be most shameless in saying this, unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth; for then I do indeed admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a way from theirs! Well, as I was saying, they have hardly uttered a word, or not more than a word, of truth; but you shall hear from me the whole truth: not, however, delivered after their manner, in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No indeed! but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment; for I am certain that this is right, and that at my time of life I ought not to be appearing before you, O men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator - let no one expect this of me. And I must beg of you to grant me one favor, which is this - If you hear me using the same words in my defence which I have been in the habit of using, and which most of you may have heard in the agora, and at the tables of the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be surprised at this, and not to interrupt me. For I am more than seventy years of age, and this is the first time that I have ever appeared in a court of law, and I am quite a stranger to the ways of the place; and therefore I would have you regard me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his country; - that I think is not an unfair request. Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the justice of my cause, and give heed to that: let the judge decide justly and the speaker speak truly.

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And first, I have to reply to the older charges and to my first accusers, and then I will go to the later ones. For I have had many accusers, who accused me of old, and their false charges have continued during many years; and I am more afraid of them than of Anytus and his associates, who are dangerous, too, in their own way. But far more dangerous are these, who began when you were children, and took possession of your minds with their falsehoods, telling of one Socrates, a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause. These are the accusers whom I dread; for they are the circulators of this rumor, and their hearers are too apt to fancy that speculators of this sort do not believe in the gods. And they are many, and their charges against me are of ancient date, and they made them in days when you were impressible - in childhood, or perhaps in youth - and the cause when heard went by default, for there was none to answer. And, hardest of all, their names I do not know and cannot tell; unless in the chance of a comic poet. But the main body of these slanderers who from envy and malice have wrought upon you - and there are some of them who are convinced themselves, and impart their convictions to others - all these, I say, are most difficult to deal with; for I cannot have them up here, and examine them, and therefore I must simply fight with shadows in my own defence, and examine when there is no one who answers. I will ask you then to assume with me, as I was saying, that my opponents are of two kinds - one recent, the other ancient; and I hope that you will see the propriety of my answering the latter first, for these accusations you heard long before the others, and much oftener.

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Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall have a wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.

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Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason also, I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

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Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

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The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

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Full-text available, click here

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Philosophy and the Habits of Critical Thinking

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Interview with John Searle (California Univ.-Berkeley)

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Is it hard to do philosophy?

It's murder, absolutely. I compare it ... if you really want to know how to do it, you get up in the morning, there's a large brick wall and you run your head against that brick wall. And you keep doing that every day until eventually you make a hole in the wall. That's what it feels like. But metaphorically the wall has ceased to exist, right? Using the metaphor that you're always... Unfortunately I keep banging the wall. And then once I get one wall battered into shape then I've got to work on another one. Now the way it actually works out is that you're constantly fighting with a whole lot of apparently contradictory ideas, and yet they all seem appealing and you have to find some way to resolve them.

So take an obvious case. We're all conscious and it's real. All you do is pinch yourself and you know this is real. How can matter be conscious? You know, what you've got in your skull is about a kilogram and a half, three pounds of this gook. It's about the texture of English oatmeal -- it's slimier. And it's gray and white. And now how can this three pounds of gook in your skull, how can that have all these thoughts and feelings and anxieties and aspirations? How can all of the variety of our conscious life be produced by this squishy stuff blasting away at the synapses? A hundred billion neurons, glial cells, synapses, how does that produce consciousness? And that's typical of philosophical problems. On the one had you want to say, well, consciousness couldn't exist because, you know, how does it fit in with the physical world? On the other hand we all know it does exist, so you have to find some way to resolve that. That's a typical philosophical problem.
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What do you hope to impart to your students? Once they've had John Searle, what do you want them to have taken away?

A whole lot of things. There's always the immediate objective of the course. You should understand from this course how language works, if it's a course on the philosophy of language. And you should understand the predominant theories, the dominating theories about how language works, but I'm not bashful about telling you which theories I think are right. I mean, I'll teach you the other guy's theories, but I'm not concealing from you my own opinions. When you go away from this course you should know that. You should understand the material of the course. And then you should have acquired a certain kind of disciplined practice of reading and studying in the course, of reading the articles and writing the term papers and preparing for the exams. And really, if I am successful, then you ought to be able to go and read the latest philosophy journals and read the articles and read the latest stuff on this. I mean, I tell my students that if I'm successful in the course they should, in an undergraduate course, they should be able to pass a Ph.D. qualifying exam in this course, in the philosophy of language or the philosophy of mind, which are two courses I teach.

However, having said all that, I have to say I think the most important thing that I try to convey, and the most important thing any professor can convey, is to exemplify a style of thinking and a mode of sensibility. It's what you provide an example of that is as important, and in some ways more important, than what you actually say explicitly. You convey by example what it's like to actually engage in a process of investigation and research, what it's like to formulate ideas and have them challenged by other ideas, and then deal with the conflicts of these ideas. So the style that you exemplify, the mode of sensibility you express, I think is as important as the content of the course. Now you don't want to get too self-conscious about that. You don't want to go into class thinking, well you know, today I've got to really exemplify this. You do your thing. But at the end of the semester, or even more importantly ten years later, when the student comes back to the campus, if you ask yourself what difference could I have made to these students, I think that's as important as the content of the course.

Is there something that students can do to prepare for the next millennium?

Work hard. You see, what I've found about Berkeley students in particular is that they hunger for commitment. And what they want to know from the professor is, does this material matter to you? Are you really intellectually committed to this material? And they are remarkably instinctive at spotting phonies, at spotting fake commitments or various forms of intellectual concealment. I think there's a kind of instinctive ability to spot this, and Berkeley students are looking for commitment and they hunger for intellectual commitment. And not everybody does. When I've taught at other universities, I teach at a lot of universities, and at some universities I've taught at you get students whose IQs are as high as the Berkeley students, they're just more apathetic. They just don't much care about it. They don't have the hunger for commitment. They don't have the passion that I find in my Berkeley students.

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Professor Searle, thank you for taking time to be with us today and giving us a sense of the habits of critical thinking.

Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you. And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.

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For the full-text of the interview, please click the title.

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