In virtually every major field of thought today, Westerners are advocating conflicting paradigms concerning change. In some areas, there is a dogmatic insistence on infinite fluidity. In other areas, there is an equally dogmatic insistence on inflexible fixity. This indicates that we moderns have not thought much about change at all. All of Western philosophy—all [...]
For those facing another virus lockdown, the book “Action versus Contemplation” helps reframe the mind by revisiting the classic and ongoing dialectic between the contemplative life and the active life. Action versus Contemplation: Why an Ancient Debate Still Matters, by Jennifer Summit and Blakey Vermeule (256 pages, University of Chicago Press, 2018) “Action versus contemplation” [...]
“Good Things Out of Nazareth: The Uncollected Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Friends” is the epistolary record of Flannery O’Connor’s other life, the life lived behind the printed page in small-town Georgia. This life is not nearly as “large and startling” as her fiction, but it is unforgettable all the same. Good Things Out of [...]
What is perhaps most distressing of all the revelations of frailty and incompetence beneath the former veneer of progress, is the recognition that mankind has very little idea of how to solve problems apart from throwing money at them. The past few months have turned the world as we knew it upside-down. Civil liberties, which [...]
Insights into the nature of Aristotle’s philosophy confirm Edward Feser’s detailed argument that Aristotle, under the gentle care of later scholastically-minded thinkers, turns out to be right about more things than most of us dare hope. Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science, by Edward Feser (Editiones Scholasticae, 515 pages, 2019) Philosophy [...]
Held on July 15, the Tokyo March for Life is a beautiful celebration of the gift of life and also of the panoply of Asian and Pacific peoples and cultures. As Asians awaken from a nightmare of slaughter, people from around the world gather here to remember the darkness of the past, but also to [...]