Solzhenitsyn understood the crisis of our time—namely, the failure of those who make, enjoy, and judge the constitutionality of laws to appreciate the dire consequences of denying the place of natural-law considerations in the ordering of public life. Some 20,000 umbrella-carrying attendees witnessed Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s commencement address on a rainy afternoon at Harvard University in [...]
Whatever hells have been loosed upon the world, here in America and abroad, never forget that our ancestors, even pagan ones, called us to love and cherish that which is best. Every autumn, I have the grand privilege of teaching Socrates (the Apology, the Crito), Plato (Book VIII of the Republic, the Timaeus), and Aristotle [...]
Those who think that Christianity is just about propositional assent, or about sentimental emotivism, have already in some way made an idol. They are modern and have departed from the tradition at the deepest levels of the soul. Charity, in the Christian sense of the word, is the power infused into our souls at baptism [...]
What happens when one mixes science and poetry in the way that Timaeus does? What can we learn from this strange mix? My intention is to place before us some important themes that connect poetry and science. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, [...]
How does one find the obstinacy, the calm, the strength to glow with the Beautiful and the True in the midst of a raging storm? I think about a small argument in chapter 13 of the “Summa Contra Gentiles,” the work which, when my heart slows its hammering, gives my mind peace. I am at [...]
The Platonic world of Forms was shattered by God, bursting down through the clouds to enter into the womb of a young Jewish girl! Picture yourself sitting alongside Plato at a local Greek restaurant, a couple of gyros between the two of you. What do you say? Is there anything you know that could possibly [...]
Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde should prompt us to search for an antidote to the lovers’ death wish—to pursue a love that preserves rather than destroys, celebrates rather than abolishes individuality, and seeks life rather than death. “They who were two and divided now became one and united.” —Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde I come [...]
If the universe were a swarm, there would be no universe. That swarm, that self-caused changing unit, that Godless movable infinite thing would destroy the necessary condition of its own existence and persistence: the individuals that constitute it. Why, then, does modern man insist on not seeing this? Why does he choose rage over reality? I [...]
Georges Tamer does a masterful job at analyzing the impact of medieval Islamic philosophy on Strauss. The author’s findings will surprise many readers who know Strauss chiefly from his reputation in conservative intellectual circles. Islamic Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Leo Strauss’s Relationship with al-Fârâbî, Avicenna, and Averroes, by Georges Tamer (336 pages, SUNY [...]
There is nothing in the natural world, or in the inner and outer life of man, that does not find its counterpart in the all-embracing realm of tones. Music as symbol is the whole of all things. “They who were two and divided now became one and united.” —Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde I [...]
John Dewey is such a big name in the educational world that it can seem like there is no way to push back against his work. But Dorothy L. Sayers offers a way for the Liberal Arts not only to push back on Dewey but also to steal his thunder. As we look back at [...]
Whether in her present numerous agonies of disorder, America can transcend despair and rebuild her national character is doubtful—impossible in the minds of some. But one thing is certain: It can happen only by fidelity to the American experience of a transcending Christian authority, and fidelity to the finest of her social values, customs, and [...]
For Eric Voegelin, all modern ideologies—left or right—were simply Gnostic attempts to order a disordered world according to ritual and knowledge. This essay concludes my three-essay series on Eric Voegelin (1901-1985). In the first essay, I discussed Voegelin’s own influence on my intellectual development over the past 37 years. I also, rightly or wrongly, questioned [...]
There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with Irving Babbitt’s work as with that of any serious thinker. The proper question for scholars to ask would appear to be: Do Babbitt’s various concepts faithfully account for the facts of human experience? In other words: Is he providing a scientific analysis of [...]