Insofar as we understand Plato and Aristotle, we understand where the great thinkers of Christendom, the great writers of Christendom, are coming from. If we don't understand those philosophers, we will be groping and grappling in the dark, or at least in the twilight, trying to make sense of something three or four parts removed [...]
Modernity and modernism, and all their fruits, are deeply opposed to the conservative vision. Conservatism seeks harmony, unity, justice, and dignity. Far from fragmenting life, it seeks to draw all together. As we wrestle with our present twenty-first century day—its successes and its foibles—we conservatives will throw around terms such as modernity, modernism, post-modernism, and [...]
Niccolo Machiavelli may help modern man to think more clearly about power and prudence, and to remember that the world is a dangerous place where all is not as it seems. An argument can be made that Niccolo Machiavelli’s sinister reputation is unjust. This is not to gloss over the very deep flaws in the [...]
Kant shows that the one necessary, non-contingent existence is God, a being that is one, simple, unchangeable, eternal, and a spirit. There is, then, necessarily a God, a being comprehending not all, but all the highest positive reality. I hope that this consideration of a peculiar little work of great interest will appeal to readers [...]
The truth is that philosophy is not the apanage of the few. All may be equipped with the science of living, and one cannot be so equipped without a right, if inadequate, knowledge of the nature of things—at least, that is, of their nature as affecting human conduct. One who knows the ten commandments and [...]
At the heart of Alexis de Tocqueville’s thought lies the “restless mind”—a mind that sees the essence of humanity in the realization that each of us “dies alone” and that life is but a fleeting moment hedged in between the abysses of the pre-born and the dead. The Restless Mind: Alexis de Tocqueville on the [...]
“The Roots of Ordered Liberty: America at 250” The Academy of Philosophy and Letters is proud to announce a lineup for our annual conference featuring talks by such conservative luminaries as Nathan Pinkoski, D. C. Schindler, and Kody W. Cooper. We will host a debate over whether the Federalists or the Anti-Federalists were ultimately right, [...]
It took Edmund Burke a very little time to decide that French Revolutionary philosophy posed a massive threat to civilization and social stability throughout Europe. By the end of his life, eight years after the storming of the Bastille, his fears of Jacobin contagion had led him to ask for a secret grave, removed from [...]
The machine we face today is an all-encompassing technological, cultural, and economic system oppressing us—driven by profit and a misguided ambition. In the name of public health and progress we have allowed ourselves to be enslaved to the machine. You will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery [...]
“Strong art destabilizes the self,” a reader commented on my recent essay, “that’s its job.” Really? On the contrary, great art edifies. It engages the isolated and alienated self with goodness, truth, and beauty. It moves us beyond the confusion of the unstable self towards the true stability found in the fusion of sanity and [...]
The popularity of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” has paradoxically led us to underestimate the Venetian’s true greatness. Once renowned across Europe, by the early twentieth century Vivaldi was considered a minor composer. Then, several events occurred to re-awaken interest in the music of “The Red Priest.” Inevitably, when one hears the name of Antonio Vivaldi, one [...]
True love makes one humble. All of a sudden our weakness, misery, and imperfection flash up before our minds, but with no depressing effect. We see our mistakes with the wish to unveil them to the loved one, and this unveiling is coupled with the wish to beg for his or her help in order [...]
While Benedict XVI may not himself have made great contributions to the natural sciences, he made what is much more important: a contribution to understanding a world in which the truth is one, is God’s, and, from atoms to archangels, is capable of being seen as connected. A great deal has been written about the [...]
It can be said of Cicero and his role within the West that, in hindsight, he becomes a figure much larger than he himself actually was; he is a touchstone, a fountainhead, a rock upon which we can place our fondest and dearest dreams. How do I define the Natural Law? Taking my cue from [...]