Comments on: First Principles, Final Ends

By: David Higginbotham

David Higginbotham — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:55:13 +0000

The trick, I think, is to reconcile the inner experience with the outer. To imagine the inner world as vast as what we view when we look up at the night sky. And in agreeing with Kinga, we lose our way when we lose touch with the progenitors of our philosophical tradition. I think if we read Aquinas, we need also read Aristotle; if we Aristotle then Plato; if Plato then Homer, etc.,. Once we lose touch with The Tradition, we cut ourselves off from the larger “Us” both human and beyond.

“When you look inside yourself, you see the universe and all its stars in infinity. The result is an infinite mystery within yourself as great as the one without.” ~ CG Jung

The context of mystery is what Religion sustains in us. Once we reduce being to mechanisms, we blind ourselves to that mystery that lies within and without ourselves.

“In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” — Mortimer Adler

By: Ben Espen

Ben Espen — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:01:34 +0000

Ten Philosophical Mistakes was the textbook for the very first philosophy course I ever took! I suppose that explains a lot. =)

By: Bill Burns

Bill Burns — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:04:57 +0000

Mortimer Adler’s Ten Philosophical Mistakes doesan excellent job of laying out the roots and the subsequent errors that have led modern philosophy into its dilemma.

By: Michael More

Michael More — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:41:17 +0000

A general course on philosophical Post-modernism through Holy Apostles (in addition to the current course on Catholic modernism) would be an excellent way to foster some serious discussion for those not versed in this challenging subject. For if the legitimacy of Thomistic thinking (the basis for our Catholic world view) is not resurrected, there is only one way that this endeavor can go as articulated in the following quote from David Schultenover’s “A View from Rome”:

“This last…injunction suggests that his [Pius X's] overriding concern, like Leo XIII’s, was the tranquility of order; for…the implications of modernism are profound, far-reaching, and devastating for religion and the churches as well as for the state whose social bond depends on them. This concern rested on the argument that modernism, because it originates from individual sentiment and internal authority, necessarily denies external [transcendent] authority and therefore must end, on the one hand, in atheism and the destruction of all religion and, on the other, in anarchism and the destruction of all society.”

However, there is one way to stave off anarchism: despotism. So if the post-modern malaise is not effectively challenged and corrected, you can take your pick between the two. At present, I think I will go with the latter.

Is it any wonder that the Popes said time and time again, stay with St. Thomas, stay with St. Thomas, stay with St. Thomas….?

By: Kinga

Kinga — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:34:10 +0000

Philosophy did lose its way, but so did everything else we endeavor intellectually. It is the context and the terms of the contemporary conversation that make it null and barren. The dialogue cannot happen if it is one-sided, if it assumes that Thomism is no longer relevant or stimualting, that it is foreign to the mind. If the intellectual mind-set is to be expanded, first of all the science / religion dichotomy should be collapsed. This is, of course, very difficult to accomplish. Second, the dialogue can be enriched only if certain terms are re-introduced on their own ground – meaning Thomism / Catholic thinking / authentically humanistic philosophy. Language shapes our thinking – without presence of terms and their proper content, thinking culture cannot be influenced. In other words, before making Thomism ‘user friendly,’ it should be realized that it is our modern ethos that needs an upgrade.