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Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome – Essays in Honor of James V. Schall, S.J. - Marc D Guerra - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome – Essays in Honor of James V. Schall, S.J. - Marc D Guerra - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

James V. Schall, S.J., is unquestionably one of the wisest Catholic political thinkers of our time. For more than forty years, Fr. Schall has been an unabashed practitioner of what he does not hesitate to call Roman Catholic political philosophy. A prolific writer and renowned teacher at Georgetown University, Fr. Schall has helped to educate two generations of Catholic thinkers. The present volume brings together seventeen essays by noted scholars in honor of Fr. Schall. It is a testimony to Fr. Schall’s erudition and influence that the authors of these essays did not have the privilege of directly studying under him. Rather, they are the indirect but grateful beneficiaries of “Another Sort of Learning,” one that Fr. Schall tirelessly defends and practices. An appendix lists all the books Schall has written. Contributors include Marc Guerra, J. Brian Benestad, Francis Canavan, S.J., Kenneth Grasso, Thomas Hibbs, John Hittinger, Mary Keys, Robert Kraynak, Douglas Kries, Rev. Matthew Lamb, Peter Augustine Lawler, Frederick Lawrence, Daniel Mahoney, Graham McAleer, Michael Novak, Tracey Rowland, and Paul Seaton

DKK 284.00
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The Modern Age - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Modern Age - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

At its beginning, every age has been “modern.” We speak of “pre-” and “post-” modern ages. We are likewise tempted to identify what is most up-to-date with what is true. But to be up-to-date is to be out-of-date. If we find what is really true in any age, it will be true in all ages. This proposition is central to this book. Moreover, what is true will appear in different guises, as will what is false. The “modern age” had often considered itself relativist, or secular, or skeptical. It strove to divest itself of its theological and metaphysical backgrounds, only to find that the central themes from this tradition recur again and again, most often under political or even scientific forms. This book proposes to “see” these classical and revelational roots within their modern forms. But we also find the proposition that what exists is only what we make. We find no “truth” but that of our own confection. When we find only our own “truth,” however, we do not really find or know ourselves. We do not cause what it is to be ourselves in the first place. The central truth that the “modern age” does not acknowledge is that its own existence along with that of the world itself is first a gift. When we see the “modern age” in this light we can again rediscover what we really are. Hopefully, we can choose and rejoice in what we are intended to be in any age as the gift of being is something that transcends all ages even while dwelling within them.

DKK 264.00
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The Platonic Myths - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Platonic Myths - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Josef Pieper’s The Platonic Myths is the work of a scholar and philosopher whose search for the level of truth contained in the myths is carried out with a series of careful distinctions between the kinds of myths told by Plato. In the Platonic stories Plato crystallizes mythical fragments from the mere stories which contain them, and in the genuine Platonic myths he purifies the proper mythical elements, freeing them of the non-mythical elements which tend to obscure them. In examining the ‘accepted’ scholarly interpretations of the myths, Pieper succeeds in establishing the case for a truth, found particularly in the eschatological myths, that is not reducible to the rational truth normally sought by philosophers. While it is not purely rational truth, it is not inferior. It is different. It stems from tradition, which reaches back to the ultimate beginnings of man’s existence – back into our pre-history and to events of which, naturally, we have no experience. The only access we have to this truth is through ‘hearing’ (ex akoés), which is not dependent on mere ‘hearsay,’ but which, in Pieper’s interpretation, reflects the handing on, in stories, of what the gods first communicated to man about the creation of the world and about the afterlife. These truths are to be found – long before the New Testament (or even the Old Testament) – in the myths of a variety of civilizations and give evidence of an extraordinary consensus: that there was a creating hand, that primeval man incurred guilt in the eyes of the gods; that he could be saved; that there is an afterlife in which man is rewarded or punished; that he can undergo a kind of purgatory for lesser offenses; and that in the afterlife he can dwell with the gods. What is the basis for accepting such truth as is contained in the myths? No purely rational argument will suffice. What man cannot experience himself he either tends to reject or, if he accepts it, he does so on the authority of another – ex akoés. Even before – or even without – Christian revelation, men have based their lives on a conviction, for instance, that there is an afterlife. They have this conviction not from experience or from some rational philosophical argument. They have it on the basis of ‘belief.’ With the coming of Christian revelation, the logos, or word, of the myth is seen – to the believer – to be the Logos of the New Testament. But even here the ‘believer’ can depend neither on purely rational argument nor on satisfactorily verifiable fact. He has only – belief.

DKK 203.00
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Docilitas – On Teaching and Being Taught - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Docilitas – On Teaching and Being Taught - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Latin word “Docilitas” in the title of this book means the willingness and capacity we have of being able to learn something we did not know. It has not the same connotation as “learning,” which is what happens to us when we are taught something. Docility also means our recognition that we do not know many things, that we need the help of others, wiser than we are, to learn most of what we know, though we can discover a few things by or own experience. This book contains some sixteen chapters, each of which was given to an audience in some college or university setting. They consider what it is to teach, what to read, reading places, libraries, and class rooms. They look upon the duties of a teacher or professor as mostly a delight, because the truth should delight us. In Another Sort of Learning, the subject of what a student “owes” his teacher came up. Here, we look at the other side of the question, what does a teacher or professor “do”? But a professor cannot teach unless there is someone willing to be taught, someone willing to recognize that he needs guidance and help. Yet, the end of teaching is not just the “transfer” of what is in the mind of the professor to the mind of the student. It is when both, student and teacher, behold, reflect on, and see the same truth of things that are. This common “seeing” is the read adventure in which student and teacher share something neither “owns.” Knowledge and truth are free, but each requires our different insights and approaches so that we can finally realize what “teaching” and “being taught” mean to us.

DKK 229.00
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Essays on Law, Religion, and Morality - Gerard V. Bradley - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Essays on Law, Religion, and Morality - Gerard V. Bradley - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The most controversial foundational issue today in both legal philosophy and constitutional law is the relationship between objective moral norms and the positive law. Is it possible for the state to be morally “neutral” about such matters as marriage, the family, religion, religious liberty, and – as the Supreme Court once famously phrased it – “the meaning of life”? If such neutrality is possible, is it desirable? In this volume of essays one of our country’s leading constitutional lawyers answers “no” to both questions. In the first three chapters, Gerard Bradley investigates the central moral justification of punishment, the morality of plea bargaining, and how the criminal justice system should treat the family. These essays reflect both Bradley’s decades as a teacher of criminal law as well as his earlier experience as a trial prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The second triptych of papers has to do with the raging controversy over same-sex “marriage,” and the broader movement toward a socially sanctioned orthodoxy about sexual orientation of which the “marriage” movement is one part. These papers reflect the author’s years of philosophical work on the marriage question, as well as his more practical experience as a popular debater and expert witness. Finally, Bradley takes up the questions of religious liberty and how our democratic polity should treat religion. These chapters cover the original meaning of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, the role of Catholicism in the post-World War II controversies over movie censorship as they played out in the Supreme Court, and emerging challenges to religious liberty in the 21st century.

DKK 241.00
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The Classical Moment – Selected Essays on Knowledge and Its Pleasures - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Classical Moment – Selected Essays on Knowledge and Its Pleasures - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The essay is one of the great inventions of the human mind. It can talk about anything and everything. It can be lightsome or solemn. It can be witty or informative. Above all, it is short. It likes the passage in which Socrates told Callicles in the Gorgias to make his answers brief. Yet, we can find in essays things we need and want to know. Aquinas often managed to make the most profound arguments in two paragraphs. Samuel Johnson did the same. The Classical Moment is, indeed, a collection of “selected essays.” Such a collection is a classical and beloved form of English letters, the literary form most preferred by Schall. The essays in this book all touch on knowledge and its pleasures. Schall does not tarry on the effort and determination it often takes to say just what we want to say, then say it and know that we have said it. Somehow, when an essay is written, an author simply knows that it is complete, that it is what he wanted to say. He says to himself, “Yes, that is it.” An essayist may well be conscious that when he begins an essay, he really does not know what he will finally say. The writing is the saying. Our writing is our thinking, our thinking-through, our being pleased to know this is it . . . this is the point Schall, one of America’s greatest essayists, makes here. The “classical moment” is that intense experience of seeing or hearing or encountering some vista, or song, or person that takes us out of ourselves. We are most ourselves somehow when we are most outside of ourselves, seeing what is not ourselves. We are intended to be more than ourselves in being ourselves, to know with others what is the truth, to know what is. These essays originally appeared in regular columns done in various journals, papers, and on-line sources. One can read them in any order. The order of the author or collector does have a certain “logic,” but each essay is also a whole, something contained within itself. The unity of an essay collection is found more in a kind enthrallment that comes to us when we deal with the things that are both important and delightful. At bottom, these essays belong together. Aristotle warned us that if we did not delight in the things that are, we would seek our highest pleasures where they are not really found. We will always seek something to delight in. What civilization is about lies in finding what is really worthy of the capacity of delight that is given to us in our being. The “classical moment” is the perfect phrase that brings us to the threshold of this experience. We have to enter it ourselves, but once inside, we will find so much more than ourselves. And we will rejoice.

DKK 247.00
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On the Principles of Taxing Beer – and Other Brief Philosophical Essays - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

On the Principles of Taxing Beer – and Other Brief Philosophical Essays - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

What is real and what is noble, as well as what is deranged and wrong, can often be stated briefly. Nietzsche was famous for his succinct aphorisms and epigrams. Aquinas in one of his responses could manage to state clearly what he held to be true. Ultimately, all of our thought needs to be so refined and concentrated that we can see the point. So these are “brief” essays and they are largely of a philosophical “hue.” They touch on things worth thinking about. Indeed, often they consider things we really need to think about if our lives are to make sense. The advantage of a collection of essays is that it is free to talk about many things. It can speak of them in a learned way or in an amused and humorous way. As Chesterton said, there is no necessary conflict between what is true and what is funny. Oftentimes, the greatest things we learn are through laughter, even laughter at ourselves and our own foibles and faults. So these essays are “brief.” And they are largely of philosophical import. At first sight, taxing beer may seem to have no serious principle, except perhaps for the brewer and the consumer. But wherever there is reality, we can find something to learn. Each of these essays begins with the proposition “on”—this is a classical form of essay in the English language. Belloc, one the essay’s greatest masters, wrote a book simply entitled “ON”—and several other books with that introductory “ON” to begin it. The word has the advantage of focusing our attention on some idea, place, book, person, or reality that we happen to come across and notice, then notice again, then wonder about. These essays are relatively short, often lightsome, hopefully always with a consideration that illumines the world through the mind of the reader. These essays are written in the spirit that the things we encounter provoke us, our minds. We need to come to terms, to understand what we come across in our pathways through this world. Often the best way to know what we observe or confront is to write about it, preferably briefly and with some philosophical insight. This is what we do here.

DKK 229.00
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Religious Freedom – Did Vatican II Contradict Traditional Catholic Doctrine? A Debate - Gerald V. Bradley - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Religious Freedom – Did Vatican II Contradict Traditional Catholic Doctrine? A Debate - Gerald V. Bradley - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

One of the gravest and most divisive issues confronting the Catholic Church in recent decades – a major factor in an ongoing institutionalized rupture between Rome and at least half a million traditionalist Catholics – is the question of whether Vatican II’s Declaration Dignitatis Humanae can be reconciled with traditional Church doctrine on religious liberty. In this spirited exchange of essays on a topic central to our understanding of justice and human rights, Arnold Guminski and Fr. Brian Harrison debate this difficult question. Guminski argues that DH teaches that there is (and always has been) a natural right not to be prevented from publicly propagating or manifesting non-Catholic religions, subject to the exigencies of a just public order, which is to be understood as not presupposing the truth of natural or any positive religion (including Catholicism), or any supernatural considerations. Harrison disagrees. In his view, DH nowhere teaches that it is always and everywhere unjust for civil authorities to presuppose the truth of Roman Catholicism in determining what restrictions a just public order allows. According to Harrison, the central innovative feature of DH is its clearly implied prudential policy judgment, or norm of ecclesiastical public law, to the effect that in the modern world – so very different from the old Christendom – repression of the public propagation or manifestation of non-Catholic religions as such can no longer be justified by the requirements of the common good. Harrison argues that precisely because this undeniable reversal of the Church’s previous position belongs in the category of changeable prudential judgments, it does not constitute a doctrinal rupture with Catholic tradition. Guminski, on the other hand, contends that the doctrine of DH, properly understood, is inconsistent with relevant preconciliar doctrine. The latter, in his view, was never proposed definitively – i.e., infallibly. Both authors agee to a comprehensive theory of the nature and scope of the Church’s inherent coercive power as it pertains to liberty in religious matters. They agree that this power is limited to the imposition of spiritual penalties and temporal penalties, and that the Church’s inherent coercive power nevertheless must be exercised within the limits of a just public order.

DKK 332.00
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Unquiet Americans – U.S. Catholics, Moral Truth, and the Preservation of Civil Liberties - Gerard V. Bradley - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Unquiet Americans – U.S. Catholics, Moral Truth, and the Preservation of Civil Liberties - Gerard V. Bradley - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Before the Second Vatican Council, America’s Catholics operated largely as a coherent voting bloc, usually in connection with the Democratic Party. Their episcopal leaders generally spoke for Catholics in political matters; at least, where America’s bishops asserted themselves in public affairs there was little audible dissent from the faithful. More than occasionally, the immigrant Church’s eagerness to demonstrate its patriotic bona fides furthered its tendency to speak with one voice about national matters, and in line with the broader societal consensus. And, notwithstanding the considerable conflict which Catholics encountered, and generated, in American political life, there was before the Council broad agreement in American culture about the centrality of Biblical morality to the success of Americans’ experiment with republican government. In other words: before the Council, American Catholics’ relationship to the political common good was mediated, somewhat uncritical, and insulated from conflict (both within and without the Church) over such fundamental matters as protection of innocent life, marriage and family life, and (to a lesser extent) religious liberty. This has all changed since the mid-1960s. For the first time in the Church’s pilgrimage on these shores, controversial questions about the basic moral requirements of the political common good are front and center for America’s Catholics. These questions require Catholics to confront matters which heretofore they either took for granted, read off from the background culture, or which they left to the bishops to handle. But the Council Fathers rightly recognized that Jesus calls upon a formed and informed laity to act as leaven in the public realm, to bring Gospel values to the temporal sphere. In this book of essays touching upon Catholic social doctrine, the truth about human equality and political liberty, and religious faith as it bears upon public life and the public engagement of lay Catholics, Gerard Bradley supplies indispensable aid to those seeking to answer Jesus’ call.

DKK 222.00
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What Does "Academic" Mean? – Two Essays on the Chances of the University Today - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

What Does "Academic" Mean? – Two Essays on the Chances of the University Today - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

What Does “Academic” Mean? focuses, in two essays, on the prospects of contemporary universities. The term “academic” is traced back to Plato’s Academy in a grove in Athens. The Academy is isolated, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Western universities founded in the Middle Ages show continuity, via Byzantium, with Plato’s Academy. Not surprisingly, the Oxford Dictionary quoted by Pieper defines “academic” as “Not leading to a decision; unpractical.” The preoccupation of the academic as academic is seen by Pieper to be fundamentally theoretical, not practical. Pure theory is that which cannot at all be pressed into service. Clearly, many university disciplines that are richly funded by industry and business concerns tend to be favored by university administrations, which, intent on financial survival, frown on “unproductive” disciplines such as pure philosophy: metaphysics being a case in point, since it is the discipline least capable of practical application. Pure philosophy, unlike any other discipline, has as its “subject” the totality of being. Every other discipline deals with a particular aspect of being – for example, the physical, the psychological, the technical – but not the totality. For Pieper, spirit is that which makes us open to truth – all truth – without any need to exploit it in the concrete world. The sciences open up more and more access to reality, more and more for us to contemplate. They show us more of the totality, but none of the sciences is interested in the totality as such. The philosophy which deals with the totality and asks, with Alfred North Whitehead, “What is it all about?” is seen by Pieper as central to the university. Essentially, it contemplates the wonder of being.

DKK 203.00
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At a Breezy Time of Day – Selected Schall Interviews on Just about Everything - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

At a Breezy Time of Day – Selected Schall Interviews on Just about Everything - James V. Schall - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

We have books that contain collected essays, verse, and humor. What we see less often are books that contain collected interviews on various topics. Interviews have a certain outside discipline about them. The one interviewed responds to a question someone else asks of him. Often the questions are unexpected, sometimes annoying. Answers have a freshness to them. They can be more personal, frank. The responses in At a Breezy Time of Day are occasioned when someone writes or phones with a request for an interview. There may be a common theme but often side questions come up. We are curious about what someone has to say – about sports, about God, about Plato, about education, about books, about just about anything. Usually central questions occur. The same question can be answered in different ways. We often have more to say on a given topic than we do say on our first being asked about it. These interviews appeared in various on-line and printed sources. Having them collected in one text makes the interview form itself seem more substantial. Interviews too often seem to be passing, ephemeral things, but often we want to hold on to them. There is something more existential about them. Yet there is also something more lightsome about them also. The truth of things seems more bearable when it is spoken, when it has a human voice. So, as the title of this collection intimates, we begin with the very first interview in the Garden of Eden. We touch many places and issues. The interview always has somewhere even in its written form the touch of the human voice. The one who interviews invites us to speak, to tell us what we hold, why we hold it. Interviews are themselves part of that engagement in conversation that defines our kind in its search for a full knowledge of what is. We know that when we have said the last word, much remains to be said. We can rejoice both in what we know, and in what we know that we do not know. I believe it was Socrates who, in an earlier form of interview at the end of The Apology, alerted us to be aware of what we know and to await the many other interviews that we hope to carry on with so many others of our kind in the Isles of the Blessed.

DKK 238.00
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Polity and Economy – Further Thoughts Principles Of Adam Smith - Joseph Cropsey - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Polity and Economy – Further Thoughts Principles Of Adam Smith - Joseph Cropsey - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

To perceive Adam Smith's place in the stream of Enlightenment philosophy is to gain an indispensable insight into our own condition as denizens of the liberal capitalist society. Before Smith was the author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he was the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The earlier work establishes Smith unmistakably as among those thinkers who aspired to describe the human condition in terms of motivation, of cause and effect, thus in terms of the principles of nature itself, of nature as mechanism, not nature as edifying teleology. Precisely because morality was not to be traced to any homiletic beyond nature or to a volition with nature, the thinkers of the modern order assumed responsibility for locating the ground of true moral virtue within mechanical nature alone. And just as the locating of mankind within a remorseless system of cause and effect could be the reduction of humanity to the status of robotic slavery, it became the self-assigned task of the thinkers in question to demonstrate that the natural order was one not of etiological bondage but of freedom in an elevated sense. The intention of Polity and Economy is to present Adam Smith as author of liberal capitalism, as propounder within an order that converts the natural self-preference of every living thing into an instrument of goodness, prosperity, and freedom - as long as our deployment of natural means does not, in the organization and conduct of society, violate the truths of nature itself. This edition of Polity and Economy revises the original with cross-references from the standard Glasgow editions and adds two further essays not in the original: 'Adam Smith and Political Philosophy' and 'The Invisible Hand: Moral and Political Considerations.'

DKK 156.00
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The Pilgrimage of Philosophy – A Festschrift for Charles E. Butterworth - Gregory A. Mcbrayer - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Pilgrimage of Philosophy – A Festschrift for Charles E. Butterworth - Gregory A. Mcbrayer - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

This book intends to introduce readers to the work of Charles E. Butterworth, and thereby to introduce students to Medieval islamic political philosophy, of which Butterworth is one of the world’s most prominent scholars. In a wider sense, the Festschrift introduces its readers to the current debates on Medieval islamic political philosophy, related as they are to the questions of the relationship between islam and Christianity, the Medieval to the Modern world, and reason and revelation. Butterworth’s scholarship spans six decades, primarily translating, editing, and interpreting the works of the Muslim political philosopher Alfarabi (d. 950) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198). He began his studies of Muslim political philosophy at a time when the Middle East and islam did not have the political salience they have acquired in more recent years. instead, Butterworth’s reason for engaging with islam was rooted in the question of the relationship between reason and revelation. While one possible answer was pursued in the Christian, latin West, the islamic borderlands of Greek, Roman, and Muslim civilization offered another. By exploring Averroes, who provides the possibility of an Aristotelian-Islamic political philosophy, and Alfarabi, who pursues a Platonic-islamic political philosophy, Butterworth showed how islamic civilization provided a viable alternative to the theologico-political question reason v revelation, as well as serving as an inspiration to the latin West.

DKK 250.00
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The Catholic Thing – Five Years of a Singular Website - Charles J. Chaput - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Catholic Thing – Five Years of a Singular Website - Charles J. Chaput - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Catholic “thing” – the concrete historical reality of Catholicism as a presence in human history – is the richest cultural tradition in the world. It values both faith and reason, and therefore has a great deal to say about politics and economics, war and peace, manners and morals, children and families, careers and vocations, and many other perennial and contemporary questions. In addition, it has inspired some of the greatest art, music, and architecture, while offering unparalleled human solidarity to tens of millions through hospitals, soup kitchens, schools, universities, and relief services. This volume brings together some of the very best commentary on a wide range of recent events and controversies by some of the very best Catholic writers in the English language: Ralph McInerny, Michael Novak, Fr. James V. Schall, Hadley Arkes, Robert Royal, Anthony Esolen, Brad Miner, George Marlin, David Warren, Austin Ruse, Francis Beckwith, and many others. Their contributions cover large Catholic subjects such as philosophy and theology, liturgy and Church dogma, postmodern culture, the Church and modern politics, literature, and music. But they also look into specific contemporary problems such as religious liberty, the role of Catholic officials in public life, growing moral hazards in bio-medical advances, and such like. The Catholic Thing is a virtual encyclopedia of Catholic thought about modern life.

DKK 193.00
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O Rare Ralph McInerny – Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor - Christopher Kaczor - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

O Rare Ralph McInerny – Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor - Christopher Kaczor - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

During more than a half century at the University of Notre Dame, Dr. Ralph McInerny’s legendary achievements include writing more than 50 non-fiction books in philosophy, medieval studies, and theology, as well as more than 90 novels, including the Father Dowling Murder Mystery series. This volume offers personal reflections on the man himself and what he meant to so many over his rich life of teaching, writing, and contributing to the life of the mind. Alasdair MacIntyre, Cardinal Francis George, Ralph’s brother D.Q. McInerny, Michael Novak, John Haldane, Joseph Bottum, Thomas De Konick, Jude P. Dougherty, Gerard V. Bradley, Fr. Marvin O’Connell, and many others (see below) aim to capture some of the ‘more’ that was McInerny, a more that cannot be captured by any curriculum vitae, even one as impressive as Ralph’s. The stories, anecdotes, and reflections in this volume give us various snapshots of the man that cannot be found in news accounts, press releases, or academic evaluations. A person as great as Ralph should not live merely in memory, so some record such as this volume written his friends, colleagues, and former students becomes appropriate. Also included is a full list of all the books – fiction and non-fiction – authored by McInerny as well as enumeration of his forty-eight doctoral students and their dissertations completed under his direction. Finally, the collection is rounded out by five contributions by McInerny himself: a poem about his late wife Connie, a scholarly article “Why I Am a Thomist,” a popular essay, “Mementoes Never Die,” an early Roger Knight mystery entitled “Dust Abhors a Vacuum,” as well as his last written words.

DKK 185.00
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Aborting Aristotle – Examining the Fatal Fallacies in the Abortion Debate - Dave Sterrett - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Aborting Aristotle – Examining the Fatal Fallacies in the Abortion Debate - Dave Sterrett - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The abortion debate has returned. More than forty years have passed since the landmark decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States. But the abortion debate continues to rage among ethicists and the influencers of society in politics, government, and the arts. Dave Sterrett’s Aborting Aristotle examines these essential differences philosophically, while investigating the naturalistic worldview about humanity that is frequently held by many of the scholarly defenders of abortion. Each year 44 million babies are killed from intentional abortion around the world. 1.29 million babies are aborted right here in the United States. These are not just merely cold statistics: These are human beings . . . real babies. Sterrett reveals the unreasonableness of abortion and argues against abortion even in the difficult circumstances. In the ancient world, infanticide was defended by Plato and Aristotle. Christians who believed in the sacredness of human life stopped infanticide and intellectually argued against the practice. Peter Singer, professor of ethics at Princeton, hopes the time has come for atheists to reassess the morality of infanticide “without assuming the Christian moral framework that has, for so long, prevented any fundamental reassessment” [Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge University Press, UK; 1993), 173.] Dave Sterrett takes on Peter Singer, along with other scholarly defenders of abortion, including David Boonin, Michael Tooley, and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Although he is against Aristotle’s teaching in favor of abortion, Sterrett argues that Aristotle had much good in his metaphysical and logical teachings that Western education has forgotten. Sterrett draws upon current scientific knowledge of the human embryo to provide reasons for a restoration of the Aristotelian scholastic philosophical tradition that could help ethicists become more open-minded about the dignity and personhood of unborn human beings.

DKK 176.00
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Pre–Modern Philosophy Defended - Josef Kleutgen - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Pre–Modern Philosophy Defended - Josef Kleutgen - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

“Pre-modern philosophy” means the line of reflection that started with Plato andvAristotle, passed through Augustine and Boethius, and reached its acme in Aquinas, Scotus, and Suarez. The whole line was harshly judged by Descartes, then mocked by the empiricsts of the 18th Century. Why, then, did Pope Leo XII make a determined effort to revive it? And, more importantly, why was the revival a stunning success by the middle of the 20th Century?The answers to both questions are found in a famous German book, Philosophie der Vorzeit by Josef Kleutgen, now available for the first time in English. Pre-ModernPhilosophy Defended shaped and strengthened Pope Leo’s resolve. It showed how inaccurate the harsh judgments had been and how sadly inferior the modern replacements from Descartes to Hegel had turned out to be in many respects. Not in all. Kleutgen was no knee-jerk reactionary. He made no bones about the obsolete status of pre-Newtonian physics and cosmology. Rather, he focused on the central boast of “modern” thought, namely, that it had turned at least to the “subject” and had provided a long-needed thing called a “critique of knowledge.”This book is must reading for intellectual historians and for philosophers working today in epistemology. But most of all, it is essential reading for laity and clergy concerned about revivals of modernism in the church. What was modernism, after all, but an attempt to make the Church revise her theology in the “light” of Kant or Hegel? This is why every Modernist knew Kleutgen’s name and hated this book. Here is the first English translation (from the German) of the master work of Josef Kleutgen, the nineteenth century social philosopher whose thought lies at, or near, the heart of Catholic Social Thought. Kleutgen is widely and rightly seen as the shadow author of the social encyclicals of Leo XII. Leo’s Rerum Novarum remains the origin and constant reference point of all Catholic Social Teaching. And Popes since have dated their own social encyclicals from Rerum Novarum – hence, Quadragesimo anno and Centesimus annus. —Gerard V. Bradley, University of Notre DamePre-Modern Philosophy Defended is must reading for intellectual historians and for philosophers working today in epistemology. And it is essential reading for laity and clergy concerned about revivals of modernism in the church. What was modernism, after all, but an attempt to make the Church revise her theology in the ‘light’ of Kant or Hegel? This is why every Modernist knew Kleutgen's name and hated Philosophie der Vorzeit (Pre-Modern Philosophy Defended).

DKK 574.00
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The Silence of Goethe - Josef Pieper - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Silence of Goethe - Josef Pieper - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

During the last months of the war, Josef Pieper saw the realization of a long-cherished plan to escape from the “lethal chaos” that was the Germany of that time, “plucked,” he writes, “as was Habakkuk, by the hair of his head . . . to be planted into a realm of the most peaceful seclusion, whose borders and exists were, of course, controlled by armed sentries.” There he made contact with a friend close-by, who possessed an amazing library, and Pieper hit upon the idea of reading the letters of Goethe from that library. Soon, however, he decided to read the entire Weimar edition of fifty volumes, which were brought to him in sequence, two or three at a time.The richness of this life revealing itself over a period of more than sixty years appeared before my gaze in its truly overpowering magnificence, which almost shattered my powers of comprehension – confined, as they had been, to the most immediate and pressing concerns. What a passionate focus on reality in all its forms, what an undying quest to chase down all that is in the world, what strength to affirm life, what ability to take part in it, what vehemence in the way he showed his dedication to it! Of course, too, what ability to limit himself to what was appropriate; what firm control in inhibiting what was purely aimless; what religious respect for the truth of being! I could not overcome my astonishment; and the prisoner entered a world without borders, a world in which the fact of being in prison was of absolutely no significance. But no matter how many astonishing things I saw in these unforgettable weeks of undisturbed inner focus, nothing was more surprising or unexpected than this: to realize how much of what was peculiar to this life occurred in carefully preserved seclusion; how much the seemingly communicative man who carried on a world-wide correspondence still never wanted to expose in words the core of his existence. It was precisely in the seclusion, the limitation, the silence of Goethe that made the strongest impact on Pieper. Here was modern Germany’s quintessential conversationalist intellectual, but the strength of his words came from the restraint behind them, even to the point of purposeful forgetting:The culmination is when the eighty-year-old sees forgetting not as a convulsive refusal to think of things, but as what could almost be termed a physiological process of simple forgetting as a function of life. He praises as “a great gift of the gods” . . . “the ethereal stream of forgetfulness” which he “was always able to value, to use, and to heighten.” However manifold the forms of this silence and of their unconscious roots and conscious motives may have been, is it not always the possibility of hearing, the possibility of a purer perception of reality that is aimed at? And so, is not Goethe’s type of silence above all the silence of one who listens? . . . This listening silence is much deeper than the mere refraining from words and speech in human intercourse. It means a stillness, which, like a breath, has penetrated into the inmost chamber of one’s own soul. It is meant, in the Goethean “maxim,” to “deny myself as much as possible and to take up the object into myself as purely as it is possible to do.” . . . The meaning of being silent is hearing – a hearing in which the simplicity of the receptive gaze at things is like the naturalness, simplicity, and purity of one receiving a confidence, the reality of which is creatura, God’s creation. And insofar as Goethe’s silence is in this sense a hearing silence, to that extent it has the status of the model and paradigm – however much, in individual instances, reservations and criticism are justified. One could remain circumspectly silent about this exemplariness after the heroic nihilism of our age has proclaimed the attitude of the knower to be by no means that of a silent listener but rather as that of self-affirmation over against being: insight and knowledge are naked defiance, the severest endangering of existence in the midst of the superior strength of concrete being. The resistance of knowledge opposes the oppressive superior power. However, that the knower is not a defiant rebel against concrete being, but above all else a listener who stays silent and, on the basis of his silence, a hearer – it is here that Goethe represents what, since Pythagoras, may be considered the silence tradition of the West.Pieper concludes his remarkable find with this summation:When such talk, which one encounters absolutely everywhere in workshops and in the marketplace – and as a constant temptation – , when such deafening talk, literally out to thwart listening, is linked to hopelessness, we have to ask is there not in silence – listening silence – necessarily a shred of hope? For who could listen in silence to the language of things if he did not expect something to come of such awareness of the truth? And, in a newly founded discipline of silence, is there not a chance not merely to

DKK 114.00
1

The Silence of Goethe - Josef Pieper - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

The Silence of Goethe - Josef Pieper - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

During the last months of the war, Josef Pieper saw the realization of a long-cherished plan to escape from the “lethal chaos” that was the Germany of that time, “plucked,” he writes, “as was Habakkuk, by the hair of his head . . . to be planted into a realm of the most peaceful seclusion, whose borders and exists were, of course, controlled by armed sentries.” There he made contact with a friend close-by, who possessed an amazing library, and Pieper hit upon the idea of reading the letters of Goethe from that library. Soon, however, he decided to read the entire Weimar edition of fifty volumes, which were brought to him in sequence, two or three at a time.The richness of this life revealing itself over a period of more than sixty years appeared before my gaze in its truly overpowering magnificence, which almost shattered my powers of comprehension – confined, as they had been, to the most immediate and pressing concerns. What a passionate focus on reality in all its forms, what an undying quest to chase down all that is in the world, what strength to affirm life, what ability to take part in it, what vehemence in the way he showed his dedication to it! Of course, too, what ability to limit himself to what was appropriate; what firm control in inhibiting what was purely aimless; what religious respect for the truth of being! I could not overcome my astonishment; and the prisoner entered a world without borders, a world in which the fact of being in prison was of absolutely no significance. But no matter how many astonishing things I saw in these unforgettable weeks of undisturbed inner focus, nothing was more surprising or unexpected than this: to realize how much of what was peculiar to this life occurred in carefully preserved seclusion; how much the seemingly communicative man who carried on a world-wide correspondence still never wanted to expose in words the core of his existence. It was precisely in the seclusion, the limitation, the silence of Goethe that made the strongest impact on Pieper. Here was modern Germany’s quintessential conversationalist intellectual, but the strength of his words came from the restraint behind them, even to the point of purposeful forgetting:The culmination is when the eighty-year-old sees forgetting not as a convulsive refusal to think of things, but as what could almost be termed a physiological process of simple forgetting as a function of life. He praises as “a great gift of the gods” . . . “the ethereal stream of forgetfulness” which he “was always able to value, to use, and to heighten.” However manifold the forms of this silence and of their unconscious roots and conscious motives may have been, is it not always the possibility of hearing, the possibility of a purer perception of reality that is aimed at? And so, is not Goethe’s type of silence above all the silence of one who listens? . . . This listening silence is much deeper than the mere refraining from words and speech in human intercourse. It means a stillness, which, like a breath, has penetrated into the inmost chamber of one’s own soul. It is meant, in the Goethean “maxim,” to “deny myself as much as possible and to take up the object into myself as purely as it is possible to do.” . . . The meaning of being silent is hearing – a hearing in which the simplicity of the receptive gaze at things is like the naturalness, simplicity, and purity of one receiving a confidence, the reality of which is creatura, God’s creation. And insofar as Goethe’s silence is in this sense a hearing silence, to that extent it has the status of the model and paradigm – however much, in individual instances, reservations and criticism are justified. One could remain circumspectly silent about this exemplariness after the heroic nihilism of our age has proclaimed the attitude of the knower to be by no means that of a silent listener but rather as that of self-affirmation over against being: insight and knowledge are naked defiance, the severest endangering of existence in the midst of the superior strength of concrete being. The resistance of knowledge opposes the oppressive superior power. However, that the knower is not a defiant rebel against concrete being, but above all else a listener who stays silent and, on the basis of his silence, a hearer – it is here that Goethe represents what, since Pythagoras, may be considered the silence tradition of the West.Pieper concludes his remarkable find with this summation:When such talk, which one encounters absolutely everywhere in workshops and in the marketplace – and as a constant temptation – , when such deafening talk, literally out to thwart listening, is linked to hopelessness, we have to ask is there not in silence – listening silence – necessarily a shred of hope? For who could listen in silence to the language of things if he did not expect something to come of such awareness of the truth? And, in a newly founded discipline of silence, is there not a chance not merely to

DKK 175.00
1

Beauteous Truth – Faith, Reason, Literature & Culture - Raymond Burke - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Beauteous Truth – Faith, Reason, Literature & Culture - Raymond Burke - Bog - St Augustine's Press - Plusbog.dk

Beauteous Truth explores the inextricable connection between the Good, the True and the Beautiful. It is a book that makes the necessary connections between faith and reason and between theology, philosophy, history and literature. It presents a panoramic overview of Western Civilization, from Homer to Tolkien, and highlights the importance of the great figures of the Catholic cultural revival, including Newman, Wilde, Chesterton, Belloc, and C.S. Lewis. Ranging from Shakespeare to Solzhenitsyn, Beauteous Truth celebrates the marriage of sanity and sanctity, which is the fruit of the indissoluble union of fides et ratio. Early ReviewsWhat we have here is a glorious and compendious portmanteau of – well – of Everything, as it were. We have all long since discovered that Joseph Pearce is a polymath. But he has outdone himself with this volume. The subtitle is the cue: “Faith, Reason, Literature, and Culture.” And the text fulfills that promise. Readers are in for a bracing itinerary that will take them from Greek classicism through the Middle Ages, the Counter-Reformation, the Romantic Movement, and into modernity. The presiding factor in the whole thing is a robust Catholic orthodoxy. The author/guide speaks with both authority and brio. This book qualifies for the “Highly recommended” slot. – Thomas Howard (St. John’s Seminary, Boston, emer.)Joseph Pearce has not only written much on Catholic letters but on the whole tradition of letters in our culture. In this collection, he brings together his wide, amazingly wide reflections and considerations on literature and what it really stands for. While many paths to the highest things might be taken, the literary path is perhaps the most pleasant and the most engaging. Pearce not only draws us out, alerts us to authors who speak to us, but he also opens doors to writers and themes in Catholic and western literature that would be otherwise closed to us without his sensitive guidance and insight. We have here the whole of Pearce where he tells us everything about which he has been thinking. It is a great contribution to our understanding of reality, to the things that are.” – James V. Schall, s.j., Georgetown UniversityThis interdisciplinary collection of essays previously published in such journals as St. Austin Review, First Things, and Chesterton Review provides rich food for thought on an array of topics dealing with the intersection between beauty, truth, culture, and Catholicism. Brief yet pithy, each essay can stand alone, inviting wide ranging meditation on the modern situation in light of history, literature, science, and religion. Taken together, the essays offer an epic sweep of a culture at crossroads urgently needing to reclaim the illumination of Christ. This is a book to savor and return to, time and again. – Dr. Mary Reichardt, Professor of Catholic Studies and Literature, The University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.

DKK 264.00
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