The Mind That is Catholic
Subtitle: Philosophical and Political Essays
By: James V. Schall.
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 337
ISBN-13: 9780813215419
Subjects: Christianity and politics -- Catholic Church; Political science -- Philosophy
Description: James V. Schall is a treasure of the Catholic intellectual tradition. A prolific author and essayist, Schall readily connects with his readers on sundry topics from war to friendship, philosophy, politics, and to ordinary everyday living. In his newest work, The Mind That Is Catholic, he presents a retrospective collection of his academic and literary essays written in the past fifty years. In each essay, he exemplifies the Catholic mind at its best―seeing the whole, leaving nothing out.

The "Catholic mind" seeks to recognize a consistent and coherent relation between the solid things of reason and the definite facts of revelation. Its thought aims to understand how they belong together in a fruitful manner, each profiting from the other; each being what it is. The Catholic mind is not a confusion of disparate sources. It respects and makes distinctions. It sees where things separate. It is in fact delighted by what is.

This delightful book is not polemical, but contemplative in mood. Schall shares with readers a mind that is constantly struck by how things fit together when seen in full light. He brings to his work a lifetime of study in political philosophy, a wide-ranging discipline that, in many ways, is the most immediate context in which reason and revelation meet. The Mind That Is Catholic respects what can be known by faith alone. But it also considers what is known by faith to be itself intelligible to a mind actively thinking on political and philosophical things. The whole, at the risk of its own contradiction, does not exclude the intelligibility of what is revealed.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: "A certain crime unobserved"; title: On Catholic thinking; title: The mind that is Catholic; title: "Infinitized by the spirit" : Maritain and the intellectual vocation; title: Chesterton, the real "heretic" : "the outstanding eccentricity of the peculiar sect called Roman Catholics"; title: "The very graciousness of being"; title: Reckoning with Plato; title: On the uniqueness of Socrates : political philosophy and the rediscovery of the human body; title: On the death of Plato : some philosophical thoughts on the Thracian Maidens; title: What is piety?; title: The abiding implications of friendship; title: Aristotle on friendship; title: The totality of society : from justice to friendship; title: The Trinity : God is not alone; title: The medieval experience; title: The point of medieval political philosophy; title: "Possessed of both a reason and a revelation"; title: Aquinas and the defense of ordinary things : on "what common men call common sense"; title: Implications of Catholic thought; title: The "realism" of St. Augustine's "political realism" : Augustine and Machiavelli; title: "Mystifying indeed" : on being fully human; title: Transcendence and political philosophy; title: Mysticism, political philosophy, and play; title: Things practical and impractical; title: Sports and philosophy; title: The real alternatives to just war; title: Where does it lead?; title: On choosing not to see; title: The ultimate meaning of existence; title: "The beginning of the real story"; title: Conclusion: On being allowed to read Monte Cristo.