Reading in Exile

I've been reading Alice Von Hildebrand's biography of her husband Dietrich . In December 1933, after he had fled from Germany and was living in Vienna, Dietrich Von Hildebrand gave a number of talks in Belgium and France, some of them explicitly in opposition to National Socialism. While in Belgium, he visited Zita, the empress of Austria and Hungary who had been deposed after the fall of the Empire at the end of World War One. Dietrich at the time was working closely with Englebert Dollfuss , the Chancellor of Austria, and one who was trying hard to implement the Catholic social teaching and corporatist political vision of Pope Pius XI on a national scale, as well as oppose Nazism and Communism. The situation is instructive for conservatives today: [Zita] favored Dollfuss' political vision, but as an archmonarchist and a member of the deposed Habsburg dynasty, she could no share her visitor's enthusiasm for his leadership. It was a strange situation for Dietrich von ...

My wife and I are embarked on a project to watch all of Shakespeare's plays, in the fine productions put out in the 1980's by the BBC . We just finished the three parts of Henry VI , which I have seen before, but which certainly bear many re-watchings (and re-readings.) I am always struck by the depiction of Joan of Arc in Henry VI Part One : not the visionary and saint of our now-familiar Catholic tradition, but a lascivious, power-hungry woman who calls on demons to come to her aid, who is willing to sacrifice herself to them for her country: Cannot my body nor blood-sacrifice Entreat you to your wonted furtherance? Then take my soul, my body, soul and all, Before that England give the French the foil. (Act 5, Scene 3) This is, of course, what one should expect from an English depiction of the saint. The fact that Shakespeare is writing in Protestant England makes no difference here; had Shakespeare been writing in more Catholic times, surely his depiction of Joan woul...

Two films that my wife and I have recently watched have led me to reflect on the notion of Nihilism (you know, "these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of.") A few weeks ago, we watched Francois Truffaut's four Antoine Doinel films ( The 400 Blows, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board , and Love on the Run ), and last night we watched Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo . (If you know Whit Stilman's work, Stolen Kisses is the film that the Cathar character--another nihilist--makes his girlfriend watch in Damsels in Distress . I think it's well worth watching, but I'm not going to talk about that film here.) As one does, I mull over the much-vaunted eclipse of meaning in the modern world now and again. At times, I am overwhelmed with the apparent meaninglessness and valuelessness of the world; at times, I am struck by the deep and abiding significance and value of things. I've learned to take both experiences seriously. Both of them say...

Since the beginning of my philosophical life, I have been interested in the the question of whether individuals are intelligible in and of themselves. You might think they aren't, and, if you thought this, you'd be in good company. You might think that when you get to know an individual, you know it only by considering it through various universal concepts--that is, concepts that apply to many things. You might think, for example, when you get to know another person, you come to know him not as intelligible in and of himself, as this unique individual, but inasmuch as he is kind, is intelligent, loves Indian food, is tall, is a reader of Jane Austen, etc. The uniqueness one sees in him is just the unique combination of these (potentially infinitely) many attributes. I don't think that view is right, but it's hard to articulate why. I've tried to do so in some of my professional writings, arguing, for example, that we see the unique intelligibility--where we unders...

I've recently been asked to write two papers, one on Max Scheler's theory of value perception for a forthcoming volume from Oxford University Press on spiritual perception, and the other on Dietrich Von Hildebrand for a special issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly . This has led me, especially during the last week, to revisit a lot of material I haven't looked at closely in some time. While I've dealt with these thinkers in my  papers on personalism , I haven't concentrated on Hildebrand  since my undergraduate days at Franciscan University of Steubenville , and not on Scheler  since I was working on my dissertation. In my professional writing, I've focused more recently on Thomistic metaphysics, especially the Thomism of the 16th and 17th centuries, and on more contemporary French phenomenology. It's been quite a treat this week revisiting in a focused, daily way, this older, more realist, more German phenomenology. The fundamental idea...