This is above all a practical book. It discusses with a wealth of illustration and insight such subjects as the organization of the intellectual worker's time, materials, and his life; the integration of knowledge and the relation of one's specialty to general knowledge; the choice and use of reading; the discipline of memory; the taking of notes, their classification and use; and the preparation and organization of the final production.

As John Henry Newman reflected on 'The Idea of a University' more than a century and a half ago, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together some of the nation's most eminent thinkers on higher education to reflect on the nature and purposes of the American university today. They detail the life and rather sad times of the American university, its relationship to democracy, and the place of the liberal arts within it. Their mordant reflections paint a picture of the American university in crisis. But they also point toward a renewal of the university by redirecting it toward those things that resist the passions of the moment, or the pull of mere utility. This book is essential reading for thoughtful citizens, scholars, and educational policymakers.

The Universe We Think In arises from a tradition of realism, both philosophical and political, a universe in which the common sense understanding of things is included in our judgement about them. The scope is both vast and narrow - vast because it is aware of the reality of things, narrow because it is the individual person who can and wants to know them. The abiding undercurrent of this book is that the cosmos, the universe, does not look at us human beings, but we look at it, seek to understand it, and do understand much of it. Why is this so? The book seeks to begin with the basic question that we each ought to pose to ourselves; namely: "Why do I exist?" Nothing is more immediate than the relation of what is not ourselves to ourselves. We have the strange experience that we cannot even `know ourselves' unless we know something that is not ourselves. In a sense, we have two related worlds, the one that exists, a universe, as it were, that includes each of us, and the same world that we think about. What is so striking about our personal existence is that we can know what is not ourselves. Indeed, we not only want to know what is not ourselves, but this knowledge of what is not ourselves is also, in part, the reason for our existence in the first place. Our thinking about the world is not unrelated to the world that is. Yet, once we understand what is in the world, both systematically and casually, we find ourselves free in a world of others who also think and communicate with one another. Thus, to know ourselves includes knowing what is not ourselves in its own diversity. Ultimately, we seek to know why it all is rather than is not, why it all belongs together in the same universe.

Using Josef Pieper's Leisure as a point of departure, the contributors to this volume share a mutual concern for the diminishing role of the liberal arts in Catholic higher education. The overwhelming impression they share is that U.S. Catholic universities, with notable exceptions, have forgotten the very goal of university education, and especially Catholic university education: to aid in forming young men and women to pursue the truth and helping them to become freer persons.

To the ears of ceaselessly busy and ambitious modern Westerners, it will come as a shock, and perhaps as an insult, to be told that human affairs are "unserious." But this fundamental truth is exactly what James Schall, following Plato, has to teach us in this wise and witty book. Schall cites Charlie Brown, Aristotle, and Samuel Johnson with the same sobriety the sobriety that sees the truth in what is delightful and even amusing. Singing, dancing, playing, contemplating, and other "useless" human activities are not merely forms of escape from more important things politics, work, social activism, etc. but an indication of the very nature of the highest things themselves. On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs is an instructive volume whose countercultural message is of vital importance.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the most original minds of the twentieth century. He was a gifted journalist, essayist, biographer, poet, novelist, playwright, philosopher, debater, and defender of common sense, of Christianity, and of the Catholic faith. He was truly an influential man of his time, writing thousands of essays and hundreds of books. Today he remains one of the best and most quoted writers of the English language. In this book of essays, Father James V. Schall, a prolific author himself and a prominent Catholic writer, brings readers to Chesterton through a witty series of original reflections prompted by something Chesterton wrote--timely essays on timeless issues. Like Chesterton, Schall consciously leads the reader to the reality of what is, of what is true and what is at the heart of things. It is a handbook of how to take up almost any essay or chapter or paragraph of Chesterton's many works and, upon further reflection, come to realize that he was a profoundly wise man who still teaches vividly and accurately a century after he wrote. Schall easily captures Chesterton's fondness of life and laughter, and at the same time, makes readers aware of Chesterton's extreme insight and rigorous understanding of ideas and truth. Included in this book is an introductory chapter on Chesterton as a "journalist," which is how he identified himself, and a concluding chapter that provides an extended reflection on Chesterton's world. Forty-one essays comprise the heart of the book. They range widely in subject matter, from the Catholic Church as the "natural home of the human spirit," through such topics as virtue and honor, horror and detective stories, toys and Christmas, right and wrong, to the shocking conclusion that indeed "dogmas are not dull." James V. Schall, S.J., is author of more than twenty books, hundreds of articles, and monthly columns in Gilbert! and Crisis. He is professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. His book At the Limits of Political Philosophy: From "Brilliant Errors" to Things of Uncommon Importance was published by CUA Press in 1996. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "Schall on Chesterton sends us rushing back to Chesterton's own writings with new insights and renewed enthusiasm. It is the guide to the twentieth century's wisest and most misunderstood prophet."--John Peterson, editor, Gilbert! "One of the great themes in Father Schall's book derives from his insistance that good literature provide a moral illumination for ordinary life. Because of the vast number of books and articles which Chesterton wrote, few people can claim and exhaustive knowledge of his writings. Father Schall is one of that small company. He shares with his hero something that Chesterton attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas--an intense interest in the significance of everyday existence, a quality which Chesterton called "a fury for life.' "--Rev. Ian Boyd, C.S.B., editor, The Chesterton Review "Who could be more appropriate to write about Chesterton than so subtle and prolific an essayist as Father James V. Schall? Like Chesterton, he is a skilled presenter of eternal truths."--Prof. John P. McCarthy, Fordham University "Father James Schall excels as an essayist whose critical discriminations and insights are invaluable to readers in search of literary and political and religious understanding of the more vexing problems of the modern world."--Prof. George A. Panichas, editor, Modern Age "This is a new book of essays about Chesterton, the master of the literary essay. And the author, James Schall, is himself a considerable essayist and author of several books. . . . L

How do politics and religion point to each other in a way that respects the integrity of both? Why are reason and revelation not in absolute opposition to each other? Political philosophy asks questions such as these that seem to call forth responses that do not come from politics alone. In seeking the answers, James V. Schall presents, in a convincing and articulate manner, the revelational contribution to political philosophy, particularly that which comes out of the Roman Catholic tradition. In At the Limits of Political Philosophy he fills the need for a sustained account of the higher reaches of political philosophy, where questions arising within the discipline bring it to its own limits. In the first section of the book, Schall points out what Leo Strauss called the "brilliant errors" that have arisen in the history of political philosophy and provides sober responses to those errors. He insists that neither the reality of evil nor the possibility of good within the city is completely explained within political philosophy, and he calls on political philosophy to acknowledge and respect its own boundaries. Schall maintains that a noncontradictory unity exists among three aspects of political philosophy - the problem of evil, the problem of virtue, and the problem of contemplation of the highest things. Thus in the second section of his book he moves to a discussion of "imperfect and dire conditions of human existence": death, evil, suffering, injustice, hell. He espouses a "political realism" that understands them to be permanent realities in this world, realities that cannot be eliminated by human means. The third section treats the death of Socrates, the death of Christ, and the reality and meaning of happiness and of virtue. Schall examines the two deaths to show how ultimate issues arise within particular political instances and how they lead people to ask those questions about happiness and virtue that reveal the higher calling of human life. He maintains that political philosophy cannot be consistent with itself and not think about these higher realities. Finally, Schall addresses science, law, and friendship, which raise questions of truth, good, and love that are not adequately understood if viewed only in their political contexts. These are ideas that point to the deepest meaning of human experience; their uncommon importance requires political philosophy to consider them.

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.

In Roman Catholic Political Philosophy author James V. Schall tries to demonstrate that Roman Catholicism and political philosophy--revelation and reason-are not contradictory. It is his contention that political philosophy, the primary focus of the book, asks certain questions about human purpose and destiny that it cannot, by itself, answer. Revelation is the natural complement to these important questions about God, human being, and the world. Schall manages to avoid polemicism or triumphalism as he shows that revelation and political thought contribute to a fuller understanding of each other.

The engaging and inquiring mind of French philosopher Jacques Maritain reflected on subjects as varied as art and ethics, theology and psychology, and history and metaphysics. Maritain's work on the theoretical groundings of politics arose from his diverse studies. In this book, distinguished theologian and political scientist James V. Schall explores Maritain's political philosophy, demonstrating that Maritain understood society, state, and government in the tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas, of natural law and human rights and duties. Schall pays particular attention to the ways in which evil appears in political forms, and how this evil can be morally dealt with. Schall's study will be of great importance to students and scholars of political science, philosophy, and theology.

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 akoes), 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 akoes. 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.