James V. SchallRecensioni

Clearly and concisely written. Somewhat repetitive in content. May have been more effective if actually quoted from the Qur’an and from Muslim “leaders” to support its case.

This is a valuable guide to reading the classics of liberal literature. Short and to the point the guide provides direction for essential study of great literature.

Summary: A pithy little guide on pursuing the liberty that comes in the pursuit of truth and how one might devote oneself to liberal learning.

In this pithy booklet, James V. Schall, S.J. makes the case for the classic ideal of liberal learning that he believes lost in the post-modern setting of contemporary higher education. Liberal education believed that the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty freed one (liberated one) to pursue the well-lived life. He writes this booklet to the student who has the sense that there is something more that might be pursued in her education that what is on offer. He also observes, with Augustine and Aristotle, that our actions more than our words reveal what is true, and that our moral failings may prevent us from seeing truth, something rarely, if ever, heard in the classroom.

Where then does one begin. For Schall, he urges two things. One is self-discipline, that is self-control of our passions, fears, dreams, and thoughts, and honesty about our failings in these areas. He writes: “The person who was most free was the one who had the most control over himself.” It is this that allows us to focus on the things of greatest importance.

The second thing is to build a good personal library. Schall doesn’t believe this requires many books–early pioneers often had only Shakespeare and the Bible, and much of what was important in life could be found here. I loved Schall’s commitment to not assigning books that he did not think worth keeping. And this leads to a guiding standard–our libraries should consist of the books we would read again (a standard I use more and more as I cull books from my shelves).

Schall also advocates that we need good guides, holding up Samuel Johnson as an example. A good guide is one who helps the student test ideas by reality. One of the most beautiful lines about teaching is this:

"We begin our intellectual lives not with need, nor less with desire, but with wonder and enchantment. A student and teacher read together many books they otherwise might have missed. Both need to make efforts to know the truth of things, the ordinary things and the highest things, that the one and the other might have overlooked had they not had time, serious time, together."

And so Schall concludes by discussing the matter of time, invoking the unusual authority of Louis L’Amour whose The Education of a Wandering Man makes the case for finding the time to read in a busy life. Schall urges students to take time beyond their classes to read, to find great works that aren’t taught in the used bookstores. What books, you may ask? One of the delights of this book are Schall’s recommendations interspersed in the text as well as an Appendix of “Schall’s Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By,” a list of twenty titles–only half of which I’ve read. While some are found on “Great Books” lists, many are not.

My only objection is that they are all by white Euro-Americans. I think we may also grow in liberal learning by reading W.E,B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, and Langston Hughes as well as African, South American, and Asian writers. One of the most profound works I’ve read is Shusaku Endo’s Silence.

That said, this is a delightful little work. For many students, the idea of “liberal learning” has no room in the curriculum. Schall proposes that, sad as this is, the perceptive student will find the room on his or her own and find good guides and books along the way. And this “Guide” is a good beginning.

James Schall has written another masterpiece, this time combining lovely readability with extraordinary utility. It reminds me of comparable pieces by Josef Pieper and possibly C. S. Lewis. It's a eulogy on the importance of reading great books and making them lifetime companions and sources of insight. This is a refreshing counterpoint to the early twenty-first century's cultural quagmire, with its intelligence, clarity, and self-assurance.

Livro nº 3 do Ludovico - Clube do Livro

Summary: A series of meditations “on the joys and travails of thinking” focused around the central idea that thinking is discovering “what is.”

It is likely the case that other creatures “think” but thinking is one of the things that particularly sets apart human beings. We may also recognize that it is possible to think well or poorly and that an education, even a liberal education, may not necessarily set us up to think well.

This is a book about thinking, about the use of our minds to think well. The chapters are a series of meditations on aspects of the life of the mind. Schall begins with a fundamental premise, that the life of the mind is about the discovery of what is. As a Platonist (and a Christian), he believes that there is a reality that is “not ourselves” and that it is possible to discover this what is, and that it is.

He begins, in the chapter “On the Joys and Travails of Thinking,” to introduce us to A. D. Sertillanges book The Intellectual Life and the “habits of mind” necessary to an intellectual life. This then leads to a broader discussion on “Books and the Intellectual Life” of the place of books in the discovery of what is. He reminds us that any truly great work is worth reading more than once. He concludes the chapter with this peroration:

“Tell me what you read and I will tell you what you are. In any intellectual life, books and the books we have around us do not just indicate where we started or where we have ended, but how we got there and why we did not go somewhere else or by some other path. They ground and provoke our inclination to know. Books and the intellectual life go together, provided we always remember that it is the books that are for the life of the mind and not the other way around” (p. 20).

In his chapter on the liberal arts, he observes that the liberal arts as opposed to the “useful” arts open us to the what is that we have not or cannot make. Then he moves to “wisdom” which is the fruit of liberal study and learning what is, that we might live well, employing our energies for what is best in ways that yield joy.

“On the Consolations of Illiteracy, Revisited” is a chapter of comfort for those who only later in life discover Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, and other great writers. Often, these works mean more than they possibly could when we were young and lacking in the experience of life. There is a marvelous little chapter on “The Metaphysics of Walking” which is yet another way of our encounters with what is, and that there is a long history of walking thinkers! Then he speaks of the joys of discovering “a most wonderful book.” Most bibliophiles have had this experience and will gladly share their most wonderful book.

In later chapters, he challenges the relativism of the modern academy and the idea that it is all about questions. He believes that good philosophy, and good teaching leads to answers, and not just questions.

He concludes these reflections with an observation that is worth chewing on: “In the end, it is indeed a ‘risk’ to be a human being. That risk consists largely in our choosing not to know what is because we do not want to know where such knowledge might lead us.” I’ve often found that in discussions of faith that the real issue is not an inability to believe, but an unwillingness to consider belief because of what that might mean in one’s life, where that might lead one. Thinking can be dangerous!

The book also includes three appendices including a list of twenty books to awaken the mind (!), a transcript of an interview in the National Review Online on Education and Knowledge, and the text of a talk he gave on “Reading for Clerics” that speaks compellingly to the importance of reading and thinking to maintain vitality for any who engage in ministry, lay or clergy.

While Schall is a Catholic priest, this is not a Christian or Catholic text per se. What it represents is a good example of a work written for a wider audience that draws on Plato and Aristotle, as well as on Christian thinkers. He does what I think scholars who are Christians in the public square ought to do: engage a subject in the language of their discipline while unashamedly speaking of the contribution of Christian thought to that discourse. That too, I would propose is one of the fruits of a long engagement with careful thinking, a seamless weaving together of faith and reason in helping all of us understand better what is.

Fr. James Schall, S.J., has been gracing the world with his erudition for fifty years. In his latest book, Catholicism and Intelligence for Emmaus Road’s Living Faith Series, we are presented with articles from various periodicals, mainly from the last five years. Just shy of ninety years of age, he shows that he is still among the foremost intellectuals in the Catholic world (and I probably should drop that qualifier).

The two premises the book is based on are stated by the author in the introduction: “what the faith holds is intrinsically intelligible even if not always understood by given persons” and “intelligence has its own structure or form rooted in the principle of contradiction...understandings that maintain that everything is true even if contradictory cannot stand.” (xviii)

Fr. Schall then spends the rest of the book vividly explicating these premises. The reader can hone in on chapters with enticing titles such as “Why Do I Exist?,” “On What Replaces Christianity,” “Ongoing Catholic Intelligence,”(worth the price of the book itself) and “Truth Comes by Conflict.” Or one can read it straight through as I did. In any case, be prepared to receive piercing insights and quotable turns of phrase. While, at times I found the arguments not entirely convincing or I was challenged to fully grasp certain concepts, I found much to commend this work (he describes his own book aptly with this line in the appendix: “{R]eading any book, even a good book, can be both a chore and a pleasure, probably something of both.” [161]). I will share just a few quotes (one per chapter – a nearly impossible task of selecting) of the several pages of references I jotted down while reading. This will give you some flavor of the work’s offerings.

• “The purpose of Catholicism is not to confuse but to enlighten us so that we can live as we ought to.” (xxi)

• “’Why do I exist?’...to know all that is...[and] to be given eternal life.” (15)

• “[I]nstead of correcting himself so that he returns to the reason in things as the criterion or measure of his mind, the modern atheist or relativist thinks the world itself out of existence. It is too much a threat to the way he wants to live.” (26)

• “...Catholicism is nothing if it is not a personal encounter with Christ.” (46)

• “Catholicism claims to be true but only on the basis of evidence, reason, and dependable testimony...Catholicism almost alone defends reason that is based on the integrity of the mind related to what is.” (50)

• “Perhaps the central idea that replaces Christianity is the idea that man can save himself, or better, that he needs no savior other than himself to be what he is.” (68)

• “All truth has the same origin, no matter what its particular status or avenue to our minds.” (91)

• “What seems to be lacking is a standard, be it of reason or natural law, whereby the text and tradition of violence that are found in Muslim practice can be judged as objectively wrong.” (107)

• “The phrase ‘Judge not lest you be judged,’ was not designed to reduce us to complete silence or idiocy. If we made no effort to judge the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, we would live in a world in which everything is justified, good or evil.” (113)

• “Sustainability, in effect, is an alternative to lost transcendence. It is what happens when suddenly no future but the present one exists.” (134)

• “This book is written with a certain confidence both in reason and revelation. It is not merely that they belong together in a coherent relationship but that their rigid separation unbalances and corrupts both not merely in logic but in the way we live.” (148)

I found myself nodding in approval often and pondering certain insights that I had not before considered. Even the skeptic, at the very least, will be doing the latter.

A final note: the appendix is valuable in that the author provides two short lists of books (and a number of honorable mentions) in which can be found “Catholic intelligence in [a] meaningful form” (160). The stressful part: Where to begin reading?! (We would do well to start with Saint John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio – and it’s not even on the lists although it is clearly influential in the author’s thinking here.)

Undoubtedly, some will believe that having “Catholicism” and “Intelligence” in the same sentence is oxymoronic. The life’s work of Fr. Schall, and in particular the insights in this volume, gives lie to that notion.

In a world that seems to have turned upside down, this addition to your library will provide a safe harbor from the capsized ship of today’s culture.

THIS is one of those rare books that you can return to again and again and always learn something new. The genius of the book is the way it approaches the gaining of wisdom from different perspectives. Thinking, walking, reading, and meditating come to mind as ideas essayed in this small book that is large in its wealth of ideas. In what perhaps could be considered the signature essay of the book, "On Taking Care of One's Own Wisdom" we learn about the importance of understanding ourselves and the world. The title is a reference to Samuel Johnson who, Schall explains, argues that each individual is "ultimately responsible for [their] own learning of what is true." He says further, "It is only by the activity of our won minds, whereby we intentionally possess the universe, that wisdom may become ours."

The essays in this book do not give or provide wisdom, but do show the ways each of us may educate ourselves. The book leans heavily on the classic authors from Aristotle to Arendt and, yes, most of them are dead, but their thoughts are still worthwhile for our edification. There are many aspects of the book that recommend it from the chapter epigraphs to the appendices and bibliography. If the essays have not stirred your mind enough Schall provides a list of twenty books "That Awaken the Mind". This is a gem of a book for readers who delight in the opportunity to engage in the search for wisdom.

I good book discussing the decline in Western civilization (America especially) of people asking the big questions, and the reading of the classics. A delightful book to read to learn how to better educate oneself!½

Over the past three years, including (and in spite of!) the latter half of my studies at Brandeis University, this book lit a flame hot enough to incinerate my rotting agnosticism and send me whirling towards Roman Catholicism in a flurry of ashes. How?

Well, rather than address any specifics inside the book, I merely want to say that during this period at Brandeis I quickly became a bibliophile while working as a book-shelver at the university library. Not only did I resolve to begin collecting my own library, but I also resolved never to purchase softcover books when hardcover--or even fine leather--versions existed for a reasonable price. My records show that I acquired a hardcover copy of Another Sort of Learning on May 29, 2008 for the sum of $10, at the close of my academic year as a Junior.

When the book arrived, it had traits that I could only compare with one other book on my shelves at the time: That Eager Zest: First Discoveries in the Magic World of Books, edited by Frances Walsh. These traits were: cotton case bindings in an unusually playful color, nearly identical type and font settings on fine, odor-free cream paper, and quite wise essays written with childlike wonder and glee. They are among the most readable books I own, and the elegance of their physical structure has everything to do with it--they are so pleasing to hold that they cast nearby softcover books into oblivion.

Though I had hardly read much in either of them, the publishers evidently wanted these particular editions to be lavished with their reader's attention. With regard to Another Sort of Learning, I am especially glad they did, because without these physical adornments I might not have returned with such "eager zest" to this book which I had at first found impenetrable.

I am not exaggerating when I say that none of the authors recommended or written about in the book were familiar to me. It took me many false starts before I began to comprehend why the likes of E. F. Schumacher, G. K. Chesterton, Josef Pieper, Allan Bloom, Plato, C. S. Lewis, and many others, warranted my utmost attention, and it will take many more just to survey all the gold in this enormous goldmine.

Another Sort of Learning is itself a brilliant guide for the perplexed, and I can only hope this volume finds its way to fellow individuals willing to concede perplexity, because it is a massive dose of truth for those who may not know that they are wrong about the most important things, or, as was in my case, did not yet even know what they were. This is a fountainhead of real philosophy, for the love of wisdom, following the truth where the truth leads, in order to secure the proper convictions for the most pressing questions of mortal and immortal life.

Schall takes you through liberal learning (liberal as in classic liberal) and makes you want to enjoy reading, and read something that'll challenge you.

From T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr.