Part 1 of 2: The Ancient meaning of nature, that of an ἀρχή, is a necessary beginning. A necessary beginning for what? For katharsis of the lived nihilism of modernity! As we explain in our editorial introduction to the first Issue of Reality the English term catharsis, meaning “a release, or relief from powerful repressed emotions,” is from the ancient Greek term κᾰθαρσις (katharsis).… Read More [essay] Aristotle on Nature (φύσις) – Part I
A review of Kate Manne’s Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press: New York, 2018).… Read More [review] Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny
How do we confront evil? There is no easy solution to this problem; but we learn much from a literary investigation, if we have the eyes to see what great thinkers like Jacques Maritain and Fyodor Dostoevsky have to tell us.… Read More [essay] Dostoevsky and the Cry of Rachel
How does truth admit of more or less? The same applies to nobility and being. One might also ask, just what does Thomas means by nobility? How is it distinct from goodness? How is the maximum in any genus supposed to cause everything else in that genus? Is this formal or efficient causality? Is this a Neo-Platonic argument from participation? Is the argument undermined by the Angelic Doctor’s outdated and erroneous example of fire as cause of all heat? Each issue is likely deserving of its own paper. Yet behind all these questions (except, perhaps, the meaning of nobility), lies a more primary difficulty: the meanings of “more or less” and the “maximum” by which they are denominated. How we answer the above questions depends on our understanding of these two key features of the argument.… Read More [essay] Participation and the Divine
Francisco Plaza, PhDCathedral High School, Houston TXEditor, Reality A review of Ben Shapiro’s The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great (Broadside Books: New York, 2019). We face an undeniable paradox in Western civilization. On the one hand, scientific and economic advances have allowed our material conditions to thrive far… Read More [review] The Right Side of History
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