Life has a funny way of getting in the way. The topic has always interested me.



Watts advocated a pantheistic view towards the end of his life, that the universe was God and all things in it were one with God, and that God through his creation is really playing hide-and-seek with himself in an endless game. It’s an interesting idea but I would describe myself as a panentheist rather than a pantheist because in my eyes God is the greatest possibly being that can be conceived but still must contain the universe within himself. And I think your take on the goal of mystical practice as, if I understand correctly, a deeper knowledge of a higher truth or series of truth's to be correct but I do also believe that an awareness of the presence of God can coincide with knowing a higher truth (or as many mystics out it God is the higher truth itself but the two can be distinct).



Yes, I would say that most philosophers that I read are mystics but not all philosophers are mystics. The early Bertrand Russell believed that math and the rules of propositional logic are ways to understand higher metaphysical ideas or forms. He later went away from this belief. And I love your take on “the unexamined life.” You definitely aren’t the same person 5 years ago compared to now.



I’ve never really thought about “radical mysticism” or the implications of it. I once had a priest at my church (he didn’t last long) go on a fire and brimstone tirade about why “Centering Prayer” and meditation are bad for you. I don’t do centering prayer but I did make the argument that there are older methods of contemplative prayer that predate this and they produce the same stimuli as things like centering prayer or various forms of Buddhist meditation. That was my only conversation with him. 6 months in the parish and he was done.

I believe the article does mention Pyrrhonism as a part of cross cultural exchange. And I don’t know if the Stoics had any view on rebirth; The Pythagoreans taught this but I don’t see it at all in Stoicism. I also find The Questions of King Milinda to be a prime example of what Greco-Buddhism was.

Lublin Thomism, also called Phenomenological Thomism, Polish Existential Thomism, or simply "Lublinism," is the school of Neo-Thomism that I am most interested in. Its funny, when I hear the word "Neo-Thomism" I always think of Strict Observance Thomism, which I personally think is a flawed understanding of Aquinas' work.

Personally I tend to shy away from Karl Rahner; Transcendental Thomism has never really interested me (the whole Kantian movement just disinterests me). I prefer the patristic idea of the “Unknowing Christian” from St. Justin Martyr. I get that Rahner’s Anonymous Christianity is supposed to mimic this, but it puts more of an emphasis on just living an ethical life rather than the concept of the Logos as a metaphysical idea which, in Chinese and Indian thought, can be compared with that of the Dao or Dharma. St. Justin Martyr argued that if you preached a logos-based ideology then you were a Christian without knowing it.

Between Augustinians, Franciscans, Benedictines, and Dominicans, Christianity was diverse. Conflict creates dynamism. That's a good thing for an ideology.

My description of Christian religious orders in a nutshell...

Augustinians: Platonists that expounded a lot of the "old school" ideas in the Church (i.e. original sin being a taint on the soul rather than just the innate tendency to do the wrong thing).

Benedictines (in my head this is a family of orders): Contemplation is everything; It is literally "what you do when you are in a temple."

Carmelites: Same as the Benedictine but there is an emphasis on practical mysticism as we can see through Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Big during the Counter-Reformation.

Franciscans: They love the example of St. Francis and Scotism is the best expression of the philosophia perennis.

Dominicans: They are obsessed with Aquinas and, depending upon what intellectual camp you are in, think Thomism is the best expression of the philosophia perennis.

Jesuits: Despite all the conspiracy theories about them and the hate Traditionalist Catholics give them, they love Thomism. They love Scotism. They love other systems of thought too, like Confucianism. So why not play around with them all?

Well, I have always found the traditions of East Asia to be interesting so my own personal bias in reading about them has entered into the fold. Islam has a lot to offer, specifically through Sufism (which in my reading is just Islamic Platonism). Avicenna, Averroes, Ibn Arabi, and Suhrawardi are all some of my favorite thinkers. I think Christians of the more literalist type can learn much from them. The hardcore philosophy doesn't even need to be read. Rumi, Hafiz, and Attar are some of my favorite poets.

I am simply stating my opinion for dialogue; Not attempting to claim that Christianity is supreme.

I actually think that the example you give of monks talking about how Christian missionaries are preventing Buddhism is exactly what Christianity shouldn't do. There is a reason that the Eastern Churches don't go around trying to convert people; Its antithetical to what they believe. Catholicism too, tries to mimic this, but in todays day the Traditionalist movement tends to scare me. IMO true conversion begins with dialogue and this is how it happens. The Buddhist is free to become Christian or not.

Just remember, if you fail to pick the right sect of Christianity, you will burn in hell, forever and ever.

I think this is a misunderstanding.

"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." (Matthew 7:21)

In terms of my views on soteriology if, for example, a Buddhist, lives in accordance with his tradition I do believe that by Gods grace he is being saved because there is something in Buddhism that promotes living a good life. Same can be said with all the other great traditions of the world. I was raised a Roman Catholic and still go to mass. But the reality of it is there are Catholics of the "traditional" type that do think I am going to burn in Hell forever because of some of my views. There are other fundamentalist Christians that think I'm going to Hell just because I go to a Catholic church. I don't think Christianity has this idea that if you pick the wrong church you'll burn forever. I personally like the Kierkegaardian take where you take a leap of faith in order to find meaning; The whole of Christian existentialism is about you and God alone. The other persons religious beliefs, if any at all, shouldn't matter.

I appreciate your reply. I am probably going to make a post on the use of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism as apologetical tools to argue for Christianity. I often think that fellow Christians see them as just different philosophical traditions or religions (especially Buddhism) and do not realize the worth they have as lens to view the Bible from.

Mainly Kierkegaard's idea of the three stages of life that human beings go through (the aesthetic life, the ethical life, the religious life), Bonhoeffer's theology of "costly grace" as outlined in his magnum opus The Cost of Discipleship, and the Russian thinkers attempt to argue that Orthodox Christianity is something original and not artificial. I also must add that I think the traditions of Asia, namely Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism, provide something complementary for the western social and religious consciousness.

Being a member of this forum for 3 years, I think I should outline what I am philosophically interested in. I mainly concern myself with theology and the philosophy of religion being influenced primarily by Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, Russian religious thought (Nikolai Berdyaev, Alexander Men, Vladimir Lossky), and the Greek Fathers (I also enjoy Buber's "philosophy of dialogue" as well and the work of Giovanni Pico who used Jewish mystical work to develop an argument for Christianity).

Moral philosophy too, is a primary concern of mine, coming from a virtue ethics background; Lublin Thomism (specifically its focus on personalism), Greek thought (Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism), Confucianism (sometimes I think of myself as a "Western" Confucian), and Daoism all contribute to my views on ethics and religion as well. I also enjoy seeing the interplay between the religious and ethical spheres, being an avid reader of the Kyoto School (Nishida, Tanabe, Nishitani), that seeks to understand the similarities between western and eastern traditions.

History of ideas also interest me; Specifically the Reformation, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romanticism, and nihilism.

I think, to a certain extent, you are correct. The message of Joel Osteen and John MacArthur I think is repugnant to the original meaning of the New Testament (i.e. the healing of mans soul rather than an emphasis on damnation and subjective belief). Wahabi and Salafi Islam is also a problem; The literalism of martyrdom as killing yourself for your faith (and killing other people) is just morally bankrupt.

Are there false religions out there? Yes, there most certainly are. If your faith promotes the killing and imprisonment of people because they think differently (Wahhabism/Salafism) or structures you into the sham of "Just believe and you'll be saved" (the prosperity gospel) then these religions are clearly false.

So what is true, authentic, "progressive" religion? Being heavily influenced by Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, Russian religious philosophy, and ancient thought (Greek and Chinese) I think that genuine religion is between you and whatever sort of god you believe in; That's it. I think if the popular religions understood this there would be a lot less religious infighting in the world. You shouldn't worry about the person next to you and what they believe. The Confucian idea of jen and the Christian idea of agape, unconditional love for our fellow man, is what we should practice irrespective of what we believe. In short, true religion is a force for ethical self-cultivation and not a subjective series of propositions.

I think that making AI into a god is a horrible idea and creating a religion around it is an even more horrible idea. The centuries of religious culture and tradition that exist in both the western and eastern worlds have contributed much to man’s quest for meaning; AI can’t replace this. Consider some of the following anecdotes:

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” - Jesus, Matthew 5:43-45

“A reflective, contented mind is the best possession.“ - Zoroaster, The Gathas

“In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.“ - Ethics of the Fathers 2:5

“Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one’s own acts, done and undone.” - Buddha, Dhammpada verse 50

“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.“ - Confucius, The Analects

“The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.” - Lao Tzu, Daodejing, Ch. 81

“Blessed is the man who has suffered and found life.” - Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas verse 58

Fr. Seraphim Rose said that Orthodox Christianity is “the religion of the future.” While I don’t necessarily know if this statement is correct, I think that it points to the fact that traditional organized religion provides an ethical outlet for man to combat existential angst. Creating an artificial god would just be a downright lie.

I am reading a few books which I will break into groups.

Early Buddhism: What the Buddha Thought by Richard Gombich (a homage, I suppose, to Walpola Rahula’s work What the Buddha Taught; I heard somewhere that Gombich worked closely with Rahula), The Foundations of Buddhism by Rupert Gethin, The Literature of the Personalists of Early Buddhism by Thich Thien Chau (a complex book but mind blowing), and Buddhaghosa’s classic The Path of Purification.

Early Christianity: Rereading The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Dominic Crossan and The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins by Burton Mack (these two books in particular are good analyses of how Christianity got going and make the connection that Hellenistic philosophy was very influential on Jesus and his disciples).

Stoicism: Rereading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (this is perhaps my all time favorite book and I can’t count how many times I’ve read it; If I was stranded on a desert island for the rest of my life with no help coming for me, this is the book I’d keep close).

It is interesting to note that one of the early schools of Buddhism, Pudgalavada, taught that there was non-self but the pudgala, the person, existed. The very term “Pudgalavada” had been translated to “Personalism” by several western scholars (and personalism in 20th century philosophy was very influential). This causes me to pose a question: Why would some early Buddhists reject the idea of atman in favor of pudgala and reconcile the pudgala with anatta?

One of the things I like about Epicurean philosophy is that while there was a master, the life of the philosopher is not thought to be special -- but just one of the roles people play within a community. Some people tend the garden, some people learn the words, some people teach the words, but it's an interdependent community and the philosopher is not made special by the practice.

I’ve read enough of Epicureanism to acknowledge the connections between it and the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic schools. The only difference is that Epicureanism remains agnostic about a first cause (i.e. God) while the other three schools affirm this (completely through reason, of course). I’ve also been thinking about the differences between religious Buddhism versus what I term “philosophical” Buddhism (to be distinguished from the various schools of Buddhist philosophy like Zen, Madhyamika, and Yogachara), that is, the historical conception of Buddhism prior to it being formed as a religion. I think there are several ideas in Buddhism that parallel ideas in Stoicism and Epicureanism as well as phenomenology and existentialism. Buddhism seen in its historical form can definitely benefit people (not to say it shouldn’t be followed as a religion; I was not raised a Buddhist so I know very little of its practice as a religion).

Philosophy helps me recognize how my mind works. How I know what I know. Why I believe what I believe. Why I care about what I care about. Why I'm interested in what I'm interested in. And on a good day, why I do the things I do or don't do the things I don't do. I call that intellectual self-awareness.

And this is what several of us think the overall point of philosophy is, solving real world issues and helping us deal with our own problems. I don’t like it when people try to canonize one philosophy or philosopher as the “end all, say all” theory of everything. I advocate a form of eclecticism but have enough background knowledge in Greek philosophy and, through my graduate program, Thomism, to stick more towards the western tradition. Anything eastern (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian) is primarily through my own reading. I think that it is interesting to think about what St. Thomas Aquinas would talk about with contemporaries of his in the East, for example, the Neoconfucians. Similarly, I think it is just as important to think about what Socrates would talk about with Buddha. There’s needs to be a conversation between West and East.

Just for yourself or others? Don't you think the world is already awash with well-meaning or messianic others providing us with gratuitous advice on how to live?

I see your point. But I think the idea of “well-meaning or messianic others” is exactly what I think the problem is. There needs to be a rational inquiry into what constitutes a good life, a life that knows how to navigate suffering and find meaning rather than the fads that we find in the self help community. This is, of course, irrespective of religion, if any at all; I personally see theism as an aid to living well but I don’t blame people who don’t believe in a Supreme Being. This task would be for my own interest, not necessarily for the interest of others but I’m sure some would take an interest in these ideas.

I like to think of Stoicism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism not as there own systems that are distinct from one another that promote their own politically correct ways of doing philosophy. Rather I see them as distinct branches of a truly Socratic tradition of philosophy, all seeing Socrates as the model of the sage and focusing upon the cultivation of good ethical character. Therefore, in my opinion, Stoic, Platonic, and Aristotelian philosophy are all expressions of a Socratic therapy. I like to think that modern philosophy needs to return to the Socratic mindset regardless if it is Anglophone analytical thought (ordinary language philosophy, logical atomism, logical positivism, American pragmatism) or French and German continental thought (phenomenology, existentialism, French Nietzscheanism, absolute idealism). There are good ideas in both camps but the emphasis needs to shift towards a kind of eudaimonism.



I'll have to hunt this paper down; I didn't know Thoreau played a role in influencing him. And I sometimes forget that Hadot was a big popularizer of Wittgenstein in France.

I think that this work is worth it. In a sense I can say that I have already been working for many years on it, under the umbrella term of "spirituality".

A trying task to be sure. I think one can be spiritual without being involved in an organized religion. However, I do think that there is a benefit to organized religion as the promoter of comradery between people.



Speaking of the concept of mind, I don't know if you have an interest in the philosophy of mind, but David Chalmers book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory is a fascinating read about the nature of what exactly consciousness is. Nothing to do with ethics, I just highly recommend this book.



If I recall correctly, Jules Evans is a big advocate of Stoicism. And the Therapeutae were a prime example of the fusion between the Judaic and Hellenic/Greco-Roman traditions.

Ricci and Desideri really were intellectual marvels of their day (another being Prospero Intorcetta who popularized Confucianism in the West). There is a movement called Sino-Christian theology which seeks to understand Christianity through ideas native to Chinese culture.



In regards to Scholastic philosophy, I didn’t really get a chance to mention to revival of Scotism in the 20th century. I highly recommend A Little Summary of Metaphysics by Allan Wolter which really gets into a lot of Scotist metaphysical terminology. In my opinion, Occamism is not around anymore but the nominalism it argues for is; just look at the denial of objective truth in academia in favor of relativism. And the channel “Philosophy for the People” I greatly enjoy.

This specific discussion was supposed to be geared at the overall logic of Lewis's trilemma (and I think most of us think that it is flawed including myself). Perhaps I could've titled the new forum something a little more "academic" but the conversations that have been flowing with these past two discussions have been interesting. If you (or anyone else) have ideas about discussion topics for the future please let me know. I have one idea in particular but I don't think I would get much discussion because of the topic.

I wasn't attempting to suggest that Christianity was the answer to an objective problem per say as I think here in the United States Christianity is a way to advocate for objective ethical universals politically (in other words Christian realism but that's another topic altogether). I do not exactly think Christianity is the "theory of everything." True evangelism is actually having dialogue with, say, a Buddhist or a Hindu, and trying to suggest my belief that Christ fulfills the underlying ethos of Buddhism and Hinduism; I've never met a Buddhist or a Hindu insulted by this because I'm not attempting to convert them. The Old Testament is very clear that attempting to convert others is a sin in and of itself (I'll touch on this later).

I'm more interested in how it actually came to be as a movement as I think that it would do Christians some good to look at the history. I am of the opinion that the Jesus of the New Testament was advocating a form of Judaic Cynicism (going by the definition of "Cynicism" used in antiquity). The Council of Nicaea formally established orthodoxy as you had several different groups with various definitions of what a "Christian" was (some of these groups were a tad nuts). John Dominic Crossan argues that the ministry surrounding Jesus and the Christianity of the Apostolic Era was a reaction to the political shift in the Roman Empire at the time, particularly the western half; the Kingdom of God cannot be brought about upon the earth because man is innately flawed but its ideals begin with the individual person. Because it was so controversial for the time this explains why Jesus asks those who want to follow him to take up a cross.

The strategy that Jesus utilizes is typical of the Cynic thinker; short anecdotes like "He who has ears let him hear" and blessing the common folk (for example the Beatitudes) show that the message of Jesus was pretty inclusive. The ethical sayings of Jesus and what we find in his parables are also typical of the Cynic philosopher. Love of enemies and praying for those who judge you is revolutionary. Of course you get this in the Old Testament as well ("Love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt") but what makes the New Testament unique is that there is a theme of followers of Christ actually forgive people that judge them for what they preach. This is what is truly remarkable; St. Stephen asks God to forgive his persecutors in the Book of Acts. This brings me to the sobering fact that New Testament Christianity is dead and needs a revival. Kierkegaard, for example, wrote to an entire country that he felt had never been authentically Christian. Western Christendom seems to be ridden with lots of mixing of religion and politics. Certain reactions to this I believe are found in the rise of the Quakers, Methodists, and reforms of Vatican II. Eastern Christianity seems to have the harshest history of persecution; the Ottoman Empire wasn't exactly a tolerant place and the USSR was even worse. I think Evangelicalism has ruined Christianity here in the States. Instead of volunteering at a soup kitchen for the homeless or attempting to counsel someone they stand on street corners whining about they way our politics are going and come by your house at 6AM on a Sunday trying to preach their subjective feelings about Jesus to you.

Despite this the overall message of the gospel is, in my opinion, holding oneself to a standard that seeks meaning in a world that is completely insane and seemingly meaningless (i.e. Christian existentialism). In short I believe that the gospel is about taking charge of ones own life in the eyes of a God that none of us can prove exists, taking a leap of faith to cure ones existential angst and nihilism. Again this is not me preaching anything, just a summary of what I believe. I like to think that this understanding of the gospel is much more appealing than the nonsense that Sunday School's teach.

"In the context of the OP, I am wondering how the reception of matters 'Christian' relate to a choice between a vision of revolutionary change versus something more 'normative...'"

I think a great way of understanding the gospel is by unveiling the history of 1st century Roman Judea; many months ago this was discussed a bit in the discussion "Jesus and Greek Philosophy." However, the movement centered around Jesus in Judea at the time is what I really find interesting.

New discussion forum is up titled "The Real Meaning of the Gospel."

Rather than discuss this here I will create a new discussion thread for the topic. Interested to get into what the real gospel could be (or is).

"Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ. Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ". - Kierkegaard

I think a discussion about the overall theme of the New Testament would be interesting. Yes, Paul acted as Jesus's "spokesman" who may have acted as if he had gotten the Good News better than Sts. Peter or John did. However what's interesting about St. Paul is that he puts an emphasis on the subjective human experience of what Christlikeness really is. For example:

"But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (Galatians 6:14)

"If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world?" (Colossians 2:20)

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Galatians 2:20)

The overall theme of the New Testament is in my opinion a rebellion against nihilism and Paul definitely gets into that. This rings true in the gospels; in the gospels Jesus says "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23). But I feel some fellow Christians forget what the Christianity of the New Testament really is. In the era of nihilism that we live in it would do people some good to look at Christianity not as a fear mongering religion; believe me I cannot stand some clergy that preach fear from the pulpit. New Testament Christianity is that the individual ultimately stands alone before God searching for answers in an imperfect world that doesn't make much sense. To give a take on most modern "Christians" who either reduce everything to "being a nice person" or fall in love with an organization (i.e. calling oneself a Traditionalist Catholic, being a diehard follower of Benny Hinn or Franklin Graham, etc), Kierkegaard wrote in Attack Upon Christendom the following:

"The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism – no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity with a dash of sugar. In every way it has come to this – that what one now calls Christianity is precisely what Christ came to abolish."

I appreciate the defense. I think it’s crucial to examine connections between philosophy and religion (hence why I posted this topic in the “Philosophy of religion” section). It’s evident that “proselytizing” is not something that I’m for. In fact, I’m openly against. There’s a verse in the Old Testament regarding this (I think in Exodus and this gets restated again in the Prophets but I’ll have to look back). The morality behind proselytizing is a whole other discussion, though.

And personally I don’t know of all roads lead to Rome. When Christianity entered China one could say it was a union between Jerusalem and Khanbaliq (or rather “Beijing”). When it entered India there was a union between Jerusalem and Magadha. What’s interesting about Christianity is that it adopts whatever culture it mixes with, not destroying what is good.

Wasn’t thinking of an analogy like that but it’s interesting. In short I think that the concept of Logos applied to God becoming Jesus, in a Kierkegaardian sense, is interesting. That’s why I see all the aforementioned schools of thought as pointers to Christianity but that’s just an opinion. One could study Stoicism and become Buddhist. One could study Platonism and find himself a practicing Hindu and so on.

Not “preaching” anything. Simply interested in exploring the connections between classical philosophy and Christianity is all. Idc what religion anyone is.

Primarily through the ethical teachings. The Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path provide a similar moral framework to that of Christianity. I am also going to point to the figure of Maitreya, the Buddhist messiah. Who’s to say it isn’t Christ? Again, just my opinion.

“God and Gods fill such a vast, and largely unexamined, need, that they will never go away. Their services will always be required, by some.”

You have a definite point here. From the viewpoint of Christian or theistic existentialism, its all about the single human person standing alone before God (and I’m not arguing for a particular concept of God). Kierkegaard says it nicely in his Journals:

“My focus should be on what I do in life, not knowing everything, excluding knowledge on what you do. The is key to find a purpose, whatever it truly is that God wills me to do; it's crucial to find a truth which is true to me, to find the idea which I am willing to live and die for.“

This I think is the whole point of faith in a Power greater than oneself.

For those interested, here is a link to a pdf of Wojtyła’s Considerations on the Essence of Man in both Polish and English:

http://krapiecfoundation.com/strony2/konkurs2017zal/Wojtyla_ESSENCE-ISTOTA_text.pdf

Of course (forgot to mention him). Scheler played a huge influence on Wojtyła and Krapiec’s personalism. it really is a shame that people don’t value the school of thought more. I’ve never been an analytical philosophy type but that’s what gets taught on most college campuses.



It seems that Eastern European philosophy tends to be the most hard to understand in the western world. Many Western academics are so concerned with taking up a positivist view of the world that it seems to become focused on what we can prove is true by a testable method. Eastern European philosophers are more concerned with the act of being (actus essendi) and I would argue that the “classical” philosophers of antiquity were concerned with this as well.

Perhaps the Enlightenment wasn’t necessarily a mistake altogether but there were some thinkers who ideas were mistakes and these became popular. For example, Hobbes hated religion and believed government was supposed to control people. Other thinkers like Kant and Locke argued for the necessity for God and religion without straying from the innate ability to reason in man. Burke would be more into organized religion, a devout Anglican, but was nevertheless of the opinion that all religions have some good in them and should likewise also be self critical; he saw the various religions of India and China, notably Hinduism and Confucianism (perhaps Daoism as well), as sources of an objective moral system. He saw Islam as lacking a separation between church and state and this of course needs to be rectified. In today’s world many Muslim’s are attempting to revive the works of many philosophers from the Islamic Golden Age like Avicenna, Averroes, Omar Khayyam (was not a Muslim but wrote extensively on Islam), and various followers of Sufism (like Ibn Arabi and Jelauddin Rumi).

Romanticism has been dubbed the Counter-Enlightenment by people like Isaiah Berlin as it is an attempt to revive the spiritual and metaphysical in the world. The work of William Blake, Johann Goethe, and even people like Soren Kierkegaard and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (who I don’t think count as Romantic era writers but nevertheless mimic the themes found in Romanticism) all point to mans search for meaning. If we treat life like its a math equation and take a positivist view, life becomes boring and nihilism seems to run rampant. There needs to be a healthy balance between faith and reason.

I agree. I personally think Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s work needs to be taken seriously, too. What communism did to Eastern Europe and East Asia is not widely spread knowledge among today’s youth.

I second that. Other than Shakespeare Orwell is a must and I think Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy are must reads also. The Republic in my opinion is more literature than philosophy but I definitely think it is more than accessible to high schoolers. Kant I personally think might be a tad too difficult but you never know.

Good ole American style pragmatism. I like it! I could use a copy of the Plumbers Bible right now.

“The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?“ - Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Gotta have my Yeats; one of the perks of being half Irish is hearing the older folks recite his poetry on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Regardless of what we think students should be reading (we can make a cause for all of these books) it is unfortunate that other states here in America don’t encourage reading like this. There are many reasons for it but speaking as a native of Massachusetts there is a worrying fusion of politics and education that I see rearing it’s head.

And maybe Kierkegaard should be reserved for college… but he’d definitely have something to say about politics in the classroom.

Solzhenitsyn in particular should be required reading. Was going to add Lao Tzu along with Chuang Tzu as well as the Dhammapada and stuff from Confucianism but I got caught up at work. Being a native of Massachusetts I love Robert Frost. I made this list irrespective of age group; perhaps the books I posted are geared more at higher education. Solzhenitsyn however, as I said, needs to be taught in both secondary and higher education. Darwin is also good (wasn’t at the top of my list when I was typing it up). I wholeheartedly agree with you that students needs to find their own interests in reading, but books like these are called “classics” for a reason.

It’s what the man said. I hear so many people say “Love peace and hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed” but they don’t actually do any kind of self-reflection on how to realize these things in themselves and change them.



I totally agree with you. We do lack direction as a society and there are so many different solutions to the problem. Capitalism and liberalism when taken to the utmost extreme almost create an egoism of “Mine, mine, mine.” We forget that there are other people out there. When Marx wrote his 1844 Manuscripts he was criticizing a kind of nasty capitalism where a lot of corporate businessmen were cutthroat people. But times have changed. Capitalism may not be perfect but it is the only way to run a free society. We just need to watch out for the cutthroats!

A solution which has yet to really work. Thomas Merton never gets taught during lessons on the civil rights era because he never actively participated in it like an MLK or Malcolm X did. Merton’s solution, the Benedictine conversio morum, I think is very applicable today. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked back then because there was a time where racist policies and such were institutionalized here in America but I think we’ve come a long way from that. There are still issues, of course, but a change in the individual person I wholeheartedly think is necessary before we even get to dialogue between the political left and the political right. Just my thoughts!

Ahh, this thread looks much better. Thank you!