Love and the Dignity of Human Life, by Robert Spaemann

This is an interesting trio of essays by philosopher Robert Spaemann.  The first is on the many meanings and paradoxes of love, especially the tension between desirous love and beneficent love.  The second is on human dignity, particularly its inalienability when the person does not consent to its loss. The third on the modern concept of “brain death”—is it the same as the traditional concept of death, and can a “brain dead” person properly be considered dead?   

Since I have no philosophy training, I thought the book would probably be over my head, but Spaemann explains things very clearly.  Highly recommended to clear out the fog that results from the intentionally deceptive wording we are accustomed to using these days to lie to ourselves about reality in order to justify ethical shortcuts.

Understanding Europe, by Christopher Dawson

This is an outstanding analysis of Europe and Western civilization.  The book is divided in two parts.

In the first part, Dawson describes what Europe is: a society of peoples whose culture was shaped both by Christianity and the Greco-Roman heritage.  Through comparisons, he explains what differentiates it from Asia, describes the special case of Russia, and discusses the regional differences among the different peoples.  These were produced by the splintering of Christianity during the Reformation and the different styles of government in the different regions, contrasting the parliamentary governments that sprung up in Western Europe with the large military empires that developed in Central and Eastern Europe.  He also devotes two chapters to Europe's overseas colonies: the dual nature of European colonialism and how each nation's colonial effort differed in character from one another.

The second part of the book is about the decline of Western culture and the revolt, starting in the eighteenth century, against the ideas and norms that used to unify Europe.  He describes the rise of the large totalitarian and authoritarian states, how the ideas behind this style of government originated in Hegelian philosophy, and how the two world wars came about.

For a relatively short (230 page) book, he covers a lot of ground, and it's definitely a book that you have to read more than once in order to properly digest the material.  It's best to have a reasonably good general knowledge of the history of the various European countries in order to appreciate this book properly.

Nos pluralistes, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Solzhenitsyn criticizes the moral emptiness of pluralism and its impotence when faced with the evils of socialism. He also criticizes the work of some of his fellow Soviet exiles, who blame the failures of socialism on the defects of the Russian people and their culture, rather than on the nature of socialism itself. 

This book is an excerpt from a longer work, The Oak and the Calf, and I did find parts of it difficult to follow because I am not familiar with the work of the people Solzhenitsyn cites, but it was a worthwhile read nonetheless.  Maybe reading it as part of The Oak and the Calf would provide more context.

The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments, by Gertrude Himmelfarb

This book does a great job comparing and contrasting the differences of the Enlightenment as experienced in Britain, the U.S., and France.  It's like an introductory, comparative survey course of the various Enlightenment thinkers in the three countries, so do not expect in-depth or detailed analysis on any particular person.  This book is more to give you a general picture of the intellectual climate of those times.  The treatment of the American Enlightenment is the briefest of the three, which was fine with me because I am more familiar with the American founding fathers and the thinkers that influenced them than I am with French or British Enlightenment figures.

Caution:  Your to-read list will grow as a result of reading this book.

Thomas Aquinas in 50 Pages: The Layman's Quick Guide to Thomism, by Dr. Taylor Marshall

If you are looking for a clear, concise introduction to the life and work of St. Thomas Aquinas, and you have little to no background in philosophy or theology, this book does the job well. Dr. Marshall sketches out St. Thomas's life story, and explains the fundamental ideas of Thomist philosophy and the intellectual climate of St. Thomas's time in a simple, straightforward way.

Plato's Republic

Any freedom loving person will hate this book if he reads it as a straightforward exposition of how to achieve the ideal state, because the ideal state Socrates describes in the book (the "Republic" of the title) is a terribly tyrannical place.  But it doesn't seem to me that Plato intended it to be read that way.  It is more like a thought exercise, where Socrates poses questions, and depending on the answers of the person he is speaking with, takes ideas further, step by step.  Some of his dialogue partners have real input; others seem more like yes-men--sometimes reluctant yes-men--and Socrates's exchanges with them read like cautionary tales showing the crazy places where lazy thinking or gullibility can take you.  And of course, nowhere is lazy thinking more dangerous than in politics, where a lot of harm can result.  There is a part where Socrates describes the three different kinds of acceptable government, the three evil kinds (which are the three acceptable ones taken to extremes), and the three different personalities that tend to be produced by each type of government, and also this is the book where Plato describes his famous "Cave" analogy.

All in all, a very rich book--one that deserves to be read multiple times, because you won't get everything it has to offer in one reading.  It's definitely a book that is best read at leisure, because there are a lot times when you will have to stop and think about whether you agree with what you just read or how you would have answered Socrates differently from his dialogue partner.

Peter Kreeft did a great series of lectures that serve as an introduction to Plato and his work--very useful if you haven't read any Plato before.  I think I'd have gotten more out of this book if I'd heard the lectures before reading it.

The Crooked Timber of Humanity

In this series of eight essays, Isaiah Berlin recounts the intellectual dispute that took place in the late 18th to early 19th century that gave rise to the Romantic movement, and how ideas from both sides of the debate combined and recombined in the heads of various thinkers over the years so as to produce the fascist and socialist movements of the twentieth century.

One side of the dispute consists of those who believed in universal, objective truth, scientific rationalism, a common human nature, the possibility of an earthly utopia, and the non-contradiction of values. On the other side were those who believed in various degrees of relativism, the value of local traditions, even those that could not be traced to any rational basis, the possibility of different hierarchies of value that could contradict each other, and that human societies are ultimately founded on an irrational factors.

The second essay, called Alleged Relativism in Eighteenth Century Thought is particularly valuable because it explains how pluralism is different from relativism, and how pluralist thinkers of the eighteenth century (like Vico and Herder) are sometimes mistaken for relativists.  I read that one twice.

Included among the essays is an exposition of the life and thought of Joseph de Maistre, who is often mistaken for a conservative Catholic reactionary, but whose ideas contradicted those of Church and those of other conservatives, such as Edmund Burke, on important points, and whose dark, illiberal, eerily modern outlook presages twentieth century totalitarian movements.  Berlin recaps much of the content of this essay in this lecture.

The last two essays in the series, The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will and The Bent Twig are about how in the Romantic movement, the will, particularly in art, began to displace objective truth and nature, and how appreciation for local customs, thought to be the least enduring part of the Romantic movement, morphed into the nationalist movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries, from the desires of small ethnic or linguistic minorities to become independent states, or the sense of entitlement of large states to take over regions in other states inhabited by people of the same race or language.

I learned a lot reading this.  Great read if you're interested in the art, literature, and thought of the Romantic era, how ways of thinking we now take for granted originated, and in the causes of some of the most important events in twentieth century history.

The World's Last Night, by C. S. Lewis

I enjoyed this little collection of essays by C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite essayists ever.  As always, they display his gift for clear, logical expositions in straightforward language and his way of bypassing currently popular ways of looking at things by showing how they can be considered differently.  Reading Lewis nearly always helps to broaden my mind and this collection is no exception.  My two favorite essays in this book are <i>Lilies That Fester</i> and <i>The Efficacy of Prayer</i>.

Europe: Today and Tomorrow, by Pope Benedict XVI

In this book, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) analyzes the source of the malaise that has affected the West through most of the 20th century: the currents of thought that brought it about, why it persists, and how it can be cured.  Very worthwhile read and gives a lot of food for thought. Given its short length, it took much longer than I thought to finish it because I often had to stop and think about what I had just read and how it related to popular ways of thinking and acting.

The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis

This book is a thorough discussion of why pain exists in a world created by a benevolent God. I always enjoy reading C.S. Lewis's books because of his clear presentation of complex ideas and straightforward readable writing style. This book was no exception. It is an intellectual approach to the subject, so it would be a great choice for someone mulling dispassionately over the problem of reconciling the existence of pain with that of God, but perhaps not so much for someone who is looking for consolation because they are actually going through hard times.

Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, by Josef Pieper

Two thought-provoking essays on how using language to manipulate others rather than to communicate truth amounts to nothing less than a denial of the other person's humanity and status as your equal, and how perversion of language can be used by the unscrupulous to gain power over others.  Pieper discusses how well established this idea is--it's in Plato, Aristotle, and the early Church fathers, and how it has been pushed aside, not only in totalitarian states, but even in our modern, pragmatic state of mind that tends to value practical results over principles.

Leisure, the Basis of Culture, by Josef Pieper

Josef Pieper examines the traditional concept of leisure and how it gave rise to the achievements of Western civilization. He contrasts it to our modern idea of leisure and the low value we place on it. Traditionally, leisure was something people aspired to have because it was the time they had in which to do the things most important to them; one worked in order to have leisure. Today, leisure is mostly thought of as time to recuperate so as to prepare one to work some more; one has leisure in order to work. This book raises important questions about ways of thinking about work and leisure that we take for granted.

Trojan Horse in the City of God, by Dietrich von Hildebrand

Dietrich von Hildebrand explains the philosophical errors behind the misinterpretation of the documents of Vatican II and how they led to changes in the liturgy/ other religious practices of Catholics--and not for the better. I'm a Catholic who was born long after the council, so I have no firsthand experience of the preconciliar church; however I'm also a classical music and vintage movie aficionado who learned something about what it was like by listening to sacred music by various composers and watching old film footage. I definitely learned a lot reading this book. Dr. von Hildebrand must have been a great professor. He writes clearly and concisely such that even I, with no philosophical training, could follow his arguments.

On Looking Into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society, by Gertrude Himmelfarb

This is an excellent series of essays on various thinkers and philosophical ideas that have filtered out of academia and become influential in the modern world to the detriment of clear and logical thinking based on objective truth.

Her essay on John Stuart Mill, <i>Liberty: One Simple Principle</i> is especially good as an introduction to Mill's work, particularly <i>On Liberty</i> and the effects it has had on how people define "liberty" today.  Also particularly enjoyable is the essay on footnotes <i>Where Have All The Footnotes Gone?</i>, which suggests that their increasing absence in scholarly works, and scholars' increasing insistence on dispensing with them, is a symptom of the blurring of the line between history and fiction, footnotes being one of the ways a scholar's work can be checked by readers.

The Four Loves, by C. S. Lewis

This book includes excellent explanations about the four very different meanings encapsulated by the catch-all English word "Love," those four being Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity.  If you have ever thought that "love" is a word so vague as to be next to useless, this book will help clarify your thoughts about it with clear distinctions, examples, and by pointing out common misconceptions.  Definition of words can be one of the hardest things to do and Lewis delivers.

Definitely a book I will revisit again and again.

The Catholic Classics, by Dinesh D'Souza

This book makes a great introduction to 10 Catholic authors and the works for which they were best known:
1. St. Augustine (Confessions)
2. Boethius (Consolation of Philosophy)
3. St. Bede (Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
4. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica)
5. Dante Alighieri (Divine Comedy)
6. Blaise Pascal (Pensées)
7. Thomas à Kempis (Imitation of Christ)
8. John Henry Newman (Apologia pro vita sua)
9. G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
10. Thomas Merton (Seven Story Mountain)

The introductions to each author are concise and include biographical information about each author, the main features of their thought, the circumstances in which they wrote their books, and how their books were received. This book is a great choice for anyone with an interest in learning about these 10 authors or who might be starting to read their works.

St. Augustine's Confessions

This was a beautiful account of one man's spiritual journey away from God and back again.  St. Augustine had had a Christian upbringing as his mother St. Monica was a pious Christian woman, but he fell away from the faith when he went away to school and became overly occupied with worldly ambitions and pleasures.  Given how common this trajectory still is today, it was surprising how familiar his story seemed when it was written 1,700 years ago.

Many have commented on how unnecessarily nitpicky St. Augustine seems to be about sin, like when he talks about the incident with the pears when he was a child.  While the pears in themselves are a minor thing, you have to admit that there is something very disordered about a child stealing pears, not primarily because they look good and he wants to eat them, but because he enjoys the act of stealing. It's the difference between pursuing a good thing in the wrong way and enjoying evil for its own sake.  One would think that any parent aware of such a tendency in his child would consider it a serious fault and take steps to correct it instead of dismissing it as childish pranks.

The autobiographical part of the <i>Confessions</i> is in Books 1-9, and then the 10th book is an interesting read about the nature of memory--at the end of which is his most famous (and one of my favorite prayers): "Late have I loved you."  In Books 11-13 he gets into philosophical and theological matters that were way beyond me, so I just skimmed through that part.

I read the French edition translated by Robert d'Andilly, which was beautifully clear and easy to read.  I'm sure this book has been translated into most languages by now.

God Is Love: Deus Caritas Est, by Pope Benedict XVI

I read this a few weeks after C.S. Lewis's <i>The Four Loves</i> and it is an excellent companion to it, with a different emphasis.  While Lewis concentrates on defining four different kinds of love: affection, friendship, eros, and charity, Benedict XVI's focus is to differentiate two kinds of love as identified by the Greeks (eros and agape).  Each offers a reflection of God's love in the lives of individuals as well as in the life of the Church.  Very worthwhile read.