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James Schall was a great teacher.  He had a natural ability to connect with everyone he met, especially the students who were readily drawn into his own excitement of learning.  A conversation with Jim Schall was always a lively event.  You never knew where it was going to lead, as he was capable of leaping across great intellectual chasms.  That…

Beyond Scientism and Towards Political Community
Scruton and Walsh, through an examination of scientism in relation to the person, have argued for the irreplaceable dignity of the person. In contrast to the reductionist reconstitution of the person in scientism, Scruton and Walsh present the person as the center of the political community that must be understood through inter-personal conduct founded on…

Walsh and Scientism

The methodology of scientism described by Scruton in the preceding chapter points to the rejection of limitation for persons. Limitation, understood as the framework that binds persons to the natural order of existence of which they are a part, is reformulated in the scientistic framework as a hurdle to overcome in the pursuit of the understanding of reality.…

The Person and Scientism
The potential for human beings to achieve political success, as defined by the formation and maintenance of prosperous communities, can only be fulfilled if individuals understand the importance of the person in politics. Recognition of the person necessitates the understanding of the self; one perceives others as persons once he/she first understands oneself as a person.…

“Live not by lies,” was the advice that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (born December 11, 1918) gave his compatriots when they asked him how to stand up to the crushing might of the Soviet Union.  He did not seek an open confrontation with the regime.  Neither resistance nor violence could succeed in the face of a remorseless killing machine.  Individuals would simply…

The discovery and publication of John Rawls’s senior thesis can be compared to the impact of the early writings of Karl Marx. It was only with the appearance of the latter that readers could gain an appreciation of the humanist roots of Marxian thought that, in its mature formulation, was centered more narrowly on economic theory. A similar pattern applies…

Political theorists, like literary and social theorists, occupy a kind of twilight zone in relation to philosophy. Their disciplines are at once empirical and philosophical, an indeterminate status compared to the strictly autonomous unfolding of philosophy. Yet it is by virtue of this difference of perspective that they may have something to contribute to philosophy. The problem, however, is that…