Weekly series on the soul, Part 8

This better be Plato.
Plato used stories to communicate truth to his reader or listener at a deep level. (Even if his dialogues were conspicuously one-sided.)

Welcome to part 8 of our weekly series on the soul. We’ve been listening to Thomas Mirus interviewing James Matthew Wilson about his book, The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness and Beauty in the Western Tradition, part 6 and part 7 of our series. This week the podcast is subtitled Reason With Stories, Philosophize With Your Life and will be the end of the Wilson interviews, but our series on the soul will continue. I’ve already got some other texts, videos, etc, lined up for us. 

Now I’ve got some snacks and a fresh cup of hot tea. Yes, here in the American South one does have to specify. Joanna Bogle made fun of me for doing that when we spoke once for a few minutes in the parking lot at EWTN. She is so charming and fun. I was already a fan and after that, even more so. But I digress. (Mom, stop with the name-dropping already!) (I’m not name-dropping, Miss Lucy Dawg. Okay, I am, but—) (Mom!) (Okay, okay! Sheesh, everybody’s a critic.) Here we go. Notes and links at the end of this post.

Modernity elevated pure, abstract reasoning as the only way to know about reality. Reason having disenchanted everything else, modernity then became disenchanted with reason. The ascendancy of reason over superstitious myths was viewed by the postmodernists as just another myth to be exposed. — Catholic Culture Podcast, ep 65, Vision of the Soul

Continue reading “Weekly series on the soul, Part 8”

Weekly Series on the Soul – Part 7

Our souls need goodness, truth, and clarity, and they also need beauty.

Welcome to Part 7 of the weekly series on the soul. We’re continuing to listen to the Catholic Culture Podcast, now episode 63, Beauty Revealing Being, with guest James Matthew Wilson, poet, philosopher, and author of The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition. You can catch up using the links at the top of the post or near the end. Part 6 is where we began with this podcast. Video below, links (including links to the book) and notes at the end of this post.

“It is in the nature of Being to reveal itself to us, and in the natural realm this is done preeminently through beauty.”

Ep 63, Catholic Culture Podcast, Vision of the Soul.
Continue reading “Weekly Series on the Soul – Part 7”

Weekly series on the soul continues, Vision of the Soul

Welcome back to the weekly series on the soul. This is part 6. Earlier posts focused on Dom Wiesinger’s Occult Phenomena in the Light of Theology. Have I mastered that text? Nope. Studying that one will be ongoing. I’ve been searching for another text for us to use and this morning the perfect text dropped right into my mailbox. Well, a link to a podcast landed in my email inbox: the Catholic Culture Podcast hosted by Thomas Mirus. And the email title that caught my eye was, “Reclaiming the vision of the West” in which Mirus interviews author James Matthew Wilson, author of The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition. Aha! said I, this is exactly what I needed for the blog.

The devastation rationalism has wrought on modernity has yet to be calculated, because it is the air we breathe, often regardless of our professed beliefs.

From the description for the Catholic Culture Podcast, episode 61.

I won’t be able to post copious amounts of this one since it’s not in the public domain, but I have found articles by the author, reviews of the book, along with audio and video interviews as well as talks he’s given. The video (below) contains so much to think about that I’m keeping this post brief so we can get right to it. Links and notes are at the end of this post.

Continue reading “Weekly series on the soul continues, Vision of the Soul”