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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Thought for the day: Can everyone be wise?

David Warren comments on perennial philosophy:
While reading recently the third edition of After Virtue by the great living philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, I was struck once again by the notion of the "philosophia perennis." This is the notion that there is one, and only one, recurring and inevitable set of mutually dependent universal truths on the nature of man, and of the world in which he appears -- one and only one convincing view of what we can mean by the good, the true, and the beautiful. This view is accessible to all men who can summon the intellectual and moral resources to be wise, which include the patience to deeply consider the alternatives and reject all those that ultimately contradict themselves.

MacIntyre is not a philosopher with whom I feel entirely at home. ...
Mario Beauregard, my lead author on The Spiritual Brain, is a perennialist, and Warren's take is interesting.

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