What do you think?
Rate this book
Tradition: Concept and Claim
Josef Pieper's Tradition: Concept and Claim analyzes tradition as an idea and as a living reality in the lives and languages of ordinary people. In the modern world of constant, unrelenting change, tradition, says Pieper, is that which must be preserved unchanged. Drawing on thinkers from Plato to Pascal, Pieper describes the key elements and figures in the act of tradition and what is distinctive about it.
97 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
2 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
About the author
Josef Pieper
143 books306 followersJosef Pieper was a German Catholic philosopher and an important figure in the resurgence of interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas in early-to-mid 20th-century philosophy. Among his most notable works are The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance; Leisure, the Basis of Culture; and Guide to Thomas Aquinas (published in England as Introduction to Thomas Aquinas).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 19, 2019
Such a great read. This book might have given me the spark to start rebuilding my faith whatever that looks like and to participate in the thing that grounds us all. But I guess we’ll see about that.
March 13, 2018
Tradition is the topic here: what it is, is not, how to keep it, how to lose it. Another of the many critics of post Enlightenment social / spiritual modernity, Pieper writes, “A future without a past is null and void [i.e. our perpetual present]. And hope without a foundation is just another name for despair.” For Pieper the only traditions that can survive are those begun by something men cannot assail – God. Mere humans, like America’s Founders, aren’t distant enough, mysterious enough, inscrutable enough to have lasting power, and yet 242 years on, their system of governance stands up to a want-to-be dictator – so far.
Pieper does understand something the likes of Richard Dawkins don’t: “When what has been believed becomes verified and critically established,” Pieper writes, “at the same moment it loses its character as tradition.” That is, traditions – at least religious traditions that Pieper reveals are central to him – must not make sense in the way science makes sense of nature. The inscrutable nature of myth, art, religion are what give them power because they make sense to human nature, odd as it and they can be.
While this reader agrees with Pieper that a civilization without a tradition becomes rudderless, as America is a shining example, Pieper’s appeal to and requirement of a divine source will suite those who don’t need convincing. The rest of us, and modernity itself, has a much harder nut to crack than a leap of faith: a kind of convincing that has both power over that mystic-loving human nature, and rational weight. In the end, I found Pieper at times tedious and not convincing, though he does offer some food for thought.
Pieper does understand something the likes of Richard Dawkins don’t: “When what has been believed becomes verified and critically established,” Pieper writes, “at the same moment it loses its character as tradition.” That is, traditions – at least religious traditions that Pieper reveals are central to him – must not make sense in the way science makes sense of nature. The inscrutable nature of myth, art, religion are what give them power because they make sense to human nature, odd as it and they can be.
While this reader agrees with Pieper that a civilization without a tradition becomes rudderless, as America is a shining example, Pieper’s appeal to and requirement of a divine source will suite those who don’t need convincing. The rest of us, and modernity itself, has a much harder nut to crack than a leap of faith: a kind of convincing that has both power over that mystic-loving human nature, and rational weight. In the end, I found Pieper at times tedious and not convincing, though he does offer some food for thought.
March 5, 2014
Josef Pieper is an insightful author, he really does a tremendous job in such a short book describing Tradition. He describes what it [really] is, why its important, and how it works. The best part comes through most of all in how he tries to explain it to a modern audience, and although this book is written a few decades ago, when I read his counter-arguments it would seem he was replying to accusations made against Tradition that we would find to this day, in our society, albeit amplified.
When he refutes the arguments made against Tradition however, he is not only honest and understanding of the opposition but he also finds the values in the opposition and puts them in their proper place under the aegis of The Tradition. It was also nice to see that even Joseph Pieper used Augustine's Retractationes to describe how The Tradition is something that stretched through time.
When he refutes the arguments made against Tradition however, he is not only honest and understanding of the opposition but he also finds the values in the opposition and puts them in their proper place under the aegis of The Tradition. It was also nice to see that even Joseph Pieper used Augustine's Retractationes to describe how The Tradition is something that stretched through time.
May 28, 2021
A short and concise little book containing one of those rare philosophical arguments that conceptualises and defends tradition and the sacred. Here are a few ideas I got from reading it.
Like inheritance, tradition is both the 'something' (e.g. knowledge, doctrine, custom) that is handed down from one generation to another, as well as it is the process of that transmission.
People are susceptible to forgetting the meaning and value of traditions because they become taken for granted. Or in other words, traditions become handed down for the sole reason that they are traditions, which in turn makes them defenceless in the face of attack. Marriage is a good example. How many people who get married these days truly understand its meaning and value? Very few. No wonder secularisation has preceded it's debasement and an extraordinary rise in the frequency of divorce. The consequences are perhaps only truly known by children of divorced parents. It can be devastating, particularly for the poor among them.
On the other hand there are also traditions which are genuinely superfluous or next to impossible to maintain. It is a matter of good judgement to know which ones are worth keeping. However, this judgement ought not to be informed by pure reason alone. Some traditions are both irrational in the purest sense but nonetheless function to keep society intact. Thus, the question of whether or not a new, more rational law should replace a less rational one is complicated if you accept the fact that the 'common good' is derived from both the rationality of its laws as well as the society's unique identification with old ones.
Pieper also makes the important distinction between tradition and sacred tradition. The latter is rare, precious and almost impossible to create out of nothing. It is almost always dependent on ancient, mysterious and supernatural foundations, real or imagined (depending on the nature of your faith or lack thereof). It is valuable for a whole manner things, but to continue from the marriage example above, there is a world of difference between a marriage that is imagined by the man and woman to be nothing but a contract, to one which is imagined to be a holy oath that unites with a sense of the eternal. That is the value of sacred deeds done in sacred ways in sacred places by sacred words from sacred texts. The sacred assists our capacity to feel appropriately.
But like all traditions, even sacred traditions are fragile in the face of the anarchic forces of time. For example, the widely held belief, often amongst atheists but also believers too, that the church must change according to the times, that it must update itself to the progressive ideas of the day. But doing so weakens the sense of the sacred which is its most important resource that is provides society.
There is also this desire amongst atheists to try and sacralise everything because they don't have that access to the sacred which they might otherwise get from religion. Pieper included this Goethe quote that which I thought was rather good:
"Every true artist should be seen as one who wants to preserve something that is recognised as holy and to propagate it seriously and prudently. Every century, however, according to its nature aspires to the secular and seeks to make the holy common, the difficult easy and the serious fun. I would have no objection to this, except that it ends up ruining both seriousness and fun."
Of course none of these arguments matter if you consider your individual freedoms to be a priority over the collective. But it seems that such an existence, for all its promised thrills and joys, can end up being eerily empty.
Anyway, those were a few things I got while reading this thought provoking book. I think I'll have to read it again at some point. The translation made it a little awkward and hard going at times, which made it difficult for me to connect everything he said.
Like inheritance, tradition is both the 'something' (e.g. knowledge, doctrine, custom) that is handed down from one generation to another, as well as it is the process of that transmission.
People are susceptible to forgetting the meaning and value of traditions because they become taken for granted. Or in other words, traditions become handed down for the sole reason that they are traditions, which in turn makes them defenceless in the face of attack. Marriage is a good example. How many people who get married these days truly understand its meaning and value? Very few. No wonder secularisation has preceded it's debasement and an extraordinary rise in the frequency of divorce. The consequences are perhaps only truly known by children of divorced parents. It can be devastating, particularly for the poor among them.
On the other hand there are also traditions which are genuinely superfluous or next to impossible to maintain. It is a matter of good judgement to know which ones are worth keeping. However, this judgement ought not to be informed by pure reason alone. Some traditions are both irrational in the purest sense but nonetheless function to keep society intact. Thus, the question of whether or not a new, more rational law should replace a less rational one is complicated if you accept the fact that the 'common good' is derived from both the rationality of its laws as well as the society's unique identification with old ones.
Pieper also makes the important distinction between tradition and sacred tradition. The latter is rare, precious and almost impossible to create out of nothing. It is almost always dependent on ancient, mysterious and supernatural foundations, real or imagined (depending on the nature of your faith or lack thereof). It is valuable for a whole manner things, but to continue from the marriage example above, there is a world of difference between a marriage that is imagined by the man and woman to be nothing but a contract, to one which is imagined to be a holy oath that unites with a sense of the eternal. That is the value of sacred deeds done in sacred ways in sacred places by sacred words from sacred texts. The sacred assists our capacity to feel appropriately.
But like all traditions, even sacred traditions are fragile in the face of the anarchic forces of time. For example, the widely held belief, often amongst atheists but also believers too, that the church must change according to the times, that it must update itself to the progressive ideas of the day. But doing so weakens the sense of the sacred which is its most important resource that is provides society.
There is also this desire amongst atheists to try and sacralise everything because they don't have that access to the sacred which they might otherwise get from religion. Pieper included this Goethe quote that which I thought was rather good:
"Every true artist should be seen as one who wants to preserve something that is recognised as holy and to propagate it seriously and prudently. Every century, however, according to its nature aspires to the secular and seeks to make the holy common, the difficult easy and the serious fun. I would have no objection to this, except that it ends up ruining both seriousness and fun."
Of course none of these arguments matter if you consider your individual freedoms to be a priority over the collective. But it seems that such an existence, for all its promised thrills and joys, can end up being eerily empty.
Anyway, those were a few things I got while reading this thought provoking book. I think I'll have to read it again at some point. The translation made it a little awkward and hard going at times, which made it difficult for me to connect everything he said.
June 3, 2025
Tradition is another major theme of Pieper’s thought that appears in several of his essays, and this essay that is devoted to tradition as a concept again shows its importance to his overall system of thought and its relation to his understanding of philosophy, leisure, and festivity. Pieper unpacks his understanding of tradition with helpful distinctions throughout this work, such as the difference between handing a tradition down versus learning something, (sacred) Tradition versus traditions, and tradition versus progression. Pieper ultimately finds that Tradition originates in divine gift, and is sustained throughout history in the dynamic interplay between historical development and generational continuity. Tradition is fundamentally rooted in faith and authority from an epistemological perspective, and therefore it ultimately falls into the category of supernatural revelation ontologically, at least in terms of its origins. Pieper, although Catholic, does not want to limit this tradition specifically to the teachings of the church, although tradition most certainly includes that. Pieper has a much broader meaning in mind, one akin to “remnantal revelation” or “original revelation” that characterizes the myths, legends, and philosophies of all the world in all of history. There are elements of truth and goodness in the myths of the ancients, but they have nonetheless been tarnished and twisted over the millennia. Further, it is only in self-conscious acceptance and continuity with tradition that one can truly philosophize about the world as it truly is. If this is the case, then the contemporary spirit to throw off tradition is terribly misguided; Pieper quotes Russian philosopher Viacheslav Ivanov: “Freedom achieved by forgetting is empty” (67).
This is another wonderful meditation from Pieper that is well worth reading and reflecting on, especially from a Reformed perspective since Pieper is not arguing for a Roman Catholic sense of tradition, although he probably sees his view as being most coherent with Catholicism. Pieper’s arguments concerning the difference between tradition and science are likewise thought provoking; although I agree that the purpose of science is more straightforwardly “atraditional” or maybe even “antitraditional” since scientific thinking is fundamentally devoted to furthering human understanding to new levels, Pieper’s formulations sometimes overemphasize the antithesis between tradition and science, as if science itself has no tradition, when this is simply not the case, as the editor to this volume makes clear in his introduction. Overall, this is an essential read for understanding Pieper, someone more people should start reading. Especially pertaining to the significance of tradition and its relevance for contemporary thinking, Pieper is invaluable: “There is hardly anything that would be more helpful for progress in the future than to take a divine gift shared with mankind long ago and make it come alive to human thought by reminding us of its importance through representation and interpretation. This very active reminding is not directed, as a foolish and fashionable formulation has it, to ‘what used to be,’ but to what is always valid and relevant for every age and which is continually threatened by forgetfulness and corruption” (46).
This is another wonderful meditation from Pieper that is well worth reading and reflecting on, especially from a Reformed perspective since Pieper is not arguing for a Roman Catholic sense of tradition, although he probably sees his view as being most coherent with Catholicism. Pieper’s arguments concerning the difference between tradition and science are likewise thought provoking; although I agree that the purpose of science is more straightforwardly “atraditional” or maybe even “antitraditional” since scientific thinking is fundamentally devoted to furthering human understanding to new levels, Pieper’s formulations sometimes overemphasize the antithesis between tradition and science, as if science itself has no tradition, when this is simply not the case, as the editor to this volume makes clear in his introduction. Overall, this is an essential read for understanding Pieper, someone more people should start reading. Especially pertaining to the significance of tradition and its relevance for contemporary thinking, Pieper is invaluable: “There is hardly anything that would be more helpful for progress in the future than to take a divine gift shared with mankind long ago and make it come alive to human thought by reminding us of its importance through representation and interpretation. This very active reminding is not directed, as a foolish and fashionable formulation has it, to ‘what used to be,’ but to what is always valid and relevant for every age and which is continually threatened by forgetfulness and corruption” (46).
February 18, 2012
It would be difficult to match the power and importance of Leisure: the Basis of Culture, but Pieper comes pretty close with Tradition: Concept and Claim. Admittedly, Kopf's translation is a bit stilted at times, in part because of the many end notes he sprinkles throughout the work. Perhaps if I read it again without flipping back to the end constantly, it would be an even more gripping work. Pieper still maintains his ability to communicate important truths most of us have either forgotten or never known about in a stylistically accessible way. Tradition is not a bad thing, fundamentally, if it is that which has been handed down from the divine and must be passed on immutably. The truths of Tradition do not change and thus should not be changed or adapted "to fit this time or generation." Any aspect of this divine tradition, regardless of when it was discovered (either in Ancient Greece or post-Enlightenment America), is part of the eternal, timeless, divine truth/Tradition, and don't belong to a culture or a time, but for everyone always, and thus must not be "adapted" or "updated." The "traditions" (plural) of man, man-made and this temporal, are nice and fine in their time but don't match the importance or necessity of the divine Tradition, and we shouldn't get up in arms if those pass away. As always (as I'm coming to learn, book by book) with Pieper, he intentionally makes it clear he is not saying anything new, just reminding us what we should all have known already. Don'y let E. Christian Kopf's translation or end notes prevent you from embracing what Pieper has to say about Tradition.
September 18, 2012
An extremely lucid and insightful study of the idea of tradition. It is a compelling argument for the primacy and necessity of sacred tradition and it clarifies much of the confusion surrounding the word. What mars the books is the author's occasional off-color, essentializing remarks about other peoples and cultures (i.e. his reference of Indians and then Japanese) and his narrow, almost singular focus on the Christian tradition (one clearly Western in nature rather than global) and the inability to fathom that the truth of tradition might be manifest just as robustly in other religions (granted he is a Christian theologian).
June 23, 2024
Excellent description of the types of tradition and why they are compelling. Provided a beautiful explanation of the traditions involved in religion, where the credibility is provided from the divine origin of the tradition. I'd never considered that before.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews