Love and the Postmodern Predicament: Rediscovering the Real in Beauty, Goodness, and Truth

by D.C. Schindler

The computer has increasingly become the principal model for the mind, which means our most basic experience of ""reality"" is as mediated through a screen, or stored in a cloud. As a result, we are losing a sense of the concrete and imposing presence of the real, and the fundamental claim it makes on us, a claim that Iris Murdoch once described as the essence of love. In response to this postmodern predicament, the present book aims to draw on the classical philosophical tradition in order to articulate a robust philosophical anthropology, and a new appreciation of the importance of the ""transcendental properties"" of being: beauty, goodness, and truth. The book begins with a reflection on the importance of metaphysics in our contemporary setting, and then presents the human person's relation to the world under the signs of the transcendentals: beauty is the gracious invitation into reality, goodness is the self-gift of freedom in response to this invitation, and truth is the consummation of our relation to the real in knowledge. The book culminates in an argument for why love is ultimately a matter of being, and why metaphysical reason in indispensable in faith. ""Philosopher D. C. Schindler defies the dragon of modernity, whose dominant thought patterns induce a life- and culture-threatening loss of reality and self. He offers life-giving proposals regarding love, being, and the transcendentals to restore us profoundly to the world and to ourselves as humans. Buy the book--you may divest yourself of others. Digest it, and revel in your already-involvement with a responsive reality--an involvement of intimate encounter and communion; a reality that is love, fraught with beauty, goodness, and truth."" --Esther Lightcap Meek, Geneva College ""Love and the Postmodern Predicament is a treasure trove of philosophical riches. Schindler does not merely indicate the need to return to metaphysics to wrestle successfully with what he carefully and accurately describes as our postmodern predicament, but in fact leads us out of that predicament. His profound and original reflections on love, grounded in the transcendental properties of being, are a radical refashioning of traditional metaphysical principles."" --Jonathan J. Sanford, University of Dallas ""In this rewarding little text, Schindler accomplishes something too rare among works of philosophy: he accommodates a wide audience and yet deftly draws the reader into deep metaphysical waters, into a consideration of some of the most profound and perennial philosophical concerns. Throughout, the timeliness of his reflections on love, beauty, God, and the good remains in clear view. This is a highly recommended work by an author of capacious intellect and generous spirit."" --Lee M. Cole, Hillsdale College D. C. Schindler is Associate Professor of Metaphysics and Anthropology at The John Paul II Institute at The Catholic University of America. He is the author of The Perfection of Freedom: Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel between the Ancients and the Moderns (2013).

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Catholic, Cultural, Christian, Love, Christianity

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Professor David Christopher Schindler is Professor of Metaphysics and Anthropology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute, Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America in 2001, with a dissertation on the philosophy of Hans Urs von Balthasar. He taught at Villanova University from 2001-2013, first as a teaching fellow in the Philosophy Department, and then in the Department of Humanities, where he received tenure in 2007. He received an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship to do research in Munich from 2007-2008. Professor Schindler is a translator of French and German and has served as an editor of Communio: International Catholic Review since 2002.

Reviews

[David Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a crying need for new contemplative celebrants who can leaven the world through their witness to the order of being through the order of their lives and thought. Like a metaphysical ophthalmologist, D.C. Schindler works to strengthen the philosophical and metaphysical underpinnings of our sight so that we can see anew the transcendentals of beauty, goodness and truth. Our milieu betrays an aversion to philosophy and metaphysics which pits us against our very natures because man as "an animal with logos" cannot be such an animal without holding a metaphysical system. The malaise of modernity is characterized by a "loss of respect for the true inwardness of things" and an attendant "lightness of being." A recovery of a rich, ontological understanding of beauty, by which we behold the whole, can help us restore our rootedness in the reality of the real. Modernity is characterizable by its habit of "lonely-mindedness," in which the self is conceived of as an isolated subjectivity that is the exclusive originator of the will, with no intrinsic relation to things outside. Against this distortion, a recovery of apprehension of goodness as a property of being, a transcendental, is needed, for then we will once again understand freedom as an involvement in reality and the will, not as a power to noncommittally like from a "safe" distance, but instead as love. Modernity sees knowledge as mere information and this results in a loss of human depth and a brittleness of identity. When we come to see truth as a transcendental again, then we realize true knowing is to make genuine contact with things, to take into ourselves in intimate encounter and personal presence the reality in which we have always already been involved through beauty and goodness.

[Simona Sanduleac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. The author gives back what Postmodernism took away from you. He unveils what lies beneath our pathetic excuses for running away from discovering the world which God has freely given to us. And at the end, just like God did after He created the world and all its fantastic creatures, we come to the ultimate conclusion - "It is good."

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shindler understands our postmodern predicament as a deep misology, a hatred and skepticism of reason’s claim to know reality. Under the appearance of modesty, some try to limit the reach of reason, which ultimately separates it from reality. Even well-meaning individuals who are philosophically rigorous are in a sense "guilty" of this.

This book helps us regain a proper relationship with reason, reality, being, and God through what is mainly an exposition of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth (to which Love plays a crucial role)

Beauty is an open invitation to intimacy with reality. Beauty sets the horizon for a genuine human existence and enables a real encounter between man and the world.

Goodness is the free response in giving ourselves to what is other.

Truth is the reception of reality into ourselves [which transforms us into true and fruitful human persons] (an addition with which I believe the author would agree with).

Schindler's strength is his interpretation of the classical tradition. This is no mere vain repetition of a dead and bygone thing. He accomplishes, I believe, a reinvigoration of that whole tradition simply by giving us a renewed perspective on it. The way he explains it does not feel forced at all, it is very natural and illuminating. I would like to say that this lens he proposes is what true phenomenology should be, a loving and truthful account of our experience of reality. It could be used as a magnificent introduction to some essential ideas of classical philosophy & metaphysics.

Part II is a more difficult read than Part I & III, It is mostly a rigorous interpretation of love in Aquinas which is, as he shows, a fairly ambiguous subject. The main idea (love as coaptatio), however, was not that complicated to understand, so most people should be able to get through it.

Reading this makes me feel sane again despite these crazy times. D.C. Shindler is genuinely becoming one of my favorite writers/philosophers.

[Esther Meek · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much life and world healing philosophizing here!

[Paul Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful call for our era to return to a healthy respect of metaphysics, by which we might find a strong foundation for thought and action and a renewed love for reality and God. Common sense, if somewhat complicated. Some passages were so insanely beautiful that I must highly recommend the book.

Overall pretty accessible, but the philosophy expounded is deep enough that you've got to read closely to track the thread. As such, it can be a little disengaging, so only 4 stars.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

Profound and accessible. I found this really stimulating and helpful. Schindler is a leading thinker at this time.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important work about the poverty of modern metaphysics and the need to recover ancient ways of looking at and understanding the world. I gave it only 4 stars because parts of it are every dense and difficult to follow. But there is a lot of "gold among the weeds" even in those less well-drafted sections.

[David Bruyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the first three chapters accessible enough, but the picture become much fuzzier as the chapters went on. Still, rare and helpful to hear a modern philosopher speak on beauty, goodness and truth.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read in a while!

Incredible work showing how love and beauty are at the foundation of everything.

[Daniel Massett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, short book with clear and deep explanations of the transcendentals (beauty, goodness, and truth) and how philosophy abandoned these ideas and the consequences that necessarily follow.

While it is an introduction to these transcendentals, it is also very deep and often complex--definitely written on the slightly more academic side of the pop to academic spectrum, but this is merely a function of the topic itself. The transcendentals are part of being itself, and developing a friendship with knowledge of being is at the heart of philosophy, as Schindler argues well at the end. Ultimately, the study of philosophy leads to a genuine poorness of spirit, the startling claim of Socrates that "All I know is that I know nothing." Read a little and you'll think you know it all; read and live a lot and you'll realize how little you know and how wonderful being truly is.

A great book.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read about half of the book. Very great, detailed look into the neo-Platonic, Christological view of goodness, beauty and truth. I will definitely have to revisit this one.

[Aimee Byrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely one to reread.