What do you think?
Rate this book
Integralism and the Common Good: Selected Essays from The Josias
Wisdom, in the full sense, is a matter of knowing something that is not subject to political deliberation, that is, the First Principle and Last End of all things. It includes understanding the order of all things from that Principle and to that End—an order that we, as human beings, ought to reflect and embody in our own actions and in our common life in society. The political implications of this truth have been obscured in the modern era by the errors of liberalism, which, granting human reason a false supremacy, makes of man’s own deliberation the only measure of the good, even its originator. The result is that every society comes to be seen and treated as a conventional, contractual, artificial, collective egoism.
The authors whose writings appear in this volume—most of them first published at The Josias—share the conviction that there is urgent need to combat the errors of liberalism, both in the world and in the Catholic Church itself—for men cannot be truly happy unless their lives are integrated into the greater order that emanates from God. To overcome modern errors, a “broadening of reason” is necessary: we must draw upon the deepest sources of philosophical and theological wisdom, upon the deepest insights of human reason reflecting on the whole breadth of human experience, and upon the supernatural light of Divine Revelation.
This first volume of essays treats the main questions of practical philosophy: the principles of human action and the common goods of natural human communities, ranging from the smallest and most fundamental (the household) to the greatest and most encompassing (the political community). The second volume will be devoted to the relations of those natural communities to the supernatural Kingdom established by Christ.
The authors whose writings appear in this volume—most of them first published at The Josias—share the conviction that there is urgent need to combat the errors of liberalism, both in the world and in the Catholic Church itself—for men cannot be truly happy unless their lives are integrated into the greater order that emanates from God. To overcome modern errors, a “broadening of reason” is necessary: we must draw upon the deepest sources of philosophical and theological wisdom, upon the deepest insights of human reason reflecting on the whole breadth of human experience, and upon the supernatural light of Divine Revelation.
This first volume of essays treats the main questions of practical philosophy: the principles of human action and the common goods of natural human communities, ranging from the smallest and most fundamental (the household) to the greatest and most encompassing (the political community). The second volume will be devoted to the relations of those natural communities to the supernatural Kingdom established by Christ.
- GenresPhilosophy
344 pages, Paperback
Published November 22, 2021
48 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 21, 2023
I'm glad I read this. I've enjoyed The Josias website and the podcast for some time. There's a lot of cross-pollination between The Josias, CompactMag, and the Postliberal Order Substack, all hammering out notions of the common good. This book is a collection of essays, all of which, bedsides a few, were originally published on The Josias website. Some of the essays are a bit dry. Because I'm not a scholar nor either a particularly close reader of the classics, the essays that aren't geared at examining the present political moment weren't as of much interest to me as those that did.
All the writers here, as I far as I can see, are devout Catholics, so their prescriptions of how to achieve the common good is understood through Plato, Aristotle (the common good, understood as hapiness being the the ultimate goal of humans), through Augustine and other Church Fathers, and St. Thomas. All of this philosophy is informed by Christ and the Gospels and the structuring of life by true religion.
I don't take notes when I read books, so when the book is completed I'm left with general "feelings" and "thoughts," none of which are particularly sharp, nor do they translate particularly well for these "reviews." I began a journey many years ago for personal reasons of trying to develop a relationship with a God of my understanding (if you recognize that terminology you know where I've been). Anyway, years of vague-ish praying have finally brought me to a more focused attention to Christianity and specifically Catholicism in the last couple of years.
I'm groping for specific ideas about how to live my life, how to relate to my family, how to get closer to God, how to make sense of the world, and some of the books I read provide a little of that here and there, and then it's on to something else. I guess the truth of the matter is this book didn't blow me away. A few of the essays had sparkingling parts, but as a whole I wasn't blown away, nor particularly edified.
One thing is true, however; our society is profoundly disordered. Awash in ideology, it's hard to see what's what and how awash it is. In my own life, there have been different times where I feel I've seen through the screen of consumerism, commodification, hyper-sexualization, exploitation, alienation, and atomization that makes up our daily lives (to a large extent), only to seemingly go back into the ideological dream for years on end. The ordering that comes through the Catholic Church is correct. The Magisterium's explanations are accurate and the solutions are sound. To what extent will any of those teaching be actualized in our society? In our lifetimes? Who knows?
All the writers here, as I far as I can see, are devout Catholics, so their prescriptions of how to achieve the common good is understood through Plato, Aristotle (the common good, understood as hapiness being the the ultimate goal of humans), through Augustine and other Church Fathers, and St. Thomas. All of this philosophy is informed by Christ and the Gospels and the structuring of life by true religion.
I don't take notes when I read books, so when the book is completed I'm left with general "feelings" and "thoughts," none of which are particularly sharp, nor do they translate particularly well for these "reviews." I began a journey many years ago for personal reasons of trying to develop a relationship with a God of my understanding (if you recognize that terminology you know where I've been). Anyway, years of vague-ish praying have finally brought me to a more focused attention to Christianity and specifically Catholicism in the last couple of years.
I'm groping for specific ideas about how to live my life, how to relate to my family, how to get closer to God, how to make sense of the world, and some of the books I read provide a little of that here and there, and then it's on to something else. I guess the truth of the matter is this book didn't blow me away. A few of the essays had sparkingling parts, but as a whole I wasn't blown away, nor particularly edified.
One thing is true, however; our society is profoundly disordered. Awash in ideology, it's hard to see what's what and how awash it is. In my own life, there have been different times where I feel I've seen through the screen of consumerism, commodification, hyper-sexualization, exploitation, alienation, and atomization that makes up our daily lives (to a large extent), only to seemingly go back into the ideological dream for years on end. The ordering that comes through the Catholic Church is correct. The Magisterium's explanations are accurate and the solutions are sound. To what extent will any of those teaching be actualized in our society? In our lifetimes? Who knows?
Displaying 1 of 1 review