The Nature of Political Philosophy

"Throughout the book one cannot help but be aware that one is experiencing the privilege of listening in on the thoughts of a lively and capacious mind looking back on a lifetime of contemplation of God, the soul, and political life. Schall writes with lucidity, great intelligence, and that seemingly effortless erudition which is often attempted but rarely achieved."

~J. Budziszewski, University of Texas at Austin

"These essays by Father Schall shed light on current controversies in our culture and political life. They clarify what is going on in ‘the modern project,’ the ideological attempt to replace natural law and the truth of things with human constructions. Schall uses aristotelian political philosophy to counter this project, and shows how Christian revelation does not cancel such philosophy but reinforces it. Faith confirms and expands human reason. He also shows how both ethics and the philosophy of human being require political philosophy for their completion, but political philosophy in turn is not the highest form of thinking. It needs to be completed by the philosophy of being. Most of the papers were written in the past decade, but the culminating essay, on Martin Luther’s influence on modernity, dates from four decades ago."

~Robert S. Sokolowski, The Catholic University of America

"Georgetown University graduates once claimed to have ‘majored in Schall.’ Those fortunate souls will now be joined by a wider audience: one that can read, mark, and inwardly digest the penetrating thinking of a captivating human spirit and scintillating political philosopher who was also a holy priest and precisely the kind of Jesuit that St. Ignatius of Loyola had in mind."

~George Weigel, Ethics and Public Policy Center

"This new collection of Schall’s work, outlined and prepared for publication by the author himself before his death, includes fourteen learned essays and four commentaries that are at once scholarly and accessible. The book aims to explore the relationship between political philosophy, philosophy and metaphysics, and revealed truth in a way that does justice to them all—in their relative autonomy and necessary complementarity, interpenetration, and hierarchy."

~Modern Age

"The unifying essence of this volume is an assurance that this is not a collection of disparate and occasional writings, though Fr. Schall must certainly rank among the greatest of contemporary Catholic writers of occasional essays. This volume collects essays where Schall has reflected on questions of political philosophy that were at the very heart of his vocation as a Catholic teacher."

~University Bookman