The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition“For those for whom conservatism means something more than anti-liberalism . . . who wish to dive deep into the conservative tradition in search of pearls” (The American Conservative). Ours is an age full of desires but impoverished in its understanding of where those desires lead—an age that asserts mastery over the world but also claims to find the world as a whole absurd or unintelligible. In The Vision of the Soul, James Matthew Wilson seeks to conserve the great insights of the western tradition by giving us a new account of them responsive to modern discontents. The western- or Christian Platonist–tradition, he argues, tells us that man is an intellectual animal, born to pursue the good, to know the true, and to contemplate all things in beauty. By turns a study in fundamental ontology, aesthetics, and political philosophy, Wilson’s book invites its readers to a renewal of the West’s intellectual tradition. “Conservatism needs a new prophet. James Matthew Wilson is the man for the job, and The Vision of the Soul is his calling card . . . A new classic. For it we give thanks to God, and to Plato.” —Covenant “James Wilson’s important book returns to a conservatism in the tradition of Burke, Eliot, and Russell Kirk. . . . He wants us to focus on beauty and its place in Western culture. The book is a strong defense of that culture, but not an unthinking one.” —Crisis Magazine “A stirring and timely account and defense of the West’s traditional way of understanding the universe and our place in it.” —Matthew M. Robare, The Kirk Center |
Contents
Two What Is the Western Tradition? | |
Three We Must Retranslate Kalon | |
Conservatism as Literary Movement | |
Five What Dante Means to | |
Six Only What Does Not Fit into This World Is True | |
Seven ReReading the Book of Nature | |
Eight Art as Intellectual Virtue | |
Nine Beauty as a Transcendental | |
Ten The Need for Proportion | |
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abstract Adorno Aesthetic Theory appear argued argument Aristotle Art and Scholasticism artist artwork Augustine become believe Burke Burke’s Christian Platonist tradition claims conception conservatism conservative contemplation contemporary critical Critique Critique of Judgment culture Dante Descartes desire discussion divine encounter eternal Ethics Euthyphro experience Frontiers of Poetry happiness historical human ideas images imagination insight insofar intelligible Jacques Maritain Kant Kirk knowledge liberal literary lives means metaphysics mind modern modernist moral myth mythos and logos narrative nature Nicomachean Ethics novel one’s ontological particular perceive perception persons Phaedrus philosopher Plato Plotinus poem poet poetic political principle proportion rational reality reason relation Russell Kirk Schindler seek sense society Socrates soul speak specifically spiritual splendor story story-telling Summa Theologica Symposium T. S. Eliot tell things Thomas Aquinas thought trans transcendental transcends true truth understand University Press virtue W. B. Yeats writing Yvor Winters