One unicorn is just, well, one unicorn. Gather a herd together, and they form a Blessing of Unicorns upon your weekend! This week, meet the Platonists of Illinois and the Hegelians of St. Louis, Prickly Porcupine on Natural Law, Inklings on the move, child care policy, Pindar, and more.
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Joseph M. Keegin for Aeon: âPhilosophy of the People: How two amateur schools pulled a generation of thinkers from the workers and teachers of the 19th-century American Midwest.â A taste from this truly fascinating piece:
What is the future of philosophy in the United States? This question weighs heavily on teachers and scholars as philosophy departments around the country â at schools rich and poor, large and small â blink out of existence. Some are eliminated as part of an institution-wide downsizing effort, as operating budgets and endowments contract; others are simply pillaged for resources to give to other programs that more readily display the one virtue recognised by administrators: âimpactâ.
The history of philosophical study in the US offers some insight into what this great change might look like. In the mid-19th-century US Midwest, two schools of philosophy appeared whose rivalry and work would shape a century of how philosophy was learned and studied, and not just in the US.
The Platonists of Illinois were centred around Hiram Kinnaird Jones of Jacksonville. The Hegelians of the St Louis Philosophical Society, meanwhile, were led by Heinrich Conrad (âHenry Clayâ) Brokmeyer and William Torrey Harris. These were movements of amateurs in the fullest and best sense: their ranks were composed of non-professional students of philosophy â lawyers, doctors, schoolteachers, factory workers and housewives â motivated by personal edification and the earnest pursuit of truth rather than professional achievement or status-acquisition. They conducted their activity against the backdrop of a country reeling from a bloody civil war, tenuously unified and engaged in an energetic campaign of westward expansion and industrialisation. The very intelligibility of their world had been thrown into question, and these readers and thinkers on the prairie found help in the great minds of the past. âThe time,â writes Denton J Snider, a member of the St Louis circle, âwas calling loudly for First Principlesâ â and, for their readers, Plato and Hegel offered paths toward them.
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Dixie Dillon Lane reviews David Lyle Jeffreyâs Tales from Limerick Forest for Front Porch Republic. A taste:
But thereâs also something particular, something a little more unusual, about David Lyle Jeffreyâs tales of the animals of this particular forest. While many of the storiesâ elements point toward ordinary Christian morals or just little bits of fun, much like many popular but perhaps not very remarkable Christian childrenâs stories, the most interesting thing about Limerick Forest is that its animals are concerned with identifying principles of natural law. This clever conceit is the real heart of the book: the stories are meant to amuse and delight, of course, but the book also means to introduce readers to natural law, providing new parables through which children and adults can contemplate connections between the natural world and moral behavior.
For there are rules in Limerick Forest, and the animals there conclude that codifying these rules into laws is necessary in order to protect the weak without weakening the strong. Some of these laws are simple: as Charlie the chipmunk learns, for example, the first rule of the forest is to always do what your mother says (or you might lose your pants to a bird of preyâor worse, be eaten). This establishes the idea of a natural hierarchy of authority that, of course, parallels real-world parental authority. This particular story reminds me of Beatrix Potterâs tales, in particular The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit, whose protagonistâs tail gets shot off because heâs mean to a good, obedient bunny, or the better-known Tale of Peter Rabbit, in which Peterâs disobedience to his mother almost gets him caught and baked into a pie.
But some rules are more challenging for the animals to figure out. After a wolf attacks a fawn and the fawnâs father fights him off, for example, the animals gather to discuss: Is it acceptable to eat babies? The heron argues that it is, as he relies on minnows for much of his nutrition. But the fawn, naturally, does not want to be eatenânor do the other herbivores, nor the smaller creatures generally. Yet these do have to accept that carnivores must eat meat in order to survive. But must they eat babies? A careful discussion ensues, with an eventual appeal to the owls of the local legal firm, Binthar and Dunnit.
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Lee Oserâs double review for Law & Liberty of two new books on Lewis and Tolkien is just⌠epic! A taste:
The two books are Tolkienâs Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway and C. S. Lewisâs Oxford by Simon Horobin. These authors differ considerably in their outlooks and their aims. What unites them is the high quality of their scholarship.
Ordway examines Tolkienâs life as a Roman Catholic, so zealously that at times the book feels like an account of Roman Catholicism for which Tolkien is the vehicle. Yet Catholicism played a central part in Tolkienâs life, and Ordway enriches the great manâs story with a wealth of valuable detail. Many know that Tolkien triumphed over a mind-boggling amount of suffering. The chapters of his life ring out like an epic catalog: the sad arc from South Africa to Birmingham, with his fatherâs death defining Tolkienâs early childhood; his motherâs conversion to the Church of Rome; her diabetic martyrdom in isolation from her Protestant family; the saving intervention of the Orations and the charismatic stamp left on them by two saints, Philip Neri and John Henry Newman; the Oxford degree in English Language and Literature; the delayed marriage to Edith Bratt; the Front Line and trench fever; the academic rise; the growing family; C. S. Lewis and the Inklings; the creation of Middle-earth: here we find the facts and circumstances laid out in a fresh light, bound together by a sympathetic narrative, and enhanced by a sumptuous photo gallery.
I should note that we have a review of Simon Horobinâs book coming at Current later this fall.
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Charlie Camosy in The Atlantic: âPro-Life Voters Are Politically Homeless.â A taste:
But weâre a constituency without a political home. As a pro-life academic and activist who has worked on these issues for three decades, I find neither major-party candidate in this presidential election acceptable. The Republican Party has rejected our point of view. Democrats are running a candidate who has made abortion rights a centerpiece of her campaign, and whose stance on the issue would make most of the rest of the world blush. Pro-lifersâthose who believe that protecting vulnerable and unborn life should be a primary policy priorityânow do not fit in either major political party. And this is good, actually.
Former President Donald Trump no longer has a convincing case for why pro-lifers should vote for him. Roe has fallen. What else could pro-life voters gain by continuing to support the GOP? This time around, weâve been given no list of friendly judges to be nominated, no support from the Republican convention, only a platform process (apparently led by Trump himself) that marginalized pro-lifers and rammed through language that did not condemn the overwhelming majority of abortions. Trump also recently posted on Truth Social that his administration would be âgreat for women and their reproductive rightsâ and said that he does not support the six-week abortion ban in his home state of Florida.
This is bad enough to cause a huge rift, but most pro-lifers do not care about abortion alone. Many have views on nonviolence and protection of the vulnerable that lead them to also care about, for instance, issues such as physician-assisted suicide. The 2016 GOP platform said, âWe oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide,â yet the 2024 GOP platform does not. Recent reporting on Trumpâs views on these matters may shed some light on the change: In a new book, his nephew claims Trump suggested that disabled people (including his nephewâs son) should be euthanized. âThe shape theyâre in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die,â he reportedly said.
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Ivana Greco in Newsweek: “Child Care Policy Shouldn’t Forget Stay-At-Home Parents.” A taste:
Parents are desperately looking for support, and regardless of who wins the presidential race, it appears some measure of relief is coming. Yet most national conversations about parental support leave out one critical group: stay-at-home moms and dads. This is a serious failure. Policymakers should know that the “Real Housewives and Househusbands” of America look little like Instagram influencers or so-called “tradwives.” Indeed, there should be a bipartisan consensus that as policymakers consider how to support America’s families, any solutions should include the moms and dads “on the home front” who provide full-time care to their kids.
Stay-at-home parents provide a significant percentage of America’s child care. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2019, 41 percent of our children five and under (not yet in kindergarten) were primarily cared for at home by a parent, rising to 58 percent for babies under one year old. Surveys show that the most popular choice for families with children is caring for young kids at home.
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Beatrice Scudeler brings some eighteenth-century backup to tackle the “tradwives” in this week’s Fairer Disputations, and the result is EVERYTHING.
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Sarah Reardon in The National Review: an excellent explanation of the best that Classical Christian education can offer, and why leaving out the âChristianâ part out of Classical education results in something that decidedly cannot deliver the same goods.
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Last but not least, Victoria Moulâs poem âPindar in the Nurseryâ in New Verse Review combines Pindar and teething baby. The result is an absolute delight.
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I’m excited to spend a part of this coming week speaking about Cultural Christians in the Early Church to the fine folk at Asbury University and at the Lewis House. If you’re in that part of Kentucky, see you there!