Finding a Reasonable Foundation for Peace

• Authors: Roberta Bayer
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Can world peace come about through a world federation of governments? Is growing agreement and appreciation for, throughout the world, the doctrine of equal human rights inevitable? Such questions are raised by Mortimer Adler in How to Think about War and Peace. Adler argues in this book that both are possible, and in doing so he argues that the insights of liberal contract thinkers, particularly Immanuel Kant, are essentially true. Kant argues that each person has the capacity to discover within himself the foundation for human rights because they are self-evident. It follows that over time inequalities and prejudices will disappear, and people will gain the freedom to advance the cause of peace. About this account of the possibility of world peace I ask the question: is it indeed reasonable? For if it is reasonable, it is not reasonable for the reasons that would have been advanced by Aristotle or Plato or their medieval followers. In older political philosophy it is agreement about the unchanging truth of things that can bring peace. To seek the unchanging truth of things, philosophical speculation about God and things divine, is the highest human activity. It is that end to which life in this world is directed, and upon which human flourishing depends. Freedom depends upon our openness to unchanging eternal truth, even more than self-evident rights; the exercise of speculative reasoning allows for political discourse and an open society.

Keywords

EN

Dante Alighieri; Mortimer Adler; peace; ancient; medieval; Divine Comedy; Monarchy; De Monarchia; Plato; Aristotle; Thomas Aquinas; right; rights; education; reason; metaphysics; freedom; liberty; politics

• Publisher: International Étienne Gilson Society
• Journal: Studia Gilsoniana
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 7-30

Dates

published

2017-03-30

Contributors

author

Roberta Bayer

• Patrick Henry College, Purcellville, VA, USA

References

• Adler, Mortimer J. How to Think About War and Peace. New York: Fordham University Press, 1977.
• Adler, Mortimer J. The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical, Moral, Objective, Categorical. New York, NY: Collier Books, 1993.
• Alighieri, Dante. Monarchy, ed. Prue Shaw. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Alighieri, Dante. The Convivio of Dante Alighieri. London: J. M. Dent and co., 1903.
• Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy, Part 3: “Paradise,” trans. Dorothy L. Sayers. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1962.
• Gilson, Étienne, The Unity of Philosophical Experience. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, repr. 1965 of original 1937 Charles Scribner’s Sons publication.
• Grant, George Parkin. English-Speaking Justice. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974.
• Grant, George Parkin. Technology and Justice. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986.
• Horkheimer, Max. Eclipse of Reason. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.
• Kedourie, Elie. Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.
• Lewis, Clive S. The Discarded Image. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1964.
• Plato. Gorgias, trans. D. Zehl. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1987.
• Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.
• Thomas Aquinas, St. Commentary on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, trans. C. I. Litzinger, O. P. Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993.
• Thomas Aquinas, St. Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1947.
• Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952.

Identifiers

ISSN

2300-0066