Welcome

This is a blog dedicated to all the lovers of wisdom (and of Chivas Regal).

Wisdom is the ultimate perfection of the intellect, which is a faculty characteristic of man alone among animals (nota bene: we do not consider, as of yet, the question of other intelligences, such as angels or extraterrestrials, but we will address this in the future). Given that the intellect is the highest of human faculties, since the objects that come under its inspection are eternal, incorruptible, and universal, so is wisdom the highest and most complete of human virtues. Now, if human happiness is, indeed, as the Philosopher, Aristotle, says in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, to live in accordance with the most complete of our characteristic virtues, then happiness is only achieved through possessing wisdom. It is especially through the intellect that man knows the order of things; for whereas the senses deal with particulars, it is proper that the intellect know universals, and, in so abstracting, that it be able to understand the order of one thing to another. It is for this reason that the Philosopher said in the first book of the Metaphysics that it is the mark of the wise man to order (or, as is widely cited from the Latin Moerbeke translation, sapientis est ordinare), wherefore this blog is thus titled.

Wisdom being, thus, fundamental to human happiness, the man who loves and seeks wisdom is also the man who has the best chance of attaining happiness. This man is most truly and appropriately called a philosopher, and what he practices, philosophy. Here it should be noted that, though there are some today who give themselves the title of "philosopher" simply because they seek to clarify what most men already know and take for granted from experience, their program differs immensely from that of the philosopher in the primary sense of the word. The philosopher in this sense is above all else a lover of wisdom, as the Greek φιλόσοφος indicates; he strives to perfect the intellect to the highest, by trying to understand the order of everything that is. This is certainly not the enterprise of the "philosopher" in the modern, soloepcistic sense of the word, who, even if he were to attempt anything of the kind, would only do it incidentally, not truly as the substance of his "philosophic" project. This here blog is a response to how the men of this sort construe philosophy; it seeks to return to the tradition of a systematic understanding of the order of everything that is, for the express purpose of helping those who want to attain wisdom and happiness.

Now, as wisdom transcends national boundaries, so will this blog transcend linguistic ones; though most of the texts published herein are in the current lingua franca -- or, more appropriately, lingua anglica -- there will also be articles in Portuguese, Italian and Latin, as strikes our fancy, or proves necessary.

It may be noted that we often cite a few authorities by name and work. This is not in an endeavor to make this blog any the less philosophic, as it is unfitting that philosophy should proceed not by argument but by an appeal to authority; we do this, rather, that it may spare us the task of uselessly recapitulating all the work already achieved by many of the "greats" of the field. Among these we class especially: Aristotle, whom we often call, as he deserves and the tradition instructs us to do, the Philosopher; Saint Thomas Aquinas, the ablest of commentators and expositors of Aristotle, who was also an immensely original philosopher in his own right, serenely inspired by intelligences higher than ours, whence his epithet, the Angelic Doctor; and others, ancient, mediaeval and modern, discriminated not based on the times in which they wrote, but instead on the substance of their contributions to a systematic understanding of the order of the everything that is.

Finally, it must be noted that we write guided by the convictions of the Faith (i.e. the Catholic faith), but buttressed by the strength of reason. As a disclaimer, we do not, as Anselm says in the Proslogium, seek to understand the world that we may more easily adhere to the Faith, that is, that we may believe in its tenets; rather, we first adhere to the Faith, so that we may, only after, understand (or, to paraphrase Anselm, credimus ut intelligamus). This disclaimer is, at the same time, an appeal to the Holy Ghost, that He may illumine our enterprise to understand the order of things as sprung through, with, and in, the Word.