A cosmopolitan hermit: modernity and tradition in the philosophy of Josef Pieper

1. A Cosmopolitan Hermit: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Josef Pieper

1 1 A Cosmopolitan Hermit An Introduction to the Philosophy of Josef Pieper Bernard N. Schumacher Translated by Michael J. Miller The German philosopher Josef Pieper (1904–1997) continues to provoke among his contemporaries constructive, critical, and especially fruitful discussion on anthropological and ethical questions. He does this by formulating a defense of culture, which he contrasts with a pragmatic way of thinking that reduces the person to a specific role and function, to proletarian status. His thought is expressed in a lively style unfettered by any jargon or technical terminology—in contrast with much scholarly writing coming out of today’s universities . Such a use of language accompanied by the originality of his thought earned him the praises of the famous British writer Clive Staples Lewis, among others, as well as the celebrated Balzan Prize in the year 1982.1 Married in 1935 and the father of three children, o 1. See Josef Pieper, Eine Geschichte wie ein Strahl, 639–40. 2 Bernard N. Schumacher this “cosmopolitan hermit”2 published more than seventy works, which to date have been translated into sixteen languages, and he gave innumerable conferences. He refused several chairs (University of Notre Dame [1950], University of Mainz [1954], University of München [1958]) because he preferred to remain at Münster, where his courses knew great success (and provoked thereby the envy of some of his colleagues). Pieper’s original thought draws from both the Greek and the Christian traditions and enters into permanent discussion with his contemporaries, as Berthold Wald discussed in his contribution in this volume. Josef Pieper was interested in the great philosophers of the Western tradition, not because they are representatives of a golden age of philosophy, but because they can help contemporary man to find answers to the fundamental questions that he asks himself . Pieper subscribes to the view of Bernard of Chartres, who remarked that we are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants in order to see further than they did, that is, to investigate more deeply the mystery of being. The philosopher of Münster denounced the stance of some of our contemporaries who refuse to let themselves be carried by these giants of human thought.3 Such an attitude is summarized by Etienne Gilson when he writes, “Many of our contemporaries prefer to remain on the ground; they put their pride in seeing nothing at all unless they can see it by their own efforts, and console themselves for their petty stature [by assuring one another that they are better]. It is a sad old age that loses all its memories.”4 Pieper’s interest in the ancient philosophers is, 2. Fernando Inciarte described Pieper in these terms in May of 1984, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. See Josef Pieper, “Gottgeschickte Entrückung, Eine Platon-Interpretation,” 147. 3. In the foreword to his Other Minds: Critical Essays 1969–1994 for example, Thomas Nagel points (p.10) to what he deems to be a lack of originality and/or of argumentative proof in most philosophical works of the past as a pretext for his claim that it is unnecessary to study them or else not worth the trouble. 4. English translation cited, with one revision, from Etienne Gilson, The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, 425–26 [402]. A Cosmopolitan Hermit 3 by contrast, motivated by the truth of their thought. Don’t worry about Socrates,5 but rather worry first and foremost about truth. The watchword that accompanies him throughout his whole life can be summarized in one sentence: “I do not want to know ‘what others thought,’ but ‘what is the truth of things.’   ”6 He is vehemently opposed to what Lewis describes as “the historical point of view.”7 This consists of being primarily concerned with analyzing the sources on which a thinker relied, the context within which his ideas emerged, and the coherence of his thought over the course of his career, while prescinding from the question about the truth of his thought. Pieper, for his part, incessantly maintained, especially after the end of World War II, that to abandon the pursuit of truth for its own sake in favor of the relativist, historicist option, in which all positions are equally valid, is to run the risk of reducing reason to a simple instrumental activity that deals exclusively with “particular and regional problems, and sometimes even purely formal questions.”8 The philosopher...