[Alamo-Girl]

Much of this boils down to the meaning of the word realism. In classical philosophy, the real is what lies behind the phenomena. In modernist philosopy, the real is the material. But modernist philosophy is incapable of sustaining that argument, and degenerates into scholastic specialization that has made most academic philosophy departments completely irrelevant to the real world.

Oh, is betty boop ever going to love your post!

We have shaken down this very misunderstanding of the term "realism" on a previous thread. And it is an important one, because if the correspondent can get Plato off the table, he can fabricate his own "reality" to justify himself (at least in his own mind LOL!)

Thank you too for all the great reading suggestions - which I'm sure betty boop will also be interesting in reading.

You might be interested in knowing that she and I have just completed a book of our own addressing these very issues.

[Cicero]

Thanks, Alamo-Girl. I should have addressed my earlier posts to all of you.

I'm fascinated to learn about the projected book. I happen to be in the field of English literature, and have touched on these matters in some of my books, but have not had formal training in philosophy, which is probably just as well, all things considered. There aren't too many places that teach it properly.

But I was fortunate enough to have had a course at Harvard that let Plato and Aristotle speak for themselves, and another course that let the medieval philosophers speak for themselves. The latter was taught by Henry Osborne Taylor, a proper New England WASP who nevertheless had a real sympathy for Catholic medieval thought and civilization, and recognized that civilization was transmitted and rebuilt by heroes like Gregory the Great, Boniface, and Thomas Aquinas. That put me onto further reading on my own.

[betty boop]

Oh, is betty boop ever going to love your post!

Oh, is that ever a fact, Alamo-Girl! I simply loved this observation:

Much of this boils down to the meaning of the word realism. In classical philosophy, the real is what lies behind the phenomena. In modernist philosopy, the real is the material. But modernist philosophy is incapable of sustaining that argument, and degenerates into scholastic specialization that has made most academic philosophy departments completely irrelevant to the real world.

Amen to that, Cicero!!! Kudos!

Plus I'm grateful to you Cicero for the book recommendations. I've read A. MacIntyre's After Virtue, an excellent work. Seems the others you name are "must-haves," as well!

Cicero, please keep me on your ping list for whenever you ping.

Thank you all, Alamo-Girl, Cicero, cornelis, for this fascinating discussion!