Living the Truth

by Josef Pieper, Stella Lange (Translator), Lothar Krauth (Translator)

Living the Truth includes two other Pieper Truth of All Things and Reality and the Good.

This volume presents illuminating treatises of Josef Pieper on Thomistic anthropology and on the principles of right human behavior based on anthropology.

With his customary lucidity, Pieper shows how all reality is positioned between the mind of God and the mind of man and is the basis for both man's unquenchable yearning and the measure of all man's knowledge. He then develops the Thomistic position that reality is also the basis for the good and therefore the norm of conscience and ethical action. As Pieper himself expresses in part of the thesis of the second treatise, "An insight into the nature of the good as rooted in objective being, of itself compels us to carry it out in a definite human attitude, and it makes certain attitudes impossible."

Josef Pieper was schooled in the Greek classics and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. He also studied philosophy, law and sociology, and has been a professor at the University of Munster, Germany. His books have been widely praised by both the secular and religious press.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1989

About the author

Josef Pieper was a German Catholic philosopher and an important figure in the resurgence of interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas in early-to-mid 20th-century philosophy. Among his most notable works are The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance; Leisure, the Basis of Culture; and Guide to Thomas Aquinas (published in England as Introduction to Thomas Aquinas).

Reviews

[Conor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book. This book explores the true nature of reality and our duty to respond and conform ourselves to that reality. Clear, beautiful, and well-reasoned.

[Tom Willis]

This book contains two essays by Josef Pieper, and I only read the first one, The Truth of All Things: An Inquiry into the Anthropology of the High Middle Ages. This essay discusses the concept of the "truth of all things" or the ontological principle in the history of philosophy. It was interesting to see how the German Enlightenment philosophers received only a bastardized version of Thomistic philosophy, which they then rejected without ever engaging the authentic teaching.

Anyway interesting essay. Very dense, of course. I had to read most paragraphs twice to really understand what Prof. Pieper was saying.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is philosophy as I enjoy it! It is clear on a complicated topic, and the moment you think the author cannot go deeper, he dives in. I had no idea that the idea that "truth equals being" has so deep ramifications, and how Pieper draws the discussion of it out from the writings of Aquinas and shows how this idea has not been understood in time. And, even if Pieper does philosophy as a master, the theology is there in the background being proven to fit together within the pieces.

[Zeke Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title “Living the Truth” made me think it would touch heavily on the human existential reality of “living the truth”, but this book stays in accordance with Pieper’s general way of approaching things, as a gentle explicator of Aquinas-centric ideas. This particular book is the most difficult read of my experience with Pieper.