The American Proposition: An Ontological-Theological Inquiry

This course reflects on what may be termed America’s vision of reality, as expressed in its “way of life”: the “logic” of its institutions and patterns of thinking and acting. An abiding question is whether, or in what sense, we can rightly identify a unity of vision within America’s characteristic claim of pluralism. The reflection will be carried out in dialogue with the “classical” vision found especially in the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas: regarding the intrinsic truth, goodness, and beauty of things (the “transcendentals”), in relation to the first and final cause/end of things (God). The course will ponder the meaning of America as set forth in the classic study of Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; and as recently articulated and defended in political-philosophical terms in Robert Reilly’s America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding. Readings from these books will be engaged against the backdrop of America’s founding documents and in light of the metaphysics of St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae, I, De Veritate, and the collection of texts gathered by Thomas F. Anderson, An Introduction to the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas). We will also read D.C. Schindler’s Love and the Postmodern Predicament: Rediscovering the Real in Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. The purpose of the course is to understand America’s vision of reality vis-à-vis that of the classical-Catholic tradition.