Josef Pieper Libros

Delivers a stimulating quartet of essays on the four cardinal virtues. Josef Pieper demonstrates the unsound overvaluation of moderation that has made contemporary morality a hollow convention and points out the true significance of the Christian virtues.

"The ultimate of human happiness is to be found in contemplation". In offering this proposition of Thomas Aquinas to our thought, Josef Pieper uses traditional wisdom in order to throw light on present-day reality and present-day psychological problems. What, in fact, does one pursue in pursuing happiness? What, in the consensus of the wisdom of the early Greeks, of Plato and Aristotle, of the New Testament, of Augustine and Aquinas, is that condition of perfect bliss toward which all life and effort tend by nature? In this profound and illuminating inquiry, Pieper considers the nature of contemplation, and the meaning and goal of life.

One of the most important philosophy titles published in the twentieth century, Joseph Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture is more significant, even more crucial than it was when it first appeared fifty years ago. Pieper shows that Greeks understood and valued leisure, as did the medieval Europeans. He points out that religion can be born only in leisure. Leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. He maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our cultureCand ourselves. These astonishing essays contradict all our pragmatic and puritanical conceptions about labor and leisure; Joseph Pieper demolishes the twentieth-century cult of Awork as he predicts its destructive consequences.

"Pieper [attempts to] show how death must be seen as an experience of the whole man and is properly to be understood as punishment.' When he views man's pilgrim status on earth, Pieper is led to assert that death is an act of human freedom, consistent with Creation and redemption. . . . With his rare gift of high-level popularization, Pieper brings a critical mind and an in-depth acquaintance with the scholastic tradition to bear on contemporary thought and experience. . . . [This] volume deserves a place on any bookshelf devoted to Christian philosophy." Library Journal "Dr. Pieper very subtly and usefully stresses the character of dying as act and choice, leading us up very gently to the shocking old notion that it might also constitute a well-deserved punishment." Times Literary Supplement

The autobiographical writings of a modern Christian philosopher reflect his unwavering dedication to truth amidst the turmoil of two World Wars and the Catholic Church's changes during Vatican II. He critiques the dilution of sacred meanings in liturgical practices, advocating for a philosophy that emphasizes living truth existentially. Influenced by Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas, he navigates the tension between philosophy and theology, asserting that while divine understanding requires faith, the quest for truth is an inner journey fraught with mystery, particularly regarding the afterlife.

Každý člověk touží po štěstí, zakouší ve svém nitru žízeň, která volá po utišení. Touha po štěstí je člověku přirozená, vychází z nejvnitřnějšího jádra lidské bytosti, kam byla vepsána už při stvoření. A tato touha musí nakonec dojít naplnění, má-li mít lidský život vůbec nějaký smysl. Kdyby neexistovala naděje na utišení, byl by člověk odsouzen k zoufalství. Lidskou touhu po štěstí ovšem nemůže utišit nic stvořeného. I kdyby člověk získal celý svět, nenasytí se, nepřestane prahnout po něčem víc. Onu nejhlubší žízeň může utišit jedině „dobro v úplnosti“, Bůh sám. Znamená to tedy, že štěstí nám bude dopřáno až na věčnosti? Nikoli. Už zde můžeme okoušet předchuť věčného štěstí, v milujícím patření, v pozemské kontemplaci. Ta není vyhrazena pouze mystikům či světcům, ale každému, kdo se dokáže zastavit, ztišit, žasnout a s láskou pohlížet i na ty nejnepatrnější věci.