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Philosophia perennis

2026-11-05T07:40:49.866+09:00

Philosophia perennis

Listening to Reality: On the Idea of the “Perennial Philosophy”

Daniel Zöllner (Baden-Württemberg)

https://europa-aeterna.org/2026/10/05/hoeren-auf-die-wirklichkeit-zur-idee-der-ewigen-philosophie/

Medieval stone archive with scrolls beside a modern laboratory with glass walls and equipment.

Realism and the order of being versus constructivism and nominalism; truth as correspondence versus criticism and perspectivism; meaningfulness and entelechy versus mechanism and functionalism; embeddedness and essential nature versus autonomy and self-creation; the common good and natural law versus procedural ethics and positivism — the contrast between a traditional and a modern understanding of the world.

If philosophy exhausts itself in ever-new, mutually contradictory constructions of autonomous systems, there is no hope of recognizing and retaining, through philosophical inquiry, a stable body of eternally valid truths. In the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787), Kant described metaphysics as a “battleground”:

“On which no combatant has ever yet been able to gain the smallest territory and establish a lasting possession through his victory.” (B XV)

The situation is different when philosophizing means taking objective reality as one’s measure, listening attentively to that reality, and allowing oneself to be guided by it. In that case, philosophical inquiry has a direction and a point of reference, and a philosophy is true when it succeeds in corresponding to objective reality as extensively and completely as possible.

The first conception of philosophy — namely, that it consists in the autonomous construction of systems — has dominated large parts of the intellectual history of modernity. Opposed to it are the witnesses, found in antiquity and the Middle Ages, but also occasionally in more recent times, of the philosophia perennis, the perennial or everlasting philosophy. They maintain that the human intellect ought to conform itself to objective reality and is, in principle, capable of doing so. Ernst Commer writes on this subject:

“If philosophy is truly to be philosophy, as a genuine science, it must also be capable of actually attaining its object, the object towards which it alone is directed and which, among all the other sciences, it alone comprehends. In its universality, however, this object is none other than truth. … Philosophy must therefore acknowledge the truth, or the truths, that are genuinely grounded in things. According to what is generally understood by truth, the correct philosophy, if it wishes to claim this name, must communicate to us knowledge of what is, in such a way that a conformity comes about between our thinking and what is.”¹

The significance of the philosophia perennis

Differences and disagreements in particular details should not obscure the fundamental consensus and shared insights that unite the representatives of the philosophia perennis across different periods and places.

The most important witnesses to the philosophia perennis are Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. Plato himself explicitly draws upon even older sources of an enduring philosophy, such as the traditions of the Pythagoreans or simply those of “the Ancients.” Here we should think not only of inherited insights of reason but also of a “sacred tradition” in which a divine discourse addressed to human beings has been preserved.

As Josef Pieper has shown, Plato recognizes in such a “sacred tradition” central truths concerning the origin of the world, life after death, and the primordial fall of humanity — truths that human reason ought to reflect upon, but which it cannot attain by its own resources alone.² After the beginning of the Christian era, reference to Christian revelation acquires central importance for the philosophia perennis.

Returning to what has been handed down — and here this means both the body of “sacred tradition” and the tradition of wisdom arising from human reflection and experience — is an essential characteristic of the philosophia perennis.

From the standpoint of the “new” and the “contemporary,” one is inclined to regard this return to inherited tradition as an impairment of the autonomy of reason, perhaps even as a form of subservience to tradition, associated with an inability to think independently and pursue truth decisively.

But anyone who has genuinely familiarized themselves with the great representatives of the philosophia perennis will recognize how far their philosophical activity is from being equated with an uncritical acceptance of inherited traditions. This applies equally, and especially, to medieval Scholasticism, so often disparaged out of ignorance, and to its greatest representative, Thomas Aquinas.

The philosophical inquiry of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas does not begin from a zero point. Rather, it begins with a silent attentiveness to reality and to what their predecessors have already been able to discover about it through experience.

The inherited body of teachings is examined, tested, and sometimes rejected. But the philosopher can never dispense with allowing predecessors to teach him, for otherwise he would simply ignore important statements about reality.

Commer observes:

“The philosophical tradition of firmly established truths that have been securely demonstrated must not be interrupted. Philosophy cannot begin anew; if it attempts to do so, it abolishes itself, for by denying the existence of eternal and unchanging truths, it simultaneously denies its own very possibility and justification as a science. For this reason, the great antiquity of truths that have been securely discovered already serves as an indication of their intrinsic value. And for this reason, too, the authority of the philosophical tradition — which is not itself a source of philosophy, since it cannot in itself replace the rigorous rational demonstration of truth — nevertheless has a higher pedagogical value as a guiding principle for philosophy.”³

The distinctiveness of modern philosophy

Modern philosophical inquiry is of a different kind.⁴ Descartes’ paradigmatic attempt can serve as an example.

Its initial impulse is methodological doubt. This radical doubt is intended to create a tabula rasa, a clean slate from which the construction of a philosophical system can begin.

If doubt is understood merely as a healthy scepticism towards established patterns of thought and claims to truth, towards the prejudices of the intellectual climate of the age and of one’s own thinking, then it is entirely compatible with the representatives of the philosophia perennis.

In Cartesian doubt, however, the relationship with objective reality and tradition is disrupted, indeed interrupted and severed:

“Descartes began with methodological doubt, but did not stop there: for his grounds for doubt extended to all truths, even immediate truths and the very nature of the human faculties of the soul. In this way he opened the door wide to universal doubt, and thus methodological doubt became actual doubt: in this philosophy we can see nothing other than a form of scepticism.”⁵

The thinker left to himself — autonomous in this sense — attempts to develop his own philosophy out of nothing, or, more precisely, a philosophical system that claims to reconstruct reality as a closed and comprehensive whole, proceeding from a single principle.

As Balduin Schwarz observes, Descartes began from a legitimate concern and a real problem of his time, namely, the experience:

“That an immeasurable amount of material could justify itself only through its long tradition, that much else stood alongside it without any connection, and that entire fields of the mind seemed to resemble an undifferentiated heap of precious and rotten goods …. Methodological doubt created distance from all this: nothing was to enjoy precedence over anything else; everything had to undergo the same scrutiny. And now Descartes began, as it were, to read through the heap, separating, rejecting, and accepting.”⁶

The fundamental principle here was not a silent openness to everything encountered, but rather the idea of clear and distinct knowledge, approaching mathematical exactness.

According to Commer, modern philosophy since Bacon and Descartes has been characterized by subjectivism, because these philosophers “established the subjective criterion of knowledge and rejected the tradition of the objective criterion.”⁷

In contrast to the philosophia perennis, modern philosophy lacks “a firm objective foundation in things,” and the “purely subjective standpoint is the fundamental error of modern philosophy.”⁸

This leads to a constant succession of systems and viewpoints, thereby tempting us into the error of a principled relativism. Subjectivism intensifies to the point of Fichte’s subjective idealism.⁹

In the succession of its systems, modern philosophy lacks continuous progress of the kind in which inherited knowledge is taken up and developed further, acquired insights are refined and expanded. Yet this is precisely the experience from which Kant himself started.

Wonder rather than final certainty

Descartes’ attempt became the paradigm of modern system-building, to which, for example, Edmund Husserl still referred in his Cartesian Meditations (1929).

The completed system promises an exhaustive knowledge of the world. With its help, the world would not only be known in its entirety but also understood and penetrated with absolute certainty.

The representatives of the philosophia perennis, on the other hand, are convinced that the philosopher will always remain someone searching for ultimate certainty and complete knowledge.¹⁰ Only God is capable of knowing with absolute certainty. Philosophia, however, is love of wisdom: a loving search for the truth possessed by God.

This conception can already be found in Pythagoras.

However much truth the philosopher may acquire, and however much he may validly come to know, there always remains something of mystery and unexplored depth.

The claim of the modern system-builder is therefore rejected from the outset.

The philosophia perennis has nothing to do with superficial claims to know everything or with shallow dogmatism. Rather, it remains open to mystery and wonder.

Wonder is, and always remains, the experience that permeates philosophy through and through.

References

Ernst Commer, Die immerwährende Philosophie. Platon, Aristoteles, Augustinus, Thomas von Aquin. Heusenstamm: editiones scholasticae, 2013 (reprint of the first edition, 1899), p. 41.
Cf. Josef Pieper, Über die platonischen Mythen. Munich: Kösel, 1965.
Commer, op. cit., p. 51.
The contrast between the philosophia perennis and the modern age’s “autonomous philosophy of systems” is the central theme of Balduin Schwarz’s book: Ewige Philosophie. Gesetz und Freiheit in der Geistesgeschichte. Leipzig: Jakob Hegner, 1937.
Commer, op. cit., p. 107.
Schwarz, op. cit., p. 148.
Commer, op. cit., p. 116.
Ibid., p. 104.
Cf. ibid., pp. 117–118.
Cf. Josef Pieper, “Das Geheimnis und die Philosophie,” in Weistum, Dichtung, Sakrament. Aufsätze und Notizen. Munich: Kösel, 1954, pp. 60–69.

A terminological note: I have translated Hören auf die Wirklichkeit as “Listening to Reality,” rather than “Listening to Actuality.” The German Wirklichkeit here has a distinctly ontological meaning: reality as it exists independently of our thinking and conceptual constructions.

The expression Angleichung unseres Denkens an das, was ist is particularly important for a Thomistic reading. It evokes the classical definition of truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei — the conformity or adequation of the intellect to reality.

This makes the article especially relevant to the distinction between the autonomy of the knowing subject and the receptive character of intellectual knowledge in Aquinas.

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政教分離と信教の自由　Laicità americana e francese

2026-11-02T16:01:37.573+09:00

https://www.vitaepensiero.it/dispatch/journal_article/403185?return_url=https%3A%2F%2Frivista.vitaepensiero.it%2Flibro%2F888888_2026_0004%2Farticle%2F403185

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Addio a Dio?

2026-10-25T09:09:39.490+09:00

Addio a Dio?

Pierangelo Sequeri: come dire teologicamente il Dio vicino

Maria Elisabetta Gandolfi

Un piccolo (100 pagine) libro – Addio a Dio? Sul Dio vivente, Centro ambrosiano, Milano 2025 –, che potremmo con qualche buona ragione ritenere il cuore dell’eredità del teologo milanese Pierangelo Sequeri. Una lettura avvincente, da seguire passo passo nei diversi capitoli, stesi con il suo personalissimo, denso e appassionato stile.

C’è «una speciale difficoltà in cui il cristianesimo si trova [oggi] a essere costretto», spinto dall’«urgenza di un cambio di passo radicale» avendo perso il «contatto con la cultura della società secolarizzata (…) a trazione tecno-economica». Ha provato a dare una risposta, ma «questi esperimenti di ricomprensione il cristianesimo se li è fatti essenzialmente al suo interno» e non «all’interno della cultura che ora gli è data abitare»; e d’altra parte anche al suo interno lo sforzo non sembra essere stato efficace, perché «i cambiamenti di linguaggio appaiono al popolo per lo più come interpretazioni ingegnose, che arredano la retorica, ma non elaborano la dottrina. Le pratiche del cristianesimo, poi, sono rimaste sostanzialmente quelle della mia infanzia pre-conciliare» (15).

In particolare, la teologia appare troppo sbilanciata sull’«orizzonte del concetto» di Dio, relegando il tema della «fede come evento di una relazione esistenzialmente coinvolgente» a un secondo piano, considerando quest’ultimo appartenente all’ordine esperienziale e quindi soggettivo e meno razionalizzabile in un «concetto» (16) cristallino, universale e condivisibile.

È questo il tema attorno al quale si svolge la riflessione serrata e sintetica di questo piccolo (100 pagine) libro – Addio a Dio? Sul Dio vivente, Centro ambrosiano, Milano 2025 –, che potremmo con qualche buona ragione ritenere il cuore dell’eredità del teologo milanese Pierangelo Sequeri. Una lettura avvincente, da seguire passo passo nei diversi capitoli, stesi con il suo personalissimo, denso e appassionato stile.

Dio, un astratto

Alla liquidità esperienziale che è al centro delle nostre società tecno-nichiliste, dove «l’esperienza parla di una condizione di eccitazione affettiva del soggetto, prima e più che una testimonianza dell’essere reale del significato», non si può rispondere rassegnati, «come se il nichilismo potesse funzionare in termini salvifici, in virtù della sua capacità di liberarci da ogni forma e da ogni forza impositiva, e di aprirci alla dimensione creativa» (21). Anche perché apre a una visione angosciante più che liberante.

Se di fronte alla domanda di senso, e quindi di giustizia, che rimane inscritta nella coscienza umana come richiesta di felicità e come rivendicazione di dignità, l’unica via disponibile è quella dell’«io devo» di kantiana memoria, ciò significa che «il pensiero “Dio” ha perso la sua “felicità”». E se l’«affezione per il mistero di Dio, che è presidio della nostra intuizione dover-essere del senso e della giustizia», viene meno, ciò significa che c’è «un vuoto impressionante (…) dentro il pensiero della passione cristocentrica della creazione “del mondo” e della logica trinitaria della generazione “di Dio”» (25s).

«Congedata la “mistica”, sospettata di trasgressione della disciplina della fede, congelata la “liturgia”, imbrigliata nell’anestetica ripetizione delle sue procedure, infantilizzata la “devozione”, incoraggiata al confinamento folkloristico della pietà popolare, la sapienza affettiva della fede ha perso le direttrici di sviluppo del suo rapporto con l’esperienza teofanica: che è l’unico modo in cui Dio si “rivela” nel mistero della sua bellezza drammatica e del suo emozionante incantamento» (26).

Il rischio – scrive efficacemente Sequeri – è che «il cristianesimo cessi di essere una religione del cuore, per limitarsi a essere una religione della cura» (28).

Così la teologia dovrebbe riandare alla dimensione trinitaria, non tanto come suo oggetto di riflessione, ma per farla sua come fattore costitutivo. Tuttavia – afferma il teologo – «quando proponi la riabilitazione su larga scala di un’ontologia affettiva», si alzano le barricate contro una deriva verso il «soggettivo, relativo, irrazionale» e se la usi a critica «della piegatura autoreferenziale dell’affezione che sta plasmando la nostra cultura», le barricate si alzano, all’opposto, contro una presunta riproposizione di «una visione di dedizione a perdere, di immolazione sacrificale, di mortificazione di sé» (50s).

Nicea, il concilio innovatore

Inaspettatamente, almeno a miei occhi, giunge in aiuto l’anniversario del concilio di Nicea, di cui nel 2025 si sono ricordati i 1700 anni. E il concetto centrale del suo credo: il «generato, non creato». Quella «generazione che definisce l’intimità di Dio come Padre e Figlio, e si riversa nello Spirito» e che è «l’abisso del principio di ogni principio. Ontologicamente parlando, il significato eterno dell’essere è generazione: amare la vita, donare la vita, suscitare la vita» (52). Ma «l’intimità della generazione divina, che liberamente resiste al suo ripiegamento su se stessa, è deliberatamente messa alla prova della drammatica della vulnerabilità umana, che cerca di proteggersi prendendo distanza da quella intimità. Dentro un cristianesimo diligentemente assestato sulle sue routine, che cerca di evitare l’inquietante esperienza della teofania, la beatitudine di Dio esce dal desiderio, affoga nella legge» (56).

E guai alle scorciatoie: «Ieri eravamo tutto legge e sacrificio, oggi siamo tutta libertà e beatitudine: ma lo spostamento non fa fare nessun passo avanti. Del resto, il popolo di Dio, anche inconsapevolmente, fiuta la retorica. Certo, la nostra conversione di cappellani del welfare approfitta del vento favorevole: tutti promettono di sostenere il diritto alla felicità. Ora lo fa anche il cristianesimo (…) Vi pare che è così che abbiamo di nuovo riempito le chiese?» (71).

Giudici senza giudizio

I capitoli IX e X affrontano il tema della giustizia e del suo rapporto con l’affezione, gli affetti. Credo siano per le orecchie contemporanee i più rivoluzionari, se mi è consentito questo aggettivo.

Oggi, infatti, mentre «siamo sempre più terrorizzati dell’eventualità di essere giudicati in ogni esperienza e in ogni relazione, anche per le condotte di più modesto rilievo esistenziale» – possono essere i «voti scolastici» o un fondotinta sbagliato: il processo mediatico s’attiva fino ad annichilire la persona – «l’idea che sulla soglia estrema della morte intervenga un giudizio divino (…) sta evaporando quasi totalmente» (73). Sequeri parla di «bullismo giudicante» (75), la cui pena infernale ma tutta attuale è quella della «damnatio sociale» che ci taglia fuori dal concesso sociale. Le colpe di un sistema mediatico in senso ampio che vive di moralismi d’accatto (cf. 76) sono davanti agli occhi di tutti.

Ma senza Dio, «il desiderio di essere apprezzati», l’«essere convinti di noi stessi» non si può dare: «Dio è il nome al quale è ultimamente appesa la giustificazione di questo desiderio. L’atto di questa giustificazione è appunto il “giudizio” di Dio. Noi credenti consideriamo una fortuna questo fatto, ossia che il giudizio che ci riconosce realmente fino all’intimità del nostro essere è di Dio. E di nessun altro. Ma per poter apprezzare questa risorsa “salvifica” (…) noi dobbiamo intrattenere buoni rapporti con il giudizio, in tutte le sue forme e a tutti i suoi livelli (…) È l’unica speranza che abbiamo di trovare comprensione anche per i nostri sbagli più gravi» (74s).

D’altra parte, la «nostra liquidità postmoderna» aborrisce il giudizio come «atto di lesa maestà» ma allo stesso tempo e quotidianamente ne sforna in continuazione su base «pulsionale o ideologica»: e contro questa deriva l’istituzione giudiziaria «mostra di essere perfettamente impotente e culturalmente inerte» (75).

«Di amori sbagliati sono piene le fosse…»

A fronte di tutto questo «il lessico comune del nostro cristianesimo è ancora diffidente nei confronti del legame tra “Dio” e la giustizia dell’amore. Nella sua lingua, l’amore è sempre giusto. Non è così. Di amori sbagliati sono piene le fosse. E anche le vite, le comunità, le religioni persino» (78).

E «deve venire il giorno in cui “agape”, l’amore ospitale e comprensivo di tutti gli amori indirizzati alla conversione evangelica, potrà di nuovo essere concepito come sinonimo di “dike”. La giustizia di Dio è la stessa cosa della sua bellezza, la sua santità, la sua affezione, la sua dedizione. La ricerca del “come deve”, in ogni affezione, non toglie nulla alla sua libertà e alla sua felicità, anzi, le arricchisce. Perché sottrae il destino di tutte le cose, visibili e invisibili, alla semplice esecuzione di un disegno prestabilito, come anche alla vaporosa confusione di un’attrazione indeterminata» (85).

Per quanto riguarda il come ripensare Dio in quanto «teofania del tocco che annuncia discretamente l’incommensurabile intimità della sua forza vitale, desidero – dichiara Sequeri nella parte conclusiva – mettere a fuoco due parole chiave che mi sembrano capaci di infrangere la riduzione di “Dio” a prodotto della mente: la prima è generazione (l’eredità miracolosa di Nicea); la seconda è intercessione (la novità incomparabile del Vangelo)» (86).

La generazione, di cui abbiamo già parlato sopra, è anche il fenomeno basilare dell’esperienza umana vissuto nella gravidanza, «che mette in campo l’evento del formarsi dell’altro dall’altro»: qui il riferimento – noto allo stesso Sequeri per aver condotto assieme all’autrice e a Lucia Vantini un seminario presso l’Istituto Giovanni Paolo II lo scorso giugno dal titolo – è a Marie Leborgne e al suo Un corpo per due. Una filosofia della gravidanza (Vita e pensiero, Milano 2026; cf. in questo numero a p. 550), un testo per certi aspetti copernicano.

Sequeri trova «la chiave di accesso» alla celebre formulazione del giurista Ulpiano, per il quale giustizia è «dare a ciascuno il suo». Ma ben oltre la sua ovvietà apparente, il teologo vi legge una «intrigante ed elegante anomalia: come mai, se si tratta del “suo”, gli deve essere “dato”?». Ovvero, la giustizia «non definisce un possesso, bensì il titolo di un possesso: che si compie precisamente con il gesto che destina all’altro qualcosa che, al momento, è presso di sé» (87). Il «“mio” che mi è dovuto deve essere parte di “un altro”: diversamente fallisce ogni speranza di averlo»: una giustizia che sintetizza una «ingiunzione» ma priva di «violenza» (87s).

Nella vulgata anche ecclesiale il rapporto tra amore e generazione è molto sbilanciato sul «miracolo» dei due «che formano uno». «Ma esiste anche il miracolo dell’uno che forma due (“è nato un figlio”): e proprio qui si manifesta una giustizia che non è solo «amministrativa», ma anche «creativa». «L’amore di generazione» ha «una perfetta struttura di giustizia» (89), che lo si voglia riconoscere o no.

Se pensiamo a un contesto culturale come quello occidentale e segnatamente europeo, il fatto di non scoprire «in me ciò che è destinato all’altro, e quando l’altro non trova in me le parti destinate a lui» ci porta a capire perché si stia vivendo una sorta di «grande depressione» (90).

Non si tratta semplicemente di rispondervi con un mero slancio vitalistico, ma di riscoprire la «giustizia dell’amore [che] scopre ogni volta, seguendo le pieghe della storia, le parti che, vissute presso di me, sono ora mature per essere destinate a trasformarsi nel proprio dell’altro. E cerca ogni volta, nei diversi momenti della storia, quali parti dell’altro io devo dispormi a ricevere, per realizzare il compimento della giustizia della vita, che è amorevole e servizievole – ma anche doloroso e drammatico – dono e debito tra le parti» (91).

C’è un enorme spazio per la missione cristiana e anche per il cambiamento dell’istituzione Chiesa, «questa Chiesa che vuole vivere semplicemente delle parti di sé, decidendo semplicemente di “riprodursi”, cerca di rimanere “padrona” del proprio utero, “rigenerandolo” invece di aprirlo per la generazione di Dio che fa figli dovunque. E così, invece di vivere, deperisce» (92).

Il Dio intercessione

Complementare alla generazione, dicevamo, c’è l’intercessione, sul modello di quella di Mosè per il suo popolo traditore (Es 32,10; Dt 9,13s), quella di Gesù crocifisso per la salvezza degli uomini. «L’intercessione non innalza la sua preghiera dal luogo di una purezza separata, ma piuttosto da quella di un’affezione solidale» (94), una provocazione sia per il potere di mediazione del sacro sia per l’ethos civile.

«L’intercessione come atteggiamento mentale e pratico dell’accettazione di un destino comune comporta l’umiltà di riconoscersi, in ogni caso, come soggetti a un’istanza di giustizia e di giudizio che affonda le sue radici nel sacro, e da ogni lato ci supera. L’intercessione impedisce alla mediazione di sostituirsi al fondamento, di farsi autoreferenziale, di perseguire l’unico obiettivo di garantire se stessa» (99).

E qui non possiamo non pensare allo scandalo delle violenze e degli abusi nella Chiesa, non solo e non tanto per il loro accadere, ma soprattutto per il non volerli vedere e affrontare, e negare sistematicamente ascolto a chi chiede giustizia.

Ma ciò vale anche per la politica e la convivenza civile: «Sotto questo profilo la “rivoluzione della tenerezza” di papa Francesco perde certamente ogni ambigua connotazione retorica e sentimentale, per assumere il progetto di una vera e propria trasformazione del rapporto fra potere e rappresentanza». Il vero leader è un «grande intercessore», per dirla con le parole di Evangelii gaudium n. 283.

E Dio stesso, «eternamente capace di generazione», non arretra dal continuare a farsi lui stesso intercessione (100).

Maria Elisabetta Gandolfi

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Quaestio: Whether things possess being of themselves

2026-08-26T07:56:28.658+09:00

Quaestio: Whether things possess being of themselves

Videtur quod things possess being of themselves.

It seems that every thing which exists possesses within itself the principle by which it is what it is. For whatever is something must have a nature whereby it is constituted in its own being. Therefore, if a thing exists, its nature must possess svabhāva, that is, an intrinsic and self-subsistent nature.
Further, whatever is produced from causes eventually arrives at something which exists through itself. For if everything depended upon another, there would be an infinite regress of causes, and nothing would exist. Therefore, things must ultimately possess an intrinsic nature that does not depend upon other things.
Further, opposites cannot both belong to the same thing in the same respect. But things are distinguished from one another precisely by possessing determinate natures. Therefore, the nature of each thing must possess a determinate and intrinsic reality by which it is distinguished from other things.
Further, if things were empty of intrinsic nature, then knowledge would be impossible. For the intellect knows what a thing is through its essence. Therefore, things must possess intrinsic essences which can be known by the intellect.

Sed contra.

Nagarjuna says that whatever arises dependently does not arise from itself. For that which exists through itself would not require another as its cause. But all conditioned things arise in dependence upon causes and conditions. Therefore, no conditioned thing possesses an absolutely self-subsistent nature.

Moreover, nothing which is composed of relations and conditions can be absolutely independent of those relations and conditions. But all finite things are constituted in determinate ways through relations to other things. Therefore, no finite thing possesses svabhāva understood as an absolutely independent and self-grounding essence.

Respondeo dicendum quod the claim that things possess svabhāva must be distinguished according to two meanings.

In one sense, svabhāva may signify the proper nature of a thing, by which it is what it is. In this sense, finite things truly possess natures. A human being is truly human; a tree is truly a tree; and fire is truly fire. To deny this would destroy the intelligibility of created things.

But in another sense, svabhāva signifies a nature possessing being entirely from itself, independently of every cause, relation, condition, and act of participation. In this sense, no finite thing possesses svabhāva.

For whatever is finite cannot be its own act of being. Its essence and its act of being are distinct. Therefore, whatever a finite thing is, it receives existence rather than being existence itself.

Thus the mistake lies in confusing having a nature with being self-subsistent through one’s nature.

Aquinas would therefore reformulate Nagarjuna’s central insight as follows:

No finite being is ipsum esse.

No finite being possesses existence from itself.

Every finite being is dependent upon causes and conditions both for its coming-to-be and, more fundamentally, for its being.

Consequently, the denial of svabhāva need not mean that things are unreal. It means rather that they are not self-sufficient realities.

Their being is participated, not possessed absolutely.

Therefore, the things of this world are neither absolutely self-subsistent nor sheer nothingness. They are beings by participation.

This provides a metaphysical interpretation of śūnyatā: the emptiness of finite things consists not in their non-existence, but in their lack of independent, self-grounding existence.

Ad primum. A nature explains what a thing is, but it does not thereby explain why that thing exists. The essence of a human being is not the act of existence by which the human being is. Therefore, having a nature does not entail possessing existence from oneself.

Ad secundum. The denial of svabhāva does not require an infinite regress of essentially ordered causes. Rather, precisely because finite things do not possess existence through themselves, the order of participated being ultimately requires that which possesses being through itself. This is not another conditioned thing, but ipsum esse subsistens.

Ad tertium. Things are genuinely distinct through their forms and natures. But their distinction does not make them absolutely independent. A creature can possess a determinate nature while remaining radically dependent upon the cause of its existence.

Ad quartum. The intelligibility of things does not require them to possess self-subsistent being. The intellect can know a creature’s essence precisely because the creature possesses a real nature. But the intellect must distinguish the question quid est?—what is it?—from an est?—whether it exists. The essence known by the intellect does not contain within itself the sufficient reason for its existence.

Conclusion: Nāgārjuna’s critique of svabhāva, expressed in Thomistic terms, can be understood as the claim that no finite essence is its own sufficient ontological ground. Thomism, however, goes beyond Nāgārjuna by affirming that the dependence of finite beings ultimately terminates in God, who alone is not merely a being possessing an essence but subsistent Being itself (ipsum esse subsistens).

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山本芳久『トマス・アクィナス　理性と神秘』　受賞者一覧・選評　サントリー学芸賞　サントリー文化財団

2026-08-18T08:37:06.596+09:00

https://www.suntory.co.jp/sfnd/prize_ssah/detail/201809.html iPadから送信

PressReader.com | «Con lui si parlava di Dio e della Bibbia L’ultima volta ad aprile era molto affaticato»

2026-08-09T04:27:59.151+09:00

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What is a Cat? - The Catholic Thing

2026-08-02T07:25:38.493+09:00

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Il Patto tra le religioni in Italia: note critiche a margine – Osservatorio Card. Van Thuân

2026-07-05T08:38:56.674+09:00

https://vanthuanobservatory.com/2026/06/30/il-patto-tra-le-religioni-in-italia-note-critiche-a-margine/

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Il 25 giugno scorso la Chiesa cattolica italiana ha firmato assieme ad altre confessioni religiose, cristiane e non cristiane, un Patto per “La via italiana al dialogo. Le religioni nello spazio pubblico e per la coesione sociale”. L’hanno firmato varie sigle religiose islamiche, buddiste, bahai, protestanti, ortodosse, ebraiche, Induiste. Nello stesso giorno, i rappresentanti dei gruppi religiosi firmatari sono stati ricevuti dal Presidente della Repubblica Sergio Mattarella al quale hanno consegnato copia del Patto.

A nostro parere che la CEI abbia firmato questo Patto non è una buona notizia. Con le altre religioni si può cercare di convivere al meglio ma questo non ha bisogno di firmare Patti, lo si fa e basta. La firma di un Patto sociale e pubblico ha delle implicanze che vanno ben oltre i principi della buona convivenza e ha alle proprie spalle una non convincente visione della religione cattolica e delle altre religioni.

Prima di tutto c’è il sincretismo. Questo non significa solo sostituire le varie religioni con una unica che riprenda dalle altre alcuni spezzoni e li componga in un quadro nuovo. Il sincretismo non è costruttivo, ma decostruttivo e liquido. Esso tende a destrutturare le religioni per arrivare ad un ipotetico minimo comun denominatore sul quale tutte possano convergere. Questo percorso passa anche e oggi soprattutto attraverso il dialogo e la cooperazione per la giustizia e la pace. Le religioni intendono giustizia e pace in modo molto diverso tra loro, ma il sincretismo ritiene invece che le differenze si annullino davanti ad un substrato comune condiviso, che non c’è.

Il Patto in questione non segnala le enormi differenze esistenti, soprattutto tra il cattolicesimo e le altre religioni, ma indica solo le possibili convergenze pratiche, come se la prassi non dipendesse dalla dottrina. In questo modo lancia il messaggio che è conveniente mettere da parte la questione della verità o falsità delle religioni, che nessuna può ritenersi vera, e che conta solo la loro collaborazione pratica per creare coesione sociale.

Si potrebbe pensare che la Chiesa italiana facesse una proposta di collaborazione incentrata sui principi e i valori della legge naturale, terreno comune a tutte le persone, anche se di diversa religione. Ma questo non è possibile perché tra chi ha firmato il patto, ci sono religioni che non accettano nemmeno che ci sia un Dio, altre che non accettano che ci sia un Dio creatore e altre ancora che, pur accettando l’uno e l’altro principio, non accettano che esista una legge naturale. Del resto, la questione della legge naturale non è comune nemmeno tra cattolici e protestanti, che sono ambedue confessioni cristiane, figurarsi per le altre.

La firma del Patto richiede alla Chiesa cattolica italiana di pensare ad una sua presenza pubblica estromettendo Dio, e fondandola invece su esigenze politiche di coesione sociale. Si tratta di un laicismo mascherato di multireligiosità. In questa collaborazione non si potrà parlare del proprio Dio, ma solo di alcuni aspetti della convivenza sociale, che diventeranno, al posto dei “diritti di Dio”, il criterio fondamentale di discernimento. Per collaborare con le altre religioni, la religione cattolica è costretta ad assegnare più importanza all’uomo che a Dio. Per di più, non all’uomo inteso nella sua pienezza compreso il suo essere a somiglianza di Dio, ma dell’uomo inteso esistenzialmente e sociologicamente. L’uomo di oggi con i problemi di oggi, l’uomo di questo tempo.

Questo esito molto immiserito della relazione del cattolicesimo con le altre confessioni e religioni nasce da lontano. Alla sua origine c’è una visione non convincente della libertà di religione, c’è la svolta antropologica per cui si deve partire dall’uomo e mai da Dio, ci sono i notevoli cambiamenti nella teologia dell’ecumenismo e del dialogo interreligioso, c’è il pastoralismo e la sua richiesta di partire dal basso e dalla concretezza singolare delle relazioni, forse c’è anche una conoscenza scarsa di cosa della natura stessa delle varie religioni.

Un’ultima osservazione merita il rito della consegna del Patto a Sergio Mattarella, che diventa il Gran Sacerdote di questo patto laico. Infatti, il Patto tra le varie religioni non è religioso, è laico. Lo firmano anche religioni che non credono in Dio, lo firmano mettendo da parte la propria visione di Dio considerata ininfluente per il loro impegno sociale, lo firmano assumendo il criterio tutto laico della coesione sociale. È evidente che, così facendo, le religioni si intendono come agenzie sociali che mettono da parte alcuni loro valori fondanti ma non condivisi, riconoscendo un valore fondante ad impegni civili condivisi, ossia i principi sociali e politici della Repubblica.

Stefano Fontana

2026-06-28T15:56:15.742+09:00

Solzhenitsyn's Commencement Address Harvard University June 8, 1978

A World Split Apartby Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I am sincerely happy to be here with you on the occasion of the 327th commencement of this old and illustrious university. My congratulations and best wishes to all of today’s graduates.

Harvard’s motto is “Veritas.” Many of you have already found out and others will find out in the course of their lives that truth eludes us as soon as our concentration begins to flag, all the while leaving the illusion that we are continuing to pursue it. This is the source of much discord. Also, truth seldom is sweet; it is almost invariably bitter. A measure of bitter truth is included in my speech today, but I offer it as a friend, not as an adversary.

Three years ago in the United States I said certain things that were rejected and appeared unacceptable. Today, however, many people agree with what I then said. . . .

The split in today’s world is perceptible even to a hasty glance. Any of our contemporaries readily identifies two world powers, each of them already capable of utterly destroying the other. However, the understanding of the split too often is limited to this political conception: the illusion according to which danger may be abolished through successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. The truth is that the split is both more profound and more alienating, that the rifts are more numerous than one can see at first glance. These deep manifold splits bear the danger of equally manifold disaster for all of us, in accordance with the ancient truth that a kingdom—in this case, our Earth—divided against itself cannot stand.

Contemporary Worlds

There is the concept of the Third World: Thus, we already have three worlds. Undoubtedly, however, the number is even greater; we are just too far away to see. Every ancient and deeply rooted self-contained culture, especially if it is spread over a wide part of the earth’s surface, constitutes a self-contained world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking. As a minimum, we must include in this category China, India, the Muslim world, and Africa, if indeed we accept the approximation of viewing the latter two as uniform. For one thousand years Russia belonged to such a category, although Western thinking systematically committed the mistake of denying its special character and therefore never understood it, just as today the West does not understand Russia in Communist captivity. And while it may be that in past years Japan has increasingly become, in effect, a Far West, drawing ever closer to Western ways (I am no judge here), Israel, I think, should not be reckoned as part of the West, if only because of the decisive circumstance that its state system is fundamentally linked to religion.

How short a time ago, relatively, the small world of modern Europe was easily seizing colonies all over the globe, not only without anticipating any real resistance, but usually with contempt for any possible values in the conquered peoples’ approach to life. It all seemed an overwhelming success, with no geographic limits. Western society expanded in a triumph of human independence and power. And all of a sudden the twentieth century brought the clear realization of this society’s fragility. We now see that the conquests proved to be short-lived and precarious (and this, in turn, points to defects in the Western view of the world which led to these conquests). Relations with the former colonial world now have switched to the opposite extreme and the Western world often exhibits an excess of obsequiousness, but it is difficult yet to estimate the size of the bill which former colonial countries will present to the West and it is difficult to predict whether the surrender not only of its last colonies, but of everything it owns, will be sufficient for the West to clear this account.

Convergence

But the persisting blindness of superiority continues to hold the belief that all the vast regions of our planet should develop and mature to the level of contemporary Western systems, the best in theory and the most attractive in practice; that all those other worlds are but temporarily prevented (by wicked leaders or by severe crises or by their own barbarity and incomprehension) from pursuing Western pluralistic democracy and adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in that direction. But in fact such a conception is a fruit of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, a result of mistakenly measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet’s development bears little resemblance to all this.

The anguish of a divided world gave birth to the theory of convergence between the leading Western countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory which overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at all evolving toward each other and that neither one can be transformed into the other without violence. Besides, convergence inevitably means acceptance of the other side’s defects, too, and this can hardly suit anyone.

If I were today addressing an audience in my country, in my examination of the overall pattern of the world’s rifts I would have concentrated on the calamities of the East. But since my forced exile in the West has now lasted four years and since my audience is a Western one, I think it may be of greater interest to concentrate on certain aspects of the contemporary West, such as I see them.

A Decline in Courage

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There remain many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And the decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts of boldness and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.

Must one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the first symptom of the end?

Well-Being

When the modern Western states were being formed, it was proclaimed as a principle that governments are meant to serve man and that man lives in order to be free and pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration of Independence.) Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the debased sense of the word which has come into being during those same decades. (In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: The constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to this end imprint many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to carefully conceal such feelings. This active and tense competition comes to dominate all human thought and does not in the least open a way to free spiritual development.) The individual’s independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the majority of the people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, preparing them for and summoning them toward physical bloom, happiness, the possession of material goods, money, and leisure, toward an almost unlimited freedom in the choice of pleasures. So who should now renounce all this, why and for the sake of what should one risk one’s precious life in defense of the common good and particularly in the nebulous case when the security of one’s nation must be defended in an as yet distant land?

Even biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well-being is not advantageous to a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to take off its pernicious mask.

Legalistic Life

Western society has chosen for itself the organization best suited to its purposes and one I might call legalistic. The limits of human rights and rightness are determined by a system of laws; such limits are very broad. People in the West have acquired considerable skill in using, interpreting, and manipulating law (though laws tend to be too complicated for an average person to understand without the help of an expert). Every conflict is solved according to the letter of the law and this is considered to be the ultimate solution. If one is right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required, nobody may mention that one could still not be entirely right, and urge self-restraint or a renunciation of these rights, call for sacrifice and selfless risk: This would simply sound absurd. Voluntary self-restraint is almost unheard of: Everybody strives toward further expansion to the extreme limit of the legal frames. (An oil company is legally blameless when it buys up an invention of a new type of energy in order to prevent its use. A food product manufacturer is legally blameless when he poisons his produce to make it last longer: After all, people are free not to purchase it.)

I have spent all my life under a Communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is also less than worthy of man. A society based on the letter of the law and never reaching any higher fails to take advantage of the full range of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man’s noblest impulses.

And it will be simply impossible to bear up to the trials of this threatening century with nothing but the supports of a legalistic structure.

The Direction of Freedom

Today’s Western society has revealed the inequality between the freedom for good deeds and the freedom for evil deeds. A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; thousands of hasty (and irresponsible) critics cling to him at all times; he is constantly rebuffed by parliament and the press. He has to prove that his every step is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Indeed, an outstanding, truly great person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind does not get any chance to assert himself; dozens of traps will be set for him from the beginning. Thus mediocrity triumphs under the guise of democratic restraints.

It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power and it has in fact been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

On the other hand, destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society has turned out to have scarce defense against the abyss of human decadence, for example against the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror. This is all considered to be part of freedom and to be counterbalanced, in theory, by the young people’s right not to look and not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.

And what shall we say about the dark realms of overt criminality? Legal limits (especially in the United States) are broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom but also some misuse of such freedom. The culprit can go unpunished or obtain undeserved leniency—all with the support of thousands of defenders in the society. When a government earnestly undertakes to root out terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists’ civil rights. There are quite a number of such cases.

This tilt of freedom toward evil has come about gradually, but it evidently stems from a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which man—the master of this world—does not bear any evil within himself, and all the defects of life are caused by misguided social systems, which must therefore be corrected. Yet strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still remains a great deal of crime; there even is considerably more of it than in the destitute and lawless Soviet society. (There is a multitude of prisoners in our camps who are termed criminals, but most of them never committed any crime; they merely tried to defend themselves against a lawless state by resorting to means outside the legal framework.)

The Direction of the Press

The press, too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word “press” to include all the media.) But what use does it make of it?

Here again, the overriding concern is not to infringe the letter of the law. There is no true moral responsibility for distortion or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist or a newspaper have to the readership or to history? If they have misled public opinion by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, even if they have contributed to mistakes on a state level, do we know of any case of open regret voiced by the same journalist or the same newspaper? No; this would damage sales. A nation may be the worse for such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. It is most likely that he will start writing the exact opposite to his previous statements with renewed aplomb.

Because instant and credible information is required, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors, and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be refuted; they settle into the readers’ memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, and are then left hanging? The press can act the role of public opinion or miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters pertaining to the nation’s defense publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion into the privacy of well-known people according to the slogan “Everyone is entitled to know everything.” (But this is a false slogan of a false era; far greater in value is the forfeited right of people not to know, not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life has no need for this excessive and burdening flow of information.)

Hastiness and superficiality—these are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century and more than anywhere else this is manifested in the press. In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press; it is contrary to its nature. The press merely picks out sensational formulas.

Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, exceeding that of the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Yet one would like to ask: According to what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the Communist East, a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has voted Western journalists into their positions of power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives?

There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the totalitarian East with its rigorously unified press: One discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole (the spirit of the time), generally accepted patterns of judgment, and maybe common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Unrestrained freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership, because newspapers mostly transmit in a forceful and emphatic way those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and that general trend.

A Fashion in Thinking

Without any censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought and ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, without ever being forbidden, have little chance of finding their way into periodicals or books or being heard in colleges. Your scholars are free in the legal sense, but they are hemmed in by the idols of the prevailing fad. There is no open violence, as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to accommodate mass standards frequently prevents the most independent-minded persons from contributing to public life and gives rise to dangerous herd instincts that block successful development. In America, I have received letters from highly intelligent persons—maybe a teacher in a faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and salvation of his country, but the country cannot hear him because the media will not provide him with a forum. This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, to a blindness which is perilous in our dynamic era. An example is the selfdeluding interpretation of the state of affairs in the contemporary world that functions as a sort of a petrified armor around people’s minds, to such a degree that human voices from seventeen countries of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia cannot pierce it. It will be broken only by the inexorable crowbar of events.

I have mentioned a few traits of Western life which surprise and shock a new arrival to this world. The purpose and scope of this speech will not allow me to continue such a survey, in particular to look into the impact of these characteristics on important aspects of a nation’s life, such as elementary education, advanced education in the humanities, and art.

Socialism

It is almost universally recognized that the West shows all the world the way to successful economic development, even though in past years it has been sharply offset by chaotic inflation. However, many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society. They despise it or accuse it of no longer being up to the level of maturity attained by mankind. And this causes many to sway toward socialism, which is a false and dangerous current.

I hope that no one present will suspect me of expressing my partial criticism of the Western system in order to suggest socialism as an alternative. No; with the experience of a country where socialism has been realized, I shall certainly not speak for such an alternative. The mathematician Igor Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliantly argued book entitled Socialism; this is a penetrating historical analysis demonstrating that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death. Shafarevich’s book was published in France almost two years ago and so far no one has been found to refute it. It will shortly be published in English in the US.

Not a Model

But should I be asked, instead, whether I would propose the West, such as it is today, as a model to my country, I would frankly have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through deep suffering, people in our country have now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just enumerated are extremely saddening.

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human personality in the West while in the East it has become firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. The complex and deadly crush of life has produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting personalities than those generated by standardized Western well-being. Therefore, if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant points. Of course, a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to stay on such a soulless and smooth plane of legalism, as is the case in yours. After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced as by a calling card by the revolting invasion of commercial advertising, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.

All this is visible to numerous observers from all the worlds of our planet. The Western way of life is less and less likely to become the leading model.

There are telltale symptoms by which history gives warning to a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, a decline of the arts or a lack of great statesmen. Indeed, sometimes the warnings are quite explicit and concrete. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.

But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive. You can feel their pressure, yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?

Shortsightedness

Very well known representatives of your society, such as George Kennan, say: “We cannot apply moral criteria to politics.” Thus we mix good and evil, right and wrong, and make space for the absolute triumph of absolute evil in the world. Only moral criteria can help the West against communism’s well-planned world strategy. There are no other criteria. Practical or occasional considerations of any kind will inevitably be swept away by strategy. After a certain level of the problem has been reached, legalistic thinking induces paralysis; it prevents one from seeing the scale and the meaning of events.

In spite of the abundance of information, or maybe partly because of it, the West has great difficulty in finding its bearings amid contemporary events. There have been naïve predictions by some American experts who believed that Angola would become the Soviet Union’s Vietnam or that the impudent Cuban expeditions in Africa would best be stopped by special US courtesy to Cuba. Kennan’s advice to his own country—to begin unilateral disarmament—belongs to the same category. If you only knew how the youngest of the officials in Moscow’s Old Square [1] roar with laughter at your political wizards! As to Fidel Castro, he openly scorns the United States, boldly sending his troops to distant adventures from his country right next to yours.

However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that the way should be left open for national, or Communist, self-determination in Vietnam (or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity). But in fact, members of the US antiwar movement became accomplices in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in the genocide and the suffering today imposed on thirty million people there. Do these convinced pacifists now hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American intelligentsia lost its nerve and as a consequence the danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your short-sighted politician who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. Small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation’s courage. But if the full might of America suffered a full-fledged defeat at the hands of a small Communist half-country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future?

I have said on another occasion that in the twentieth-century Western democracy has not won any major war by itself; each time it shielded itself with an ally possessing a powerful land army, whose philosophy it did not question. In World War II against Hitler, instead of winning the conflict with its own forces, which would certainly have been sufficient, Western democracy raised up another enemy, one that would prove worse and more powerful, since Hitler had neither the resources nor the people, nor the ideas with broad appeal, nor such a large number of supporters in the West—a fifth column—as the Soviet Union possessed. Some Western voices already have spoken of the need of a protective screen against hostile forces in the next world conflict; in this case, the shield would be China. But I would not wish such an outcome to any country in the world. First of all, it is again a doomed alliance with evil; it would grant the United States a respite, but when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall victim to a Cambodia-style genocide.

Loss of Will

And yet, no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons even become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, in this case, but concessions, attempts to gain time, and betrayal. Thus at the shameful Belgrade conference, free Western diplomats in their weakness surrendered the line of defense for which enslaved members of the Helsinki Watch Groups are sacrificing their lives.

Western thinking has become conservative: The world situation must stay as it is at any cost; there must be no changes. This debilitating dream of a status quo is the symptom of a society that has ceased to develop. But one must be blind in order not to see that the oceans no longer belong to the West, while the land under its domination keeps shrinking. The two so-called world wars (they were by far not on a world scale, not yet) constituted the internal self-destruction of the small progressive West which has thus prepared its own end. The next war (which does not have to be an atomic one; I do not believe it will be) may well bury Western civilization forever.

In the face of such a danger, with such historical values in your past, with such a high level of attained freedom and, apparently, of devotion to it, how is it possible to lose to such an extent the will to defend oneself?

Humanism and Its Consequences

How has this unfavorable relation of forces come about? How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present debility? Have there been fatal turns and losses of direction in its development? It does not seem so. The West kept advancing steadily in accordance with its proclaimed social intentions, hand in hand with a dazzling progress in technology. And all of a sudden it found itself in its present state of weakness.

This means that the mistake must be at the root, at the very foundation of thought in modern times. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was born in the Renaissance and has found political expression since the Age of Enlightenment. It became the basis for political and social doctrine and could be called rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of all.

The turn introduced by the Renaissance was probably inevitable historically: The Middle Ages had come to a natural end by exhaustion, having become an intolerable despotic repression of man’s physical nature in favor of the spiritual one. But then we recoiled from the spirit and embraced all that is material, excessively and incommensurately. The humanistic way of thinking, which had proclaimed itself our guide, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man, nor did it see any task higher than the attainment of happiness on earth. It started modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend of worshiping man and his material needs. Everything beyond physical well-being and the accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any higher meaning. Thus gaps were left open for evil, and its drafts blow freely today. Mere freedom per se does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and even adds a number of new ones.

And yet in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding one thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual be granted boundless freedom with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction of his whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were eroded everywhere in the West; a total emancipation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming ever more materialistic. The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even to excess, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistic selfishness of the Western approach to the world has reached its peak and the world has found itself in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the celebrated technological achievements of progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century’s moral poverty, which no one could have imagined even as late as the nineteenth century.

An Unexpected Kinship

As humanism in its development was becoming more and more materialistic, it also increasingly allowed its concepts to be used first by socialism and then by communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say, in 1844, that “communism is naturalized humanism.”

This statement has proved to be not entirely unreasonable. One does see the same stones in the foundations of an eroded humanism and of any type of socialism: boundless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility (which under Communist regimes attains the stage of anti-religious dictatorship); concentration on social structures with an allegedly scientific approach. (This last is typical of both the Age of Enlightenment and of Marxism.) It is no accident that all of communism’s rhetorical vows revolve around Man (with a capital M) and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today’s West and today’s East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.

The interrelationship is such, moreover, that the current of materialism which is farthest to the left, and is hence the most consistent, always proves to be stronger, more attractive, and victorious. Humanism which has lost its Christian heritage cannot prevail in this competition. Thus during the past centuries and especially in recent decades, as the process became more acute, the alignment of forces was as follows: Liberalism was inevitably pushed aside by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could not stand up to communism. The Communist regime in the East could endure and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who (feeling the kinship!) refused to see communism’s crimes, and when they no longer could do so, they tried to justify these crimes. The problem persists: In our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. And yet Western intellectuals still look at it with considerable interest and empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East.

Before the Turn

I am not examining the case of a disaster brought on by a world war and the changes which it would produce in society. But as long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we must lead an everyday life. Yet there is a disaster which is already very much with us. I am referring to the calamity of an autonomous, irreligious humanistic consciousness.

It has made man the measure of all things on earth—imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob in the East, by the commercial one in the West. This is the essence of the crisis: The split in the world is less terrifying than the similarity of the disease afflicting its main sections.

If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death, his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual: not a total engrossment in everyday life, not the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then their carefree consumption. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become above all an experience of moral growth: to leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to reappraise the scale of the usual human values; its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the president’s performance should be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or to the availability of gasoline. Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves of freely accepted and serene self-restraint can mankind rise above the world stream of materialism.

Today it would be retrogressive to hold on to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Such social dogmatism leaves us helpless before the trials of our times.

Even if we are spared destruction by war, life will have to change in order not to perish on its own. We cannot avoid reassessing the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities should be ruled by material expansion above all? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our integral spiritual life?

If the world has not approached its end, it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will demand from us a spiritual blaze; we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life, where our physical nature will not be cursed, as in the Middle Ages, but even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon, as in the Modern Era.

This ascension is similar to climbing onto the next anthropological stage. No one on earth has any other way left but—upward.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes

[1] The Old Square in Moscow (Staraya ploshchad) is the place where the headquarters of the Central Committee of the CPSU are located; it is the real name of what in the West is conventionally referred to as "the Kremlin."

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（多事奏論）空気を読む力　あってもなくても、なぜ疲れる　岡崎明子

2026-06-13T06:30:14.179+09:00

（多事奏論）空気を読む力　あってもなくても、なぜ疲れる　岡崎明子

朝日新聞　2026年6月13日

ふりかえれば、新人記者時代の私は、空気を読まなかった。へそ出しのＴシャツで出勤したり、大阪府警担当が長かった上司に「警察取材って、意味がありますか」と聞いて本気で怒られたり。

　「会社」に染まりたくない。今思えば、ずいぶん幼稚な反骨心だった。職場に漂う目に見えないルールに逆らうより、「従った方が楽だ」と悟るまでに、かなりの年月が必要だった。

　だから私は「空気を読めない人」にいらだつ人の気持ちもよくわかる。場の雰囲気を察して気を配っている横で、平然と空気を乱されると「自由すぎる」と憤ってしまうのも無理はない。けれどその怒りを向けるべき先は、「空気を読めない人」なのだろうか。

　　　　　＊

　早稲田大学の鄭有希（チョンユヒ）教授らは、日本の組織における「空気を読む」を概念化する論文を発表した。多様な職場で働く１５８人に自由記述を求めたところ、空気を読む力は、状況に気づく「認知」、調和しようとする「態度」、それに応じた「行動」からなる「重要な能力」として捉えられていたという。

　つまり「空気を読む」力は、単なる忖度（そんたく）ではなく、社会的なスキルなのだ。

　私たちは小さい頃から、お遊戯や学校生活、就職活動などを通じて、そのスキルを身につけて社会に出る。いや、身につけられた人たちが、多数派として扱われている、と言うべきかもしれない。

　発達に特性のある人を取材する機会が多いのだが、言葉の裏や行間を読み取ることに苦労する人は少なくない。友人関係や就活の面接、職場の人間関係でつまずいてきた経験を、繰り返し聞いた。

　一方で記事が掲載されるたびに、切実な訴えも届く。「当事者の苦労はわかるが、周囲も本当に大変だ」。理想論だけでは職場は回らない。でも、なぜ周囲はそこまで疲弊してしまうのか。

　　　　　＊

　「空気」は、その職場で権限を持つ人の価値観を強く映し出す。何を言えば評価され、どう行動すれば面倒くさがられるのか。空気を読む力がある人ほど、その先に起きることが見えてしまう。だから自分を抑えて、やり過ごす。

　一方で、空気を読めない人は職場で浮き、ときに孤立する。苦しさの形は違うが、「空気を読む」ことが当然とされる環境では、どちらの立場の人も消耗する。とくに空気を読んで自我を抑える人ほど、不満も違和感も知らず知らずのうちにたまっていくのだろう。

　空気を読み過ぎる組織は、判断力も鈍っていく。合意が優先され、異論がのみ込まれていくと、「集団浅慮」と呼ばれる状態に陥りやすい。

　空気を読む力は、危うい兆しに気づき、ブレーキをかけるためにも使えるはずだ。その力が同調圧力を保つためだけに使われると、空気を読める人ほど声を上げられなくなってしまう。

　かつて空気を読まなかった私も、今では無難な服を選び、角の立たない言い方も覚えた。社会人として必要な成熟だったのだろう。でもそれと引き換えに、何だか大切な牙を失った気もする。

　空気が読める人ほど疲れてしまう。しかも、その負担は可視化されないまま積み上がる。そんな仕組みを放置してきた組織こそ、問題があるのではないか。

　この能力をつかい、周囲に配慮しつつ、組織に小さな風穴をあけることもできるはずだ。それができないなら、問題は個人ではなく、その「空気」をつくる側にある。

　（編集委員）

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2026-06-04T16:25:58.362+09:00

OGNI ENERGIA LASCIA UNA CICATRICE

Il rischio è che il confronto sul nucleare resti sospeso dentro slogan e disegni di legge che rinviano le decisioni vere

Di Gabriella Greison

4 Jun 2026

Ci sono paure che fanno rumore. E poi ci sono quelle che evaporano lentamente nell’aria, così lentamente da diventare paesaggio. Le scorie nucleari appartengono alla prima categoria. La CO2 alla seconda.

Ho letto l’articolo di Dacia Maraini sul Corriere dedicato al nucleare. E mentre lo leggevo pensavo che in fondo il vero protagonista del dibattito energetico contemporaneo non è il petrolio, non è l’uranio, non è il sole, non è il vento. È il tempo.

Perché le scorie fanno paura soprattutto per questo: durano più di noi. Attraversano le epoche con una specie di pazienza minerale. Restano lì mentre cambiano i governi, le ideologie, le lingue, le generazioni. Sono la prova fisica che ogni civiltà lascia dietro di sé qualcosa che non riesce più a controllare completamente.

Ed è giusto parlarne. Anzi: è necessario. Ma ogni volta che in Italia si pronuncia la parola «nucleare», il pensiero si spezza immediatamente in due metà isteriche. Da una parte i sacerdoti del progresso. Dall’altra gli archeologi dell’apocalisse. Nel mezzo, quasi mai, compare la complessità.

Eppure la fisica dei sistemi complessi ci insegna proprio questo: non esistono soluzioni pure. Esistono equilibri instabili. Compensazioni. Scambi di rischio. Zone d’ombra.

Ogni sistema energetico produce residui. Sempre. Solo che alcuni residui li vediamo. Altri invece li respiriamo.

Le scorie nucleari stanno dentro contenitori d’acciaio e cemento e per questo ci terrorizzano: hanno un corpo, un luogo, un nome. Le scorie fossili invece galleggiano nell’atmosfera come fantasmi statistici. Le chiamiamo ondate di calore. Le chiamiamo siccità. Le chiamiamo incendi. Le chiamiamo migrazioni climatiche. Le chiamiamo bollette fuori controllo. Le chiamiamo guerre energetiche. Ma facciamo fatica a percepirle come «scorie» perché non stanno ferme in una fotografia. Si diluiscono nel tempo. E tutto ciò che si diluisce nel tempo, l’essere umano smette di vederlo.

E poi c’è un dettaglio di cui si parla pochissimo: le scorie nucleari esistono già. Esistono adesso. Anche in Italia. Le producono gli ospedali, la medicina nucleare, la ricerca scientifica, alcune applicazioni industriali. Ogni volta che facciamo una PET, una radioterapia, certi tipi di diagnostica avanzata, stiamo già entrando in contatto con il mondo della radioattività controllata. Questo non significa banalizzare il problema delle scorie ad alta attività prodotte dalle centrali. Significa però ricordare una cosa fondamentale: la società contemporanea usa già materiale radioattivo ogni giorno, spesso per salvarci la vita. Il tema quindi non è «radioattività sì o no?», perché quella soglia l’abbiamo attraversata da decenni. Il tema è: con quale livello di sicurezza, trasparenza e responsabilità vogliamo gestire ciò che esiste già e ciò che eventualmente produrremo in futuro?

Negli Stati Uniti hanno iniziato a usare un’espressione interessante: «energy addiction». Dipendenza energetica. Ed è forse la definizione più onesta della nostra epoca. Perché il problema non è soltanto produrre energia pulita. Il problema è che continuiamo a consumarne sempre di più. Data center, intelligenza artificiale, climatizzazione, auto elettriche, server, reti digitali, industrie: tutto chiede elettricità, continuamente. Viviamo dentro una civiltà energivora che vuole contemporaneamente più tecnologia, più comfort, più connessione e meno emissioni. È una tensione gigantesca. Ed è per questo che spesso le rinnovabili e il nucleare vengono raccontati male: come se fossero avversari, quando in realtà stanno rispondendo a scale temporali diverse. Le rinnovabili oggi sono fondamentali per tamponare, alleggerire, ridurre subito le emissioni. Funzionano a blocchetti, entrano progressivamente nel sistema, abbassano la dipendenza dai fossili. Il nucleare invece, per chi lo sostiene, è un’infrastruttura di lunghissimo periodo: lenta da costruire, enorme, strutturale. Sono due tempi diversi della stessa crisi energetica.

È questo che trovo vertiginoso nel dibattito italiano sull’energia. La sua infantilizzazione continua. Come se bastasse dire «rinnovabili» per cancellare la fisica delle reti elettriche. Come se bastasse dire «nucleare» per cancellare la questione delle scorie. Come se un sistema energetico nazionale fosse una frase morale invece che una delle architetture più complesse mai costruite dall’uomo.

Per più di tre mesi ho lavorato alla scrittura della serie «Scintille» per il Corriere della Sera,e il cuore di quel lavoro è esattamente questo: togliere il riflesso ideologico dai grandi temi collettivi. Perché una rete energetica non funziona per slogan. Funziona per stabilità, continuità, accumulo, ridondanza, distribuzione, consumo variabile, gestione dei picchi.

Quando sono andata da Parenzo a «L’aria che tira» a parlare di sistemi complessi applicati all’energia, è successa una cosa quasi comica. Una metà del pubblico era convinta che fossi contro le rinnovabili. L’altra metà era convinta che stessi demolendo il nucleare. E lì ho capito quanto siamo diventati incapaci di tollerare il pensiero complesso. Appena non urli una fede, qualcuno pretende immediatamente una bandiera.

Ma la fisica dei sistemi complessi, quando è praticata con onestà intellettuale, non appartiene alle tribù. La fisica osserva i vincoli del reale. E il reale, purtroppo o per fortuna, è sempre meno puro delle nostre ideologie.

E proprio per questo, prima ancora delle tifoserie, servirebbe finalmente una cosa molto semplice: un piano. Un piano energetico chiaro, leggibile, spiegato ai cittadini. Perché oggi il rischio è che il dibattito sul nucleare resti sospeso dentro annunci, slogan e disegni di legge che rinviano continuamente le decisioni vere. Se il governo pensa davvero che il nucleare debba rientrare nel futuro energetico italiano, allora deve dire con precisione dove, come, con quali tecnologie, con quali costi, con quali tempi e soprattutto con quale strategia per le scorie. Altrimenti il rischio è che il Ddl sul nucleare diventi soltanto un modo elegante per spostare le decisioni alla prossima legislatura.

Per questo penso che Dacia Maraini faccia bene a parlare delle scorie. Perché costringe tutti a guardare il lato lungo del tempo. Ma il passo successivo dovrebbe essere ancora più radicale: avere il coraggio di guardare anche tutte le altre scorie che abbiamo normalizzato. Quelle che non stanno sottoterra in un deposito, ma sopra le nostre teste. Quelle che non dureranno migliaia di anni, ma che stanno già modificando il presente.

La vera domanda allora non è «nucleare sì o no?». La vera domanda è molto più scomoda.

Quale forma di residuo siamo disposti a lasciare al futuro pur di continuare a chiamare progresso il nostro presente?

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空気を読む

Quaestio: Whether things possess being of themselves

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