Medievalist, Philosopher, Scotist
Bonn, Deutschland
Joined December 2014
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Garrett retweeted
“About Logres — I do think there is a ‘better England’ always getting lost in, but always showing through, the actual one.”
- C.S. Lewis, Letters
Garrett retweeted
It is said that Turgon appointed its name to be Ondolindë in the speech of the Elves of Valinor, the Rock of the Music of Water, for there were fountains upon the hill; but in the Sindarin tongue the name was changed, and it became Gondolin, the Hidden Rock.
Garrett retweeted
I am glad to share my new book:
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO
In Plain English
Volume I in The Examined Life Series on the History of Philosophy.
WHY I WROTE IT
I believe that anyone who wants to understand important ideas should have a fair chance to do so.
Many philosophy books assume knowledge the reader has not yet acquired. Others are easy to read but give only brief summaries. I wanted to write a substantial introduction that explains the ideas and the arguments in familiar language.
No prior training in philosophy is needed. The reader brings curiosity and a willingness to think.
WHAT THE BOOK COVERS
The book begins with Socrates: his questions, his trial, and his conviction that becoming a good human being matters more than wealth, power, or reputation.
It then explores Plato’s major ideas:
• Reality and the Forms: Why did Plato think there must be more to reality than the changing things we see?
• Knowledge and opinion: What is the difference between believing something and understanding why it is true?
• The Allegory of the Cave: How can education help us recognize the limits of what we have always accepted?
• The human soul: Why do we struggle against ourselves? How should reason guide anger and desire? Does the soul survive death?
• Justice and happiness: Why should we be just when wrongdoing seems more profitable? What makes a life good?
• Love and beauty: How can attraction lead us toward a deeper understanding of what is worth loving?
• Politics and education: What makes a society just? Why did Plato want philosophers to rule? What should we teach the young?
• Art and persuasion: Does persuasive speech give us knowledge? How can stories, poetry, and music shape our character?
• The universe: Is the order of nature the work of intelligence?
The final chapters consider Plato’s criticisms of his own theories and his influence on later philosophy.
HOW IT IS WRITTEN
My guiding aim was simple: keep the philosophy serious and make the explanation clear.
When Plato gives an argument, the book explains its steps. When a difficult term is needed, it explains the idea the term names. Concrete examples and illustrations help readers see what an abstract claim means.
The purpose is to help readers understand Plato well enough to assess his reasons and form judgments of their own.
WHAT IS INCLUDED
• 539 pages
• 18 chapters
• 14 illustrations
• Chapter summaries of key ideas
• Questions for understanding
• A glossary of philosophical terms
WHO IT IS FOR
Curious adults, students, independent readers, and anyone who has wanted to understand Plato but found the usual explanations hard to follow.
WHY PLATO STILL MATTERS
We already hold opinions about truth, justice, freedom, happiness, and how people should live.
Plato examined those questions with unusual depth. Learning what he argued can help us think more carefully about beliefs we might otherwise take for granted.
Writing this book has deepened my own understanding and shown me how much there is still to learn. I hope it will help others find the same value in studying philosophy.
Garrett retweeted
Tomorrow we're releasing a full UATX course for free: all 19 lectures of Professor Isabella Reinhardt's Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome, filmed in class with our students.
It runs from Rome's mythical founding to the Third Century Crisis. It ends on a question the class spent a whole session arguing about: did Rome ever really fall?
Garrett retweeted
Two copies of The Coming of Arthur by @malcolmguite to give away, out Nov 9 from Rabbit Room
To enter: like, repost, and comment.
Winners Nov 2. US only.
Two more for Substack subscribers. Or preorder, if you’d rather not risk it. Links below.
well, alas no... the versions there are mixes of various versions. No one commentary there (oxford, Paris) is free from contamination from other versions and prints, largely all introdced by wadding himself to fill in the gaps. But theere is a modern edition of the Ordinatio.
Garrett retweeted
From the Martyrology of the 20th Century: Bl. Bernhard Lichtenberg. After the November pogroms, the Berlin cathedral provost publicly prayed for persecuted Jews and protested against the Nazi “euthanasia”. In 1943, he died being brought to Dachau.
“I will follow my conscience.”
Garrett retweeted
Happy to announce I built a Greek/English reader site with all the surviving plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, & Aristophanes.
Multiple translations for each play; click to parse & define for any Greek word; full Greek & English search.
greekdrama.johnhboyer.com
Garrett retweeted
We got early access to the second installment of Malcolm’s Arthurian epic — just a few pages in… ❤️🔥 this is such an important work for this and future generations to gain moral courage from!
yes in the Oxford Ordinatio he prefers formal non identity over formal distinction, but at Paris he specifies the conditions of a distinction and even affirms that you can move from formal non identity to formal distinction.
Garrett retweeted
This guy built a squirrel city with over 1,000 homes, complete with cameras to capture what they get up to
including hugging and “kissing” their loved ones in the privacy of their own homes.
is whether or not you think 'formal non identity' is equivalent to 'formal distinction'. alnwick says they are not and this is why he follows Oxford (formal non identity), despite his apparent presence at the Logica scoti debate.
I think everyone would agree that it is a kind of real distinction, the 'secundum quid' talk comes in at Paris. Some such as Alnwick prefer the Oxford account, which is just less specific. But 'ex natura rei' means real in a loose sense. The more or less realist debate
Garrett retweeted
📄 On Learning and the Study of Scholasticism
This is a stream-of-conciousness, off-the-cuff article I'm writing on the way to the gym, and I will begin with a little lesson for everyone. Please bear with me and my unorganised thoughts.
In 2022–23 I read St. Bonaventure's Commentary on the Sentences, Tome I, along with all the other Scholastic works FIP printed, cover to cover. However, I did so before I was as well trained in metaphysics and theology as I am now.
Likewise with St. Thomas, my engagement began with a thorough reading of an abridged "Concise" Summa. Were these readings pivotal for my development? Absolutely. But returning now to the Summa, or to St. Bonaventure's works generally, I pick up on so much more. I had not fully grasped their depth and gravity before.
This is due to a fourfold reason: better study habits and method, greater familiarity with theology as a science, being a formal member of the Church and the effects of grace in my own life, and a more intimate grasp of philosophy as such.
Genuine wisdom is like a wellspring. You drink once, you depart for a while, and then you return to find yourself drinking more deeply from the same well.
Habit, prayer and the sacraments, and study in other fields to train the mind and broaden your familiarity cannot be neglected, unless you are content to concern yourself with superficial polemics rather than depth and the internalisation of what you spend your time studying.
Of course, my personal advice is this: read the Platonists, Aristotle, and the most important of the modern philosophers. Read poetry and fiction, both ancient and new. Learn logic, rhetoric, and Latin. Work through Euclid's geometry. Learn to play an instrument.
The average medieval student did all of these things and more. They had a holistic grasp of the arts and sciences. St. Bonaventure is an exemplary case, as you will see if you examine the De Reductione or the Collationes in Hexaemeron. He also presumes that the reader of the Commentary on the Sentences has actually studied the Quadrivium. He himself studied medicine and displays an intimate knowledge of Latin poetry and fiction.
And look, no one will want to read theological ramblings on, say, the predestination controversies if you have no eloquence. How unbecoming it would be to speak of divine mysteries in a coarse tongue!
That is all.
May the Seraphic Doctor obtain for you all the wisdom you so desire.
