Stefan McDaniel

While I’m recommending philosophers , I should make a particularly enthusiastic plug for Aurel Kolnai . Kolnai was a Hungarian-Jewish Wunderkind who converted to Catholicism under the influence of G.K. Chesterton. He then proceeded to hop erratically around the western world, publishing . . . . Continue Reading »

It seems that people really like talking about novels. My unremarkable comments last Friday have not just generated two derivative posts , but also far more email responses than I was expecting. Now even a blogger from Australia has weighed in . . . and at some length. Thanks to everyone for the . . . . Continue Reading »

If you like philosophy, then boy do I have a blog for you. Alexander Pruss, the unnervingly brilliant Professor at Baylor University, has for some time now been treating the world to his rigorous ruminations. Pruss is, from one point of view, a philosopher in the style of the eighteenth century: a . . . . Continue Reading »

The Economist says that, after decades of dominance left-wing parties are in serious trouble all over Europe . If you have ever worried that Europe may fall into an abyss of bureaucratic socialism, this may seem like straightforward good news. But I’m not so sure about that. The article . . . . Continue Reading »

Though I am sure I stand convicted of intolerable stupidity on wholly independent grounds, I must protest Amanda’s characterization of my view of Austen . I yield to no one in my esteem for her wit or social perceptiveness . . . and I said as much . To the extent that I can read her as a . . . . Continue Reading »

A few days ago our editor, Joseph Bottum, observed with a shake of his head that none of the many Junior Fellows at First Things in recent years reads novels with any regularity. I had to confess I was no exception, thus perfecting his despair. “The dominant Western literary form for the past . . . . Continue Reading »

If it be true that man must always have some kind of religion, then a thoroughly scientistic future might look something like this . . . . . Continue Reading »

The Times Online reports on Ingrid Betancourt’s recent meeting with the pope. Apparently Ms. Betancourt had been a rather lukewarm Catholic, but experienced a tremendous deepening of her faith during the last six years she spent in captivity in the Columbian jungle, praying the Rosary and . . . . Continue Reading »

The visceral hatred so many of my peers from elite universities feel for Sarah Palin does not come from mere snobbish revulsion at her association with backwoods culture, with mooseburgers and ATVs. Many of us who exulted over last night’s electrifying speech have little in common with her, . . . . Continue Reading »

In yesterday’s daily article , R.R. Reno describes Simon Critchley’s treatment of death as typically postmodern posturing. It projects a “self-congratulating honesty that protests against old hypocrisies and evasions—all in close conjunction with a winking lack of seriousness . . . . Continue Reading »