Wisdom from the Heights of the Mountain Top: Inspiration from Thomas Aquinas

Onlookers viewing the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris might experience something similar to what onlookers in the 1200s had when the original construction of Notre Dame was still underway. Having begun in 1163, it was not completed until 1345. The site of its construction rests upon an island in the middle of the Seine. Crossing the Seine, one can make their way to the Latin Quarter, where one finds the medieval University of Paris. The Rue Saint-Jacques cuts through the Latin Quarter, aiming at Notre Dame on Seine. It was the street Thomas Aquinas daily walked

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Counsels of the Wise, Part 9: The Limits and Transcendence of Prudence

We have come full circle in this series on Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of prudence or practical wisdom. Prudence is one of those forgotten gems of the classical educational tradition. Its proper flowering is the result of early instruction, long reflection and the blooming of rationality in man. Discipline, early training in habits, examples and good instruction about the real differences between things—all play a role in the acquisition of prudence. But prudence itself comes through a pedagogy of dialectic, rhetoric, and ethics, since it is concerned primarily with a person’s ability to deliberate correctly and act with regard to human

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