Football and Philosophy
Ryan, James H.
January z6, x9z 7 THE COMMONWEAL 3zx Bonaparte-Wyse was a poet in English as well as in Provengal. He had written English verses long before becoming familiar with the language of Mistral and...
...January z6, x9z 7 THE COMMONWEAL 3zx Bonaparte-Wyse was a poet in English as well as in Provengal...
...It would be a great mistake to give the impression that the new realism is even distantly related to scholastic realism, or . . . establish any community of doctrine with it...
...If the greater rich- ness of the scholastic concept of causality were better known, I believe our thinkers would recognize the pos- sibility of help for the solution of their problems they could derive from this source...
...I believe it was Bdranger who said in one of his songs, and I remember that you, too, were some- what of the same opinion once when you were speaking of poor Sdm~now: 'J'aime qu'un Russe soit Russe...
...In the letter Bonaparte-Wyse wrote to congratulate Mistral on his great work and thank him for the honor paid him, there is a note of sadness: "I cannot forget, after all, that I am foreign, a stranger, an intruder in the sanctuary...
...For a great university to have achieved a national football reputa- tion has its disadvantages...
...The movement has many points of contact with scholastic philosophy, but as Professor Miltner of Notre Dame warned us, "we should be very slow in admitting that we stand on any common ground with these philosophers...
...I have not given up the idea, which I have neglected too much thus far, of doing something worth while in my own language...
...His presidential address was a model of clarity and conciseness, permeated with the true philosophic temper, exhibiting an understanding both of scholastic principles and contemporary view- points that cannot but make of it a memorable contri- bution to our thinking...
...A strange place and a queer atmosphere in which to discuss the problems of philosophyl Strange and queer for anyone who does not know the soul of Notre Dame or who is unacquainted with its heroes of the classroom, but the most logical place in the country for a philosophy congress to all who appreciate that the academic fire does not burn less brightly at the Indiana institution because its athletic fame has risen to such tremendous heights...
...This influence has been felt outside scholastic circles in all the continental countries during the last twenty-five years...
...The visitor to its campus expects to be greeted by a troop of students in mole- skins or at least to be let into the secrets of the system which produces championship teams...
...And it might be that by his ardent devotion to the Provenqal language he loved so well he had sacri- ficed fame and glory in his own...
...He had written English verses long before becoming familiar with the language of Mistral and Roumanille...
...There can be no question of the fact that there is taking place in the philosophical world a veritable renaissance of realistic thinking...
...the thundering feet of the "Four Horsemen" echo in the still air as they charge to victory and undying fame...
...Through the long lean years of expectancy Professor Pace has upheld the honor and prestige of scholastic thinking...
...President Pace of the association is too well known to need praise...
...Ah ! si j'eusse dtd Provenqal !" He is busy writing some poems in English...
...Certainly, anyone who attended the congress could scarcely say with exactness that neo-scholastic philosophers are either unacquainted with views contrary to their own or unappredative of the sound points of systems which acutely conflict with the basic principles which they defend...
...Charles William Bonaparte-Wyse died at Cannes on December 3, I892" On the stone covering his grave in the cemetery at Cannes were inscribed the lines in Provenqal he had sent to Mistral from Avig- non a few weeks before...
...Certain it is that on all sides students are beginning to realize that what the Germans call a "world-and-life-view" is not a use- less piece of mental baggage, but a very real and uni- versal need of the intellectual life...
...He realized that, after all, he was not really Proven~;al, that even to his old friends in Provence there must be something strange, exotic, even artificial, in his writing in a language not his own...
...The membersihip in the American Catholic Philosophical Association is increasing, and interest in its work is wide-spread and deep...
...The function of scholasticism is to "put people on their guard against substitutes, which in learned phrase only befog thinking, and warn them of interpretations which take out of life its essential meaning...
...Not only were the papers of Professor Sheen of the Catholic University, and Professor Phelan of the Uni- versity of Toronto, models of exposition...
...The first number of this new review has already appeared and contains articles by such prominent scholars as Professors De Wulf, Gilson, Schwitalla, and Haldi...
...Pragmatism is largely responsible for bringing the problems of phil- osophy before the American people and for having stimulated interest in the solutions offered by the dif- ferent schools of thought...
...He concluded: "Modern philosophy has failed conspic- uously in its attempts to account for reality in terms of material and efficient causality...
...The interested spectator at the Notre Dan~ con-gress could not but be impressed first of all by the representative character of the audience made up, as it was, of professors of philosophy from about forty of the leading Catholic colleges, universities, and the- ological seminaries...
...Mistral cited passages from the poems of his friend as illustrations in his Provenqal dictionary...
...From France, Belgium, England, Germany, and Italy have come expressions of good will and promises of assist- ance...
...Of course, if "truth itself is continually in motion, if, as some have asserted, it evolvesPit and not merely our attainment of it, then plainly we need not be much concerned about sub- stitutions and transfers of meaning, however radical or inconsistent they may appear at a given moment...
...An outstanding characteristic of the gathering was its open-mindedness and complete willingness to discuss every point of view presented...
...The new scholasticism, being the only truly in- ternational philosophy, has within itself possibilities of expansion through co6perative effort denied to other schools, all of which are national in character...
...Recently Cardinal Bisleti, prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities, addressed a congratu- latory letter to the president of the association...
...Professor John F. McCormick, S. J., of Marquette University, read a paper on Psycho-Physical Parallel- ism in which both the strong and weak points of the theory were outlined...
...He is of the opinion that at none of these meetings was any topic handled more impersonally and with greater fairness toward the principles and arguments involved than at the morn-ing session of December 28 of the congress when the contemporary conception of God was under discussion...
...Of all the great thinkers of the past, Saint Thomas stands with Kant, Aristotle, and Plato as an enduring source of philosophic inspiration and a permanent in- fluence on metaphysical thinking...
...From Avignon he sent some verses in Provenqal to his old friend at Maillane: "I have come at last to die in the land of flowers and sunlight-- worn out, tired, and wearied by the delusions of life-- amid the flowers and sunshine, in the land of my old affection, where the sun god shines resplendent in the air...
...It is be- ginning to be experienced in the United States, and it is the principal function of the American Catholic Philosophical Association to interpret Saint Thomas first to our own philosophical world, and then to the general public with the idea of arousing here some-thing of the respect for this great mediaeval philos- opher common among European scholars...
...Professor McCormick felt that a great deal of the confusion now existing in the field of the philosophy of psychology is due in no small degree to mistaken views of causality and of substance...
...Who could tell...
...It is a sign that we have entered as fullpledged participants into American intellectual life with the purpose of acquainting American thinkers with the scholastic philosophy and of gaining their good will toward it and their appreciation of what it can give to the intellectual and spiritual life of the country...
...et qu'un Anglais soit Anglais l' " In the autumn of x892, Bonaparte-Wyse left his home in Ireland, of whose dreary climate he was not fond, to journey for the last time to his loved Provence...
...A genuine desire to dis-cuss philosophy and to arrive at sound conclusions is evidenced on all sides, and among no group is the in- terest more lively than among those who have given their allegiance to the philosophy of Saint Thomas...
...FOOTBALL AND PHILOSOPHY By JAMES H. RYAN F OOTBALL supremacy and Notre Dame Uni-versity have come to be synonymous terms in the vocabulary of the American public...
...Philosophy is coming to mean more and more each year to an ever-increasing circle of thinkers...
...This defect has been remedied and the New Scholasticism: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy will henceforth carry the message of the philosophy of Saint Thomas to Englishspeaking peoples...
...A pioneer in the field of scientific psychology, he has never lost interest in the more fun- damental philosophical questions which lie imbedded in the very heart of any psychology which pretends to be more than a mere description of mental processes...
...The one thing lacking in the et~orts to make scholasticism a real contender among contemporary systems in our own country was an organ...
...The latest theories relative to epistemology, the origin and nature of religion, the fundamental norm of morality, and the teleological aspects of nature were 322 THE COMMONWEAL January 26, I927 gone over and ably criticized...
...What factors are chiefly responsible for the change in atti- tude, it would be difficult to state...
...Contemporary philosophy has been, he told us, a series of substitutions: man for God, brain for soul, event for substance, intuition for reason, the beautiful for the good, evolution for crea- tion, and mechanism for purpose...
...Before his imag- ination the heroes of former days pass in review...
...During the years that followed, he continued from time to time to write in English but Provem;al claimed his service most...
...The present writer has attended a number of meetings of philosophical associations and the Sixth International Congress of Philosophy...
...The first day of the congress was devoted to a dis- cussion of epistemological and psychological questions...
...Sister Mary Verda, professor of philosophy at Saint Mary's College for women and author of The New Realism, presented to the congressists a paper on American New Realism in which the views of Profes- sors Holt, Montague, Lovejoy, and Perry were clev-erly brought together to produce a synthetic outline of this really important phase of American thinking...
...In make-up, appearance and in the scientific value of the articles published, the New Scholasticism compares favorably with the Revue NeoScholastique, the Scholastik, and the Rivista NeoScolastica...
...As the years passed and thoughts came of the end, there seem to have come regrets...
...they exhib- ited an acquaintance with current thinking which could only result from a painstaking reading and analysis of almost everything of worth which has been written on that subject in the last six years...
...For European as for American scholars he is one of the acknowledged leaders of the school in the United States...
...The new year holds great possibilities for the de- velopment of the neo-scholastic movement in the United States...
Vol. 5 • January 1927 • No. 12
