Review: The Four Cardinal Virtues

Josef Pieper was a German philosopher (Elte -Westfalia-, May 4, 1904 Münster, November 6, 1997). He studied philosophy, law and sociology at the universities of Berlin and Münster. He began teaching in 1946 at the School of Education at Essen. From 1950 he was professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Münster. He was a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry (Darmstadt) and the Centre for Studies in Research.

His works are often short, agile and pithy; he has confessed on occasion: "I in shaping my ideas, was inspired by a musical form: the suite" (V. Marrero, Pieper or a 'suite' aquiniana, "ABC", Madrid 7 Mar 1968.). Research and philosophical Pieper exhibitions have focused mainly on the basis of anthropology. After rising to meet with his doctoral thesis on St. Thomas Aquinas (1928-1929) was particularly interested in sociology, then ethics.

The phenomenological method and metaphysics converge on it to solidly study the human structure, full of ontological sense and open to authentic values, deep analysis and exciting trials. The ontology is integrated into Pieper with history and eschatology, covering the entire arc of human existence. This highlights the perennial values ​​of philosophy, which, as the Thomist, knows the wear of time and ignores the novelty of the story.

Pieper has conducted a broad and deep reading of Thomas Aquinas in service today's culture. Excellent translator and interpreter of Doctor of Aquino, uses a lively and dynamic terminology, and is singularly attractive in his works, largely as a result of the structure of the same, your personal originality and his deep understanding of Revelation and Theology. There is no doubt that this is a masterpiece, so what does say about the man, his being and his action, its environment and its end, for the collection of stimuli and prospects opened to permanent newness of life.

Pieper studied reality itself in being and nature of things, but never neglect their temporality and history, especially that of the human person. But all this, ultimately, is illuminated by revelation, and thus is not limited to being a philosopher, theologian but also to clarify the understanding of man and of historical experience. Philosophical inquiry can be more or less conditioned by the historical process, but the discourse and philosophical progress is not confused with the historical.

The German philosopher emphasized with great force and modernity perennial truths of Philosophy and Metaphysics realistic, do not know the ravages of time, but neither ignore the novelty of the story. A fine sensitivity and careful observation of reality bind the Pieper has deep knowledge of the work of Thomas Aquinas, which is excellent translator and interpreter, and has given him his colossal task in the service of contemporary culture.

Your terminology is alive and dynamic; the structure of his works, very modern; his knowledge of philosophy and history, as well as supernatural revelation and theology, deep; penetration and personal originality is evident in each of its pages. All these factors combined hard to find, explain the unique appeal of his works reflected in copious editions and translations.