Thomas Aquinas Philosophy for Modern Men

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0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Meriwether Academy podcast. My name is Warren. I run Meriwether Academy. We are a 501c3 nonprofit, an educational and cultural nonprofit committed to building schools and creating educational opportunities for men and boys across America. I have a very special guest on the podcast today, uh, Dr. Benjamin Smith. Dr. Smith is an adjunct professor of philosophy at Belmont University and MTSU. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of St. Thomas, a master's from the Catholic University of America, and a bachelor's in philosophy and history from Belmont University. His scholarship centers on the political philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He's the co-founder of the Catholic Studies Academy and now spends most of his time building Logos Letter. And the reason why I'm interviewing him today is because here in just a few weeks on

1:03 Saturday, August 29th, Dr. Smith is coming to speak at Meriwether Academy for our next dinner symposium. The topic being Thomas Aquinas, his ideas on citizenship and the common good. Dr. Smith, thank you so much for your time and it's really a pleasure to talk with you today. No, thanks so much. I I uh appreciate being here and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about these topics. So, I think I would love to hear about how you got into your scholarship with Aquinas. Did you read something at a young age that kind of set you on this path? What kind of sparked this fire in your heart for academics like this? Well, I was uh blessed to have a sort of a wonderful family that had sort of couple of different sides of it, but one part of my family. So, my paternal uh grandparents uh were both PhDs. Uh so, and they're both PhDs in literature. Uh both PhDs in Victorian literature, right? And so, uh you know, we had a lot of

2:09 academic influence in our our household even though my father uh my father was an artist. uh but both grandparents being you know uh PhDs in Victorian literature meant that that that kind of culture and tradition and you know value of learning uh flowed over into our home. I originally uh uh started as a uh history major uh at Belmont. Um but quickly, you know, found philosophy uh took an intro to philosophy course. I had a little bit of philosophy in high school. I was blessed to go to a school that had a little bit of philosophy in high school. So I knew I would enjoy it. I didn't know how much I would enjoy it. So uh I found that I was uh uh uh intrigued by in that in that class intrigued by Plato and provoked by John Stuart Mill. So I I I both thought Mill was wrong and that Plato was possibly right. Uh so if that's uh kind of a little bit but over time you know I really uh uh at Belmont they had a excellent at that time classics professor who was very good in

3:11 Aristotle as well as teaching Latin. Um and along the way he taught uh even though he wasn't a philosophy professor they in the philosophy department they let him teach a a class just on Aristotle and it was an amazing experience was fantastic right he was a real master right uh of the subject matter and so you know I really got into Aristotle and as time went by you know of course I uh you know that opened a way for me to be introduced to Aquinas because I was kind of curious as to how this carried about you know I I come from a Christian background so I was always interested in those parts in Aristotle where he sort of talks about contemplation of God as being the highest activity right so you know book 10 of the Nicomachean ethics I thought was fantastic well of course my um profess uh you know the professor I'm talking about the time he he pointed me in the direction of Aquinas and said well you know Aquinas takes this idea and develops it right so I ended up reading a good deal of Aquinas on contemplation his commentary on book 10 and that really just got me hooked into Aquinas for sure. Um there's a lot

4:18 that's great in Aristotle. The thing that's interesting about Aquinas is he takes a lot of Aristotle and develops it to sort of a more refined point. Some people don't like that. They like the Aristotle pure. That's fine. I understand that. Okay. But also uh appreciate the refinements uh and developments that uh Aquinas introduces. Yeah. Fantastic. Now, what do you feel are some of the major benefits that a man can acquire by engaging with the thoughts of these men like Aristotle and Aquinas in particular? Let's say we have a young man 17, 18, 19 years old just coming onto the scene of thought and you introduce him to these types of thinkers. What ideally do you want him to get out of that type of engagement? I think there's two two values you can see here. One, uh, I'll take sort of more from Plato, which is that, um,

5:23 given our environment, right, although I wouldn't want to, you know, endorse Plato's allegory of the cave 100%. In a lot of ways, it's it still rings true, right? that is we live in a in a a kind of experience where often we are um subject to believing in shadows over you know over avaluing things that don't really matter you know in in the cave Plato talks about this competition that the the the the prisoners will have about who can name which shadow comes next right and they and they give each other reads and honors and glory but it's all fake it's all like about shadows right um that there's a certain degree to which you need to be able to um without becoming too radical about it, you still need to be able to sort of question the the shadows that you're presented, right? Most men, most politicians, most leaders, unfortunately, are corrupted by vice and greed. And you know, a lot of what you

6:24 will hear about the good is actually false, right? Uh is actually misleading. Um you know you'll hear uh about you know sort of the good is kind of self- glorification or uh just success understood in a narrow way right um not in sort of a full orbed way right um so you know if you don't have ideas about what the good is and about what virtue is about what it means to live well that are welldeveloped and based on truth then you're very likely to be deceived by something outside of yourself right uh so I think that that's kind of one way of thinking about the good of philosophy, right? Is the good of philosophy helps you break free of delusions and illusions about the good and helps you to actually understand what is really the good, right? Or at least get closer to that. Um, that's always been important to me. So, I mean, you know, Plato, again, I always I'm not a Platonist, but I always think Plato's a good place to begin, right? You always is he's is instructive and provocative.

7:25 Um and then you know a more arisatilian answer is you know so what the first answer is kind of protective you know you want to like free yourself from something is in terms of self-development right the ideal you know if you want to be a leader even just within your own family or within the your company or business world or better yet a leader in society. You don't have to necessarily be a philosopher king, but you need to not be adult, right? You need to not be a Thrasymachus. You don't want to be um talented but soulless, right? You don't want to be technically proficient but lacking in wisdom, right? Um and that's very much, you know, what's held out often to to young men today is make a lot of money. Uh you know, maybe be crafty. uh maybe you know have some some ways of manipulating things around you but that doesn't really make you better right it doesn't make you a man that's worthy of following um in part because I

8:25 think we learn this all the time to be a leader you need to have virtue um it doesn't mean you have to be uh pristine or faultless right but you need to at least be somebody who has an aspiration to character and this is something our founding fathers recognized very clearly right if you don't develop prudence uh self-control, uh fortitude, sense of justice, those sorts of things, you're not going to do well as a leader, right? Um and then, you know, philosophy, you know, invites you to think about those things again to think about what is the good, you know, and Aristotle, you know, the ideal gentleman is somebody who can use rhetoric, right? He is somebody who can stand in the line, right? uh who can be forceful if he needs to, but he's not a brute either, right? He's somebody who's open to discourse and open to the truth, right? So that you don't just end up letting your political leadership fall into mere power. U rather you're open to sort of a a broader and better sense of leadership.

9:29 Fantastic. You know, my experience with Aristotle and Aquinas really started with learning about Yeah. I discovered these ideas very late in life. I discovered the idea of the classics and the great western cannon and all of this in my mid20s. Um, and I engaged with some of the courses from Hillsdale College, which I think is a fantastic program. Really love those guys and love what they're doing. And I took some of the courses online, introduction to Aristotle and introduction to western philosophy. And it it really gave me some interesting things to think about. And when we were he was talking about Aquinas, I think it was uh President Arn uh Aquinas refers to Aristotle as the philosopher. So there's this this intimate relationship between Aquinas and Aristotle that's very unique. And I was wondering if you could speak to that.

10:32 Why why does Aquinas look so highly upon Aristotle as the philosopher and not a philosopher? I think that out of the options that Aquinas had at the time, I mean he certainly was aware of the Neoplatonic tradition. Um, you know, he was aware of Arabic interpretations of the Neopatonic tradition, right? uh and and Thomas was not averse to uh borrowing from that tradition, right? Um in a variety of ways. Nevertheless, right, I think you're correct that you know the heart of the structure is is is Aristotle. And I think that Aquinas um saw Aristotle as the um the one who really grasp the the inner structure of nature and of uh action and motion uh and things of that and and and what we experience, right?

11:37 So one of the things I appreciate about Aquinas right is that um you know it's not all sort of onlogical deductions right as much as I I again appreciate the platon tradition appreciate thinkers like Anselm I still at the same time you know maybe it's my you know Anglo-Saxon roots I want to come back to something empirical right uh I want to come I want you know to to begin in in least ordinary experience and Aristotle provides a way of doing that right Aristotle sees I I put this way, Aristotle sees in the world the underlying permanent structures, right? So that even though our experience is changing in particular, he sees sort of underneath that universal and changing structures, right? And so he's able to provide Aquinas with an account of nature and of ordinary experience that allows him then to build a consistent and reasonable theology, right? Um connected to God, right? That

12:41 reveals God but does it in a way that is at least in harmony with uh what we experience. So there's a kind of certainly Aquinas would hold theology to be a higher form of wisdom than philosophy. No doubt. Right. At the same time, he sees that that that higher form of wisdom is consistent with the wisdom that we acquire, right? And so this gives you a way of of looking at the world, right? Um where engagement with the world is going to at its best lead you towards uh virtue and towards um knowing God. Now to kind of dive into Aquinas and his thoughts a little bit more at least in the republic we have the idea of the philosopher king which is you know the merging of political life with high-mindedness and that's that's the ideal leader and for a lot of people including myself when I think of somebody like Aquinas a theologian a saint right

13:45 you almost at least for me it's like he's above politics he's in some other world. But Aquinas has a lot to say about citizenship and politics and things like this. So, how does he kind of merge these worlds of theology and and kind of bring it down to earth? What does he have to say about citizenship and, you know, our duties to society? That's a good question. So one place to begin right is exactly with the philosopher king. Uh again I sort of understand why that's attractive. I certainly found the idea of the philosopher king attractive in my uh early education. But Aquinas ultimately rejects that view. He rejects the view that you have to be a speculative philosopher to be a good ruler. Right? Which actually kind of connects I think with this question here. Of course he does think that to to have speculative wisdom would be a great thing right but he thinks what you really need is practical wisdom right uh so that you know wisdom is not one form like it is in Plato right it's broken into two forms like it is in Aristotle

14:52 right we have prudence right and then we also have right sapientia or that higher kind of wisdom right uh as well so um I think again you get that like as I was saying earlier with the idea of nature and then theology Right? Sometimes it's talked about this idea of nature building on grace. Right? So that there is a certain integrity to nature. Right? Even though grace and theology is higher, uh there's still an integrity to it and there's a continuity between the two, right? And so I think with Aquinas, you know, when he thinks about political life, right? There's kind of two approaches he takes. One is rooted in sort of the development of the human person and the second is in law. So in the first, right, he looks at it in terms of uh development of the human person. And you know he has a teleological view right which if your uh listeners aren't familiar with that is the idea that that nature including human nature is best understood as oriented intrinsically towards certain ends right and towards certain forms of activity right uh at a very basic level that kind of animal you know sort of activities like eating and

15:58 so forth uh that we need gaining shelter reproduction things of that nature of course we're not just animals so we need to engage in those things in a a rational way. So we we should you know have we don't eat like an animal, right? Neither shall we reproduce like animals. We do so in a rational way. You go up further, you begin to develop the arts and the sciences, right? And eventually philosophical contemplation, right? That's a certain trajectory, right, of human development. Thomas thinks, of course, human development needs to go further than that, right? And you gain the theological virtues like faith, hope, and charity, right? Going towards God. Well, along that trajectory of development, human flourishing, political community plays an essential role, right? Uh what he sees is um that he calls the political community the perfect community. Not in the sense of course that it's morally flawless, but in the sense that it's complete, right, for uh basic human flourishing, the kind of human flourishing that's involves uh the uh the four cardinal virtues and bodily goods, right? So he he recognizes

17:03 this is part of human life. It's part of your journey. Again, as a theologian, it's part of your journey towards God. Uh but as part of that journey towards God, you need to um order your temporal affairs well, right? You need to order your temporal affairs in accordance with reason and virtue. And that only is able to happen efficiently, he thinks, within political community. So he would see the study of politics as something that is uh connected maybe a little remotely but still connected to the full desire for wisdom which you find in in theology. Interesting. Yeah. Fantastic. Now as you in your scholarship have studied Aquinas and and really engaged with his work. What are some of your favorite ideas or experiences that you've had through your relationship with his work? just, you know, coming from your own heart and and what you've enjoyed over the years, what kind of stands out to you as having transformed you or really had an impact on you?

18:03 Yeah. So, it's two things and you've hit on this tension a little bit here is is one is I love the uh the sort of I guess you could call it the more remote side of Aquinas, which is contemplation, right? and his endorsement of Aristotle's view that the cont contemplative life is sort of the highest life considered in itself right um and then ultimately you know what he sees as you know the fulfill our fulfillment in God is a kind of contemplation he calls it the beatific vision right so it's literally a kind of vision of God that beatatifies right it blesses us right it makes us uh gives us joy um and actualizes us right so I his appreciation for leisure uh for contemplation which you know in our culture war is so counterultural right the idea that you know leisure is better than work right I mean that's something that like both communists and capitalists would disagree with right no work is where you find value whereas you know no actually leisure is the better life right work is important right of course right and and and we shouldn't be

19:08 lazy or anything of that nature uh but leisure is higher right you know having this kind of conversation right is uh is is a higher kind of uh activity. So, I've always appreciated that about Aquinas. Uh the the longer you as the years go by, I appreciate that more and more. Uh I really wish for our own society and culture and for men to learn like um the value of that, right? That that you know work is good, it's important, but we don't live to work ultimately, right? Like you know this is the Aristotle makes his point about Sparta. Sparta's admirable, right? in a lot of ways, but they're wrong because war isn't in itself, right? At least this is Arisol's criticism, right? You know, we he you know, Arisol is no pacifist, right? He respects u the military arts and respects uh soldiers and that sort of thing. But he recognizes it's for the sake of something else, that being leisure, right? And of course, you know, as a Christian, I see that call to contemplation being very closely alied to the call to prayer, right? uh you

20:12 know engaging in in um uh you know adoration and things of that nature. Um so that would be a big part of my love of Aquinas. Um the second is I have always been interested just personally in politics political society. Uh my father was very engaged in uh talking about politics. My father was an interesting guy. He he's sort of part of that generation of um middle class men who fell into being hippies but then found Jesus and came back right you know if that you know that arc is there right and he sort of was in that arc you know he was raised in a perfectly decent you know middle class family but unfortunately you know spent a while as a hippie but then you know recognized that it was you know a vacuous form of life and and came back you know to a decent form of life that was oriented around Christ. Um but anyways, he uh was very engag like part of that return was rejecting leftwing politics and rejecting you know that sort of thing. And so he was very

21:12 engaged uh in that when I was growing up. So I had some interest in politics. I think in part two because I've I've always had the sense that there was something wrong with as much as I liked say certain and I don't want to get too politically here but certain ideas that kind of grow out of the kind of reaganite um moment you could say in American politics I've always even as a young man felt I mean as a very young man like in my early teens felt like there was something too individualistic about it. Uh, I always had a sense that I wouldn't say this is kind of part of being a Southerner, but I always had a sense that place and memory and community were important uh, in the development of the flourishing life. And um, Aristotle and Aquinas kind of gave me a way to articulate that, right? kind of you know how this I'm sure you've had this experience Warren where you have a an opinion a feeling about something but you don't have quite the words to to understand it fully you know or how how to explain it you know have you had that experience

22:16 yeah absolutely yeah right yeah and so that was like I was like there's something wrong with this kind of this is what I didn't like in John Stuart Mill or some of these other people this kind of crass individualism it felt like that didn't seem right of course I I knew communism wasn't right either but I was like I need something to articulate this sense of connection in Aristotle and toist political thought helped me to do that right and so one of the things I uh try to point out when I talk about political theory is that you know of course politics can be annoying like from the horse race point of view right but political community is really about something far deeper than the horse race right u between the various parties in fact the part extreme partisanship is probably not good for us we should actually be able to address one another as colleagues colleagues and gentlemen, right? Even if we had differ, right, in certain ways, unfortunately, that's for a variety of reasons that's become very difficult. Uh, but you know, political community is really about development, solidarity, history, memory, uh, connections across families, uh, those sorts of things. And I think

23:20 when we see that political life is about something more than you know competition for power or you know cheap shots you know in in social media then you actually see right you know participation in political community is part of my flourishing right and part of the way in which I serve others. I'd like to go back to leisure for a moment. Sure. Yeah, I think that a serious cultural reformation has to take place in the sense that we have to view our our leisure time which we have uh plenty of if we manage our affairs properly. um you know sitting in front of the TV or scrolling on social media is is wasting our leisure time whereas we sit and read a book it's a completely different outcome for who we'll be in a year two years 5 years 10 years so I think that a reorientation of understanding what leisure is and how we can actually use it to improve our life

24:20 and for me I started to discover those ideas reading leisure the basis of culture. Oh yes. Yeah. Pieper. And I know that you have also engaged with his work. So could you speak to this is a great book. It's it's one that you could read in a weekend and it's really fantastic. Could you speak to some of Piper's ideas on leisure and maybe particularly from that book and you know what can people take away from a new perspective on what they can do with their free time? Yeah. So leisure is um is something done for its own sake, right? Uh that's in accordance with virtue, right? It can be pleasurable and it can also be useful, but it's not done for the sake of pleasure or use, right? It's done for its own sake, but in accordance with virtue, right? Um that's a a good way of starting, right? So contrast that with work, right? Um you know work is interesting to think about a

25:22 little bit here. uh we don't think to think about tend to think about work philosophically very much or the place of work in our lives right it has such a huge place right in some ways um I would say one of the areas of the 20th century is the overestimation of work on both the left and the right right in different ways right uh to be sure um you know Markx has the view right that that you only find human creativity and value in your labor right uh which is kind shocking. That's one of the reasons Marxists very often hate like sort of monastic societies, right? Uh because they don't seem to do any work. You know, you're just praying all the time, right? The uh the uh you know, capitalists have a different way of overvaluing it. The idea, you know, is that you know, work is done under necessity. That's way a puts it, right? So it happens to be the case that sometimes work and pleasure, right, and and

26:24 creativity go together, right? So sometimes your work is also something that's meaningful to you and that sort of thing, but you still do it for the paycheck, right? You do it because it's it's it's reimbured, right? And that's under then it's under sort of the realm of necessity, right? Because you need that money in order to pay for your life, right? Um, leisure is not done under the guidance of necessity, right? Leisure is something that under sort of the rubric, I should say, of necessity. Leisure is done, you know, because I love it, right? Um, you know, I have, you know, so many books and sometimes people will come into my house with, you know, sort of, have you read all these books? Why do you have so many books? You know, that sort of thing. And my simplest answer is I still love to learn, right? I just like sitting down with a book about history, about anything else. And I and I see the activity itself. It's in accordance with virtue because it is is building my intellect, right? Uh it is useful, right, in certain senses, right? But it in itself, it's a choice. It's choiceworthy to spend my

27:31 time um absorbing, right, uh insights and wisdom and knowledge, right? because it perfects the kind of thing I am, namely a rational animal, right? I would also say something like, you know, people can go too far with uh exercise and that sort of thing. But at the same time, you know, uh you know, developing your body, right? Uh using your body in a sense that is uh that you know actualizes its good, right? strength without being injurous, without being vain, without u turning it into into sort of a a survile or or or toilsome thing, right? But, you know, uh you know, some of my favorite memories are going on walks with my grandfather, right? Uh and he was a great walker. He could walk forever, right? And uh it was great to spend that time with him and and and and uh and talk. And I think very often what you find is that leisure also has an overlap with genuine friendship, right? you know, there's a kind of friendship you can have with people at work that's

28:33 wonderful. It's nice, right? Sometimes it's kind of camaraderie. You know, there's kind of camaraderie to it. Um, but the the friends that are, I would say, are the real friends are the friends that you choose to be around when it's not necessary, right? Uh, and and you're like, "Oh, this person is interesting to talk to. I'd like to spend time with this person." Right? Um, uh, that's the kind of thing you find in leisure. Again, it's in accordance with virtue. It it sort of actualizes and deepens what you are, right? As a as a rational animal, as a citizen, as a friend. Um but it's uh uh it's also in accords with virtue. So things that would not count as leisure is going and getting drunk at the bar, right? Um again, a moderate uh consumption of alcohol with your friends, right? uh is perfectly fine. Especially, you know, you think about old friends who maybe you share memories with, that kind of thing. That's an act of leisure maybe. Um uh but again, you know, sort of group drunkenness is not what you want to go for, right? Why? Because it's not in accordance with virtue, right? So that's

29:40 the that's the kind of what you look for. It's it's not nec it's not under the rubric of necessity. It's in accordance uh with virtue, but actually deepens and actualizes who and what you are. You know, there's a great book called Amusing Ourselves to Death Book by Neil Postman. Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, that's sometimes you come across a book and it forces you to reconsider your entire paradigm on on your life and your perspective and your existence. And that book was one of them for me. It really had me step back and question my own thoughts, my own experience. Am I even a full human or am I, you know, a a robot? Like how much is this technology affecting me? And I wanted to ask you kind of along that line, this concept of leisure, how do you see modern technology, particularly television and social media, how do you see these forms of entertainment uh

30:46 meddling with this concept of virtuous leisure? Well, I think there's two uh things you could think about. One is again uh sort of that um I mean you know uh Plato talked about shadows. I mean the uh you flickers on the wall. I mean that's nothing compared to like the ubiquity of social media, right? All the distraction. I mean you know Warren, you can't even go to the airport without there being a TV on, right? You know like good grief, can't I get free? Can't go to the gas pump anymore. That's right. I noticed that. Why is it why is this all being pressed on me so hard? Like I would like a little peace and quiet, you know, uh you know, like even while I'm filling up the gas tank. So, it is a remarkable uh you know, communications technology, I guess you'd say broadly, has developed to such an extent that it seems like it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. And one of the problems um there's a interesting uh art theorist named Arthur Danto uh who talks uh a little bit about um the about

31:53 art and the image and communication in the 20th century. And he calls it the uh the age of the hyperreal, right? And his idea is that at a certain level we've come to mistake the image for the reality, right? We've come to think that the image, the digitized image, whatever, is more real than the substantial being that it represents, right? And uh and I was like, yeah, I think that's a good insight, right? Like we're so wrapped up in in image, right? And you know, the the the swirl of uh media, right? U that that is a powerful distraction, right, from leisure, right? I mean, one of the things that I'm actually currently working on, we help my one of my sons is helping with this is I'm I'm looking to to to to change over to no longer having a smartphone. Uh I've seen for myself, right, that this is embarrassing as a, you know, a grown-up man that I can waste 25 minutes just scrolling, right,

32:59 on a on a cell phone. It's ridiculous, right? Um you know, I' it'd be better just go for a walk and think about nothing, right? you know then then do that right at least it' be a little bit healthy uh so um you know I mean I totally understand right that it's it is problematic one thing I am pleased with is it is apparent that schools have come to recognize this uh my one of my son's uh schools has recently banned cell phones right which I was thanks be to god right of course it should be something we do right so one of one of the the distraction is it it just is I mean it invades leisure because it's so distracting ing right and really kind of numbs the mind. Um the second area where it can be problematic is um I should say leisure is not always comfortable. I mean leisure could be like going on a hike on a mountain, right? You know, so it might involve some difficulty, right? It's just you're going on the hike for fun, you know, for not because it's necessary, right? what keeps it from being that um but one of the other areas

34:02 I worry about with respect to uh technology and leisure is with of course AI and I think about this especially from a a educator's point of view right which is you know you can use um I can make a machine that lifts a lot of weights right but that that that machine lifting weights isn't going to make me any stronger right I can make a m I can use AI right to maybe write a paper or something, right? That's not going to make me any better of a writer or better as a thinker, right? Uh so in that sense, it deprivives us, right, of uh opportunities for growth, right? Uh opportunities for excellence and development. Um so I'd see those two things as threats on leisure, especially the first one, right? It's just it's ubiquity and ability to uh distract us and to kind of almost deceive us into thinking, right, that the image is more real than the real, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's I've always considered social media is the cave in the cave. That's great to put it.

35:10 Is strange to think about. Um yeah, fantastic. Well, you know, could you speak a little bit about Logos Letter? What is this project that you've been working on? And and you know, you you're publishing your work now on that Substack. What's the TLOS Logos letter and uh you know what could people expect by joining your uh your feed there? Sure. Great. Thanks for asking. Uh so I mean logos is a rich term in you know western culture and civilization, right? Uh certainly one of my favorite passages in scripture is uh you know the prologue of the gospel of John. are so powerful, right? Uh if you read it, especially if you read it sort of with the broader sweep of Eastern Mediterranean thought, you know, uh that includes ideas about logos, right? So logos is kind of a multifaceted idea, right? It can mean just word, right? It can mean uh um you know, sign things like that. Uh but it

36:14 it also means something more like understanding, right? uh sometimes it carries with it even sort of a almost kind of divine sort of character to it right as sort of a a source or a principle right sometimes it's seen as the root of law right or as the root of logic right so it really is a multifaceted principle but in the ancient world right it's basically it basically is what accounts for um order and understanding is the way I would put it right And um you know what often you know what Plato might put it this way that you know often we we're searching for a logos right that is for for the account for the understanding right of the truth and that's what I see logos letter is I I say when I introduce it u in the uh about section I know nobody ever reads but the the about section right you know that I've been looking for logos since I was like 20 years old right and that's been my search that's what I do right I I'm you

37:16 know I I I am a philosopher who wants to find uh logos. I think I've learned some things along the way, right? For example, that leisure is behas of culture. Um uh that the common good, right, is is is you know something that we should uh serve and and love. Uh but I'm always searching for more, right? Right. And so Logos letter literally is just both my personal search for it and my uh effort to share that with others, right? Um one thing about I think you know being an intellectual, being a philosopher or being an artist or a writer, somebody engaged in the these sorts of things, right? Is there's a certain side of it is personal where you're you're I'm still looking for more logos, right? Um but I do also want to share what I have found right with others right and so you know uh reading legalist letter is just an opportunity to join along with me right uh as I search for these things I focus on classical sources uh but I do sometimes pay attention to

38:21 contemporary issues but I try to address them from you know a perspective that's informed by Aristotle Plato and Aquinas that sort of thing. Fantastic. Now, we have an event coming up uh on Saturday the 29th. And you know, with these events, we really are working on re-establishing the idea of brotherhood through virtue, brotherhood through philosophy, through conversation. We get 40 guys around a dinner table. Nobody's back is turned to anybody else. and we have a a speaker or sometimes there's just a topic and we dive right into the group conversation and we have rules that we use at the dinner table. One person is speaking at a time. There's no interruptions, no side conversations. So, you've got this room of 40 guys having one conversation together rather than 20 different individual conversations. That's great. Um and I know that you know in Athens they had the symposia the

39:28 uh you know philosophical and poetic parties that they would do. Could you speak to some of this some of these in in history just these examples of uh societies for virtue where people would gather and engage in things like this and and kind of I think they've fallen out of culture that that's why we kind of wanted to bring it back but what what purpose does that serve and on the tail end of that question for this particular event on the 29th you'll be speaking your talk will set the tone for the dinner conversation. What could a man expect to hear a little bit about and think about if he comes to that event? Sure. I think um it immediately makes me think uh Warren of Aristotle's um claim that a life without friends is almost worth not worth living. Right? And I and I think you know you could think about friendship at different levels. And of course I think he's talking about genuine friendship and we have

40:35 friendships of pleasure. We have friendships of use and those are not bad right those are kind we have to have those kinds of relationships in life. Uh my my mechanic is useful to me and I'm useful to him. Uh and there's nothing wrong with that right? Uh similar there's nothing wrong with you know finding somebody who's a pleasant person to you know uh talk to or make jokes with or something like that. Um but you know those are not the the deeper kind of friendships right which are friendships of virtue. Friendships of virtue are are friendships that uh of virtuous people or at least people aspiring to virtue who uh their friendship helps them to grow right in a virtuous way. Grow in genuine leisure right grow in wisdom and prudence and judgment right again hopefully with also being pleasant. Right. Right. You know, it's it's not as if it needs to be a purely academic lecture to each other, right? That wouldn't even be really appropriate, right? It should also carry with it, right? I mean, the best sort of thing Aristotle says is the virtuous man is somebody who enjoys doing virtue,

41:39 right? Right. It's so that uh you know, it should be accompanied by um by pleasure and might again even be useful uh in some background sense, but it's primarily um about growth and virtue. It's for its own sake, right? Um so I would see these kinds of discussions right uh and this is kind of the ideal right for the Athenian gentleman uh even the Spartan you know way had this to some degree um where you know men of similar ability uh at least broadly speaking um you know with a modicum of intelligence right uh would work together right talk together right in order to grow right in virtue to grow in their ability to uh you know serve the community um you know it's an opportunity to be accountable right to to others right so that sort of thing but I would say especially you know um an opportunity to encourage magnanmity um that is you know that sort of large

42:40 soldness right uh of wanting to do great things not in the sense of an or merely in the sense of a sort of uh uh ambitious glory seeking but in the sense of you know uh great things for for the family, great things for your community, right? Great things for God. Um so I think that you know those sorts of conversations uh happen. I know that in my own life, right, uh I could think, you know, that um I helped start at Belmont a group called the uh was was at the time it was just fingo at other pl which is the philosophy honor society, but the whole idea was just to have the students come together and talk about philosophy, right? Uh similarly, I started uh at another college um something called the Socratic club which lasted for almost 15 years, right? uh and did kind of the same thing. And in all those events, you know, you when you do that together, right, you come away with a sense of uh reality, the reality

43:45 of these things, right? Of of an appreciation that the deeper things are there uh and that they matter and uh that together we can sort of grow towards them, right, and gain a deeper appreciation of them. So I think they play a key role and then I think especially when we think about later you know uh developments even in the enlightenment right you have some of these sorts of things going on some of them better or worse you might say right uh in terms of uh their outcomes but certainly uh the idea of um gentlemen being able to come together uh and uh appeal towards right uh the higher and better things right uh is very important uh and it's been a big part of the you know growth of you know the outstanding American leaders. When you think about people like say this would be unusual but like say the men uh who were the lead the theological leaders at Princeton for so many years when Princeton was an outstanding university right uh you think about you know um people like uh um you know the the founders of you know America right those

44:53 were men who talked together and were expected to talk together and encourage each other uh in virtue right pro you know George Washington was famously rather quiet himself but he had to always sort of facilitate opportunities, right, for his officers and others around him to come together, right, and have fellowship and and and you know, talk about virtue and grow in virtue. So, I think those are some examples that come to mind. Yeah. Fantastic. And then for for gentlemen who are coming to our event on the 29th, um it's Aquinas, it's citizenship, it's the common good. What are some of just a quick summary of kind of some of the things that we're going to touch on at the dinner and what type of man do you think should come to be in this room at this uh at this gathering that we're hosting? Sure. Yeah. So, uh it's sort of a high level of overview, right? Um you know, looking at the way in which uh being a citizen, right? um is part of your human development.

45:56 It's part of your flourishing as a man, right? That is it's not as if you you're developing as a virtuous person over here and then there's citizenship, right? What I one of one of the things I I want to get across is the idea is that your participation in citizenship, you being an excellent citizen is part of your virtues, part of your excellence, right? It's part of your flourishing, right? Um and um I think it's it's really key to bring those things back together, right? We don't just uh flourish by going off, you know, sort of and and creating some sort of isolated situation, right? We really uh flourish by uh serving in our our political communities and our local communities. That's a big part of who and what we are. Um attached to that, right, I think in very concrete ways is learning to think about the common good. So sometimes the common good is a is a term that's kind of thrown out there but without a lot of definition or precision. So one of the things I want to do is is give everybody who participates in the conversation kind of a a clear notion of what the classical idea of the common good includes so that

47:03 can kind of orient your way of thinking about being a citizen. Right? So again I want to show how your flourish and your excellence is connected to citizenship and then how effective citizenship is connected to the common good. Right? In terms of who should come, I think it should be, you know, uh, serious men, right? Men who are kind of at a point in their life where they recognize um that greatness and that growth is more um than just an individual matter, right? That what makes men great and excellent is contribution. Right. U that's those are the kinds of men I think who would be you know interested in this kind of talk. Fantastic. Now if somebody's listening and they'd like to learn more about your work uh could you you know shout out your websites or they can find you? Yeah absolutely. So, uh, you can find a lot of podcasts, uh, just on, uh, our YouTube channel, catholicstudiesacademy.com,

48:11 uh, or sorry, that's the website, but you can go on onto YouTube and just look for Catholic Studiesacademy, and it'll pull it up. That's not all Catholic theology. So, you know, we I deal a lot with I I have a colleague who kind of holds down the theological conversation of it. I tended to focus more on sort of the philosophical side of uh, of things. Um, you kind of given my background. again also logos letter 2022 is where I'm doing most of my creation right now and that is you know primarily essays on philosophy and political philosophy um so those are the two areas online I do have uh a book that's available on Amazon uh so I have a copy of it here it's called understanding modern political ideas I u and the subtitle is a guide book for Christians and other patriots so it's a small book uh but it's a it's a classical examination and criticism of modern political ideas. So I use Aristotle, Plato and Aquinas to examine modern political movements from the Enlightenment forward. Um so if you're

49:13 interested in that sort of thing, it's available on Amazon. But those are places where my uh most of my work is is prevalent uh right now. Fantastic. And for anybody listening, if you would like to join us at this dinner on August 29th in Nashville, Tennessee, uh you can go ahead and visit the link uh below. I'll also link all of Dr. Smith's links that he just talked about. We'll have them all in the description here of the video and you can visit the website of the academy, sign up. We'd love to have you there. There'll be a talk, a group conversation, dinner, wine, cigars, and uh it's a good time. So hopefully you'll join us. Dr. Smith, thank you again for your time today and I'm greatly looking forward to our event here in a few weeks. All right.