Real Philosophy for Real People: Tools for Truthful Living

One of the best books I’ve read in years. Father McTiegue is incredibly articulate and does challenge the reader writing at a level that’s probably higher than most people are used to. However it’s a great challenge, both in reading, and reflection. The first chapter is the hardest to get through but once you figure it out, The rest of the book takes on new life and personal challenges we all need to face, especially during these trying times.I heartily recommend it!

I have read Aquinas's Summa in totality. I have read Copleston's 10 volume History of Philosophy. I have read all Of Kreeft's books. I looked forward to this "real philosophy for real living" book as many of the Philosophy books I read are informational but a bit dry. My goodness, I cannot tell you how unreadable this book is. Not necessarily difficult concepts--just constant quotes, metaphors, introductions leading to one idea that branches off to another. If you are someone simply interested in Philosophy you will find this book repetitive and unreadable. Trust me. The preface is 18 pages of fluff leading to nothing. Just start! Then quotes from his mentor, then a cute story, then a deep thought. There may be a connection but it is so disjointed that I really believe folks will bail on it early as I did. Never could get a page of momentum going. Ideas meandering all over. I am familiar with the jargon. I just couldn't follow his ideas and shifting from one train of thought to another. I tried to pick up a different starting point of chapters and the same story emerged: could not follow a page of direct, practical thoughts. Too many examples. Too many quotes from others interspersed. I start to ponder a sentence and another on a different tangent comes next. Again, I'm sure it connects, but for an average reader, it will not be enjoyable. I can't believe even an academian would read this. The one thing it is not: practical, which was the supposed goal of the book.

This book is a persuasive defense of prudential personalism as the most complete ethics, anthropology and metaphysics upon which to base our idea of our ultimate end and the actions needed to attain it. At the same time it provides the reader with the intellectual tools to analyze critically other world views. An important lesson of the book is that every ethical system is always based upon a philosophical anthropology and a metaphysics, whether they are explicit or implied.

The book was very helpful for understanding my bioethics course and is excellent for anyone in ethics. I highly recommend the way it makes philosophy easier to understand in a practical and useful way.

I am sure the author has good thing to share but has no idea who " real" people are. Real people don't read 50 word sentences. Typical academic presentation. Too bad given what I perceive to be a wise person.

Very good book which has an interesting and thoughtful outlook on life, whether you agree or disagree, a good read. The author is very articulate.

Real Philosophy for Real People by Robert McTeigue, S. J. is an outstandingly good introduction to ethics for the layman. It is clear, interesting and profound. This book hits the three main values of being good, beautiful and true, and contains many deep ethical truths. Here are some excerpts:Ethics: Likewise, an anthropology cannot stand unless it is built upon a thorough account of the real, and that is the goal of a sound metaphysics. Absent the foundation that only a thorough and coherent metaphysics an provide, an account of ethics can only be a collection of mere assertions and surmises inferred from hollow or partial premises. Metaphysics and anthropology provide the fixed compass points by which ethics must navigate. [Ethics needs a solid foundation of a correct anthropology and a correct metaphysics]Ethics: Natural law ethics requires that the means be appropriate. Prudential personalism does not, will not, and cannot overlook the how, the what and the why of moral action; nor will it ignore the multi-dimensional human nature of the moral agent. [Catholic ethics states that the motive for an act, the act, and the way you do the act be good. The how, the what and the why of a moral act must all be good.]Ethics: The correct ethical system is prudential personalism, which is the classical natural law ethics of Western civilization. The first principle of prudential personalism states: “Do those acts, and only those acts, which are appropriate means to the supreme good of true knowledge and love of God, oneself and the human community both in time and in eternity.” [The first principle of a natural law ethics is to do only those acts which are truthful and loving - to God, yourself and others - in the long run, and which use appropriate means.]The first principle of prudential personalism states “to the supreme good”. Those words acknowledge that there is a hierarch of morality that is intelligible and imperative. There is a moral supreme good because human persons instantiate a universal and identifiable human nature that can and ought to be realized, fulfilled, completed and perfected by right action. Absent such a human nature, there is no moral hierarchy; any sense or semblance of priority, then, is always and merely arbitrary.” [Ethics requires a moral hierarchy, and only a knowledge of human nature can provide a basis for a moral hierarchy. One reason to ‘know thyself’ is so that you can know what is ethical.]The first principle of prudential personalism states “of true knowledge and love”. What is morally relevant is intelligible and accessible. It is morally obliging and humanly liberating (liberating in the sense that it frees human individuals from error, illusion, addiction and impulsiveness.) What is morally relevant can be known as such, chosen as such (in other words, it can be truly loved because it is truly loveable), and acted upon as such (that is, moral truth is a summons to right action). [Morality frees you from the slavery of error, illusion, addiction and impulsiveness.]The first principle of prudential personalism states “of God, oneself and the human community”. The reference to knowledge and love of God grounds prudential personalism upon a transcendent metaphysics, within the worldview of theism. The reference to the moral significance of God identifies the Supreme Being as Creator and man as creature. [God is the foundation of ethics. Any ethics that ignores God lacks the proper foundation.]Wisdom: What is wisdom? Wisdom is acquiring the clarity and completeness of vision necessary to see how everything might be properly understood and arranged in order to bring about the fulfillment and completion of all things, each according to its nature - that is, according to its end or ultimate purpose. Put another way, wisdom is the vision necessary to understand reality according to the right order of things, according to the reason, goodness and purposes of God. [Wisdom is knowing the ultimate purposes of things in order to bring about the completion or fulfillment of all things. Wisdom requires knowing the purposes of things, and to know the purpose of things requires knowing their natures. Wisdom is knowing and doing what’s right, and you have to know the purposes of things to know what’s right.]History: If we do not believe that we have a soul capable of appreciating and desiring perfect truth, goodness and beauty, if there is no supreme reality of absolute truth, goodness and beauty, and if there is no future beyond the material world to achieve and enjoy this fulfillment, then we will underlive our lives and underestimate our value as well as the value of everyone else. The historical consequences of this undervaluation of self and others are marked in the tragedies of two world wars, the Stalinist purges, Nazi ethnic cleansing, failed cultural revolutions and the “paradise” of the Khmer Rouge. And the underestimation of human nature stands at the root of the hugely increased rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, familial tensions, and suicides in the most affluent culture the world has ever known. [Ideas have consequences. History teaches us the importance of ethics and religion]Happiness: The human soul is immaterial and so it cannot be satisfied, cannot come to rest, in what is material and temporal and therefore limited. It is inevitable for the human person on this side of eternity to ask, “Is that all there is? What else is there?” The human person is oriented to be satisfied only by Truth itself, Goodness itself and Beauty itself - and in unlimited, unrestricted modes. In other words, only God can satisfy the human soul. [The immaterial and immortal human soul cannot be satisfied in what is material and temporal.]It is praiseworthy to seek, know, admire, love, proclaim and conform to the Truth. Proclaiming the truth has a wide-ranging, deep, universal and practical importance. Consider this note of caution from the French economist Frederic Bastiat: “When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.” [Our culture is heading towards catastrophe]One reason I wrote this book was to help forestall or lessen, if not fully avoid, the “terrible lessons of catastrophe” sure to befall our present times and posterity as a natural (and supernatural) consequence of favoring the despicable over the honorable, the vicious over the virtuous. Over the years, so many have told me that they had seen or heard something that they intuited as not right but could not quite articulate the why and hows of what was wrong and to be rejected and what was right and to be pursued. One purpose of this book is to give people of honesty, thoughtfulness, and goodwill - especially those surrounded by hucksters, propagandists, bullies, and those who are just plain wrong - a set of tools for detecting and refuting error. Saint Thomas Aquinas spoke of the “Office of the Wise Man” as to teach others truth and to refute falsehoods. [Good men need to speak the truth and refute falsehoods.]If you’ve read the above excerpts, it should be clear that this book is a treasury of wisdom. And it only took 6 hours to read. But you’ll be thinking about it much longer, as you should.

Great book. Easy to read.

As a queer pastor and poet, I had the singular pleasure of unearthing this extraordinary work from under a mound of books I had been asked to review. A task I usually shy clear of since most current philosophy volumes prove to be either profoundly underwhelming or unrelentingly jejune. However, this remarkable blend of metaphysics, morals and deep insight into our existential condition as human beings demands a wider readership, along with praise for an author bold enough to truly take the ball by its metaphysical horns, in an attempt to unravel the everyday mysteries surrounding us. It goes without saying, I highly recommend this book to each and all.