What is truth? This is a question that we seldom formulate in these terms, but that we often ask, when we ask ourselves if we really see what we see. To verify, we try to touch. Faith, on the other hand, attains its object without seeing or touching. Instead of going ceaselessly back and forth, instead of working, it suspends human effort and waits for everything, hopes for everything, expects everything from God. . . . [more]

Almost every mention of “natural rights” unfortunately requires careful and subtle qualification or caution to protect this very slippery notion from being taken to mean just the opposite of what it appears to affirm. The terms “rights” and “values” are modern terms originating in and solidly grounded in modern political philosophy. They do not mean what the old Latin word justum or jus (words sometimes translated as “right”) meant in their original context. . . . [more]

During his tenure as the editor of Modern Age (1984-2007), George A. Panichas addressed complex literary and philosophical matters with a degree of wisdom and eloquence that transcended the political platforms of the Right or the Left. Inspired by the penetrating insights of Irving Babbitt, Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and Simone Weil, Panichas gives cogent theoretical and practical advice to those interested in forming a truly reflective conservatism. . . . [more]

The greatest school that ever existed, it has been said, consisted of Socrates standing on a street corner with one or two interlocutors. If this remark strikes the average American as merely a bit of fancy, that is because education here today suffers from an unprecedented amount of aimlessness and confusion. . . . [more]

Our collective confusion about the American experience begins at the beginning. Most Americans who think about such questions imagine that they understand the Declaration of Independence, though many of them may be puzzled that it did not (and does not) produce the results one might expect from the commitments which they believe it makes. . . . [more]

Over the past several decades, thoughtful students of political philosophy have become increasingly interested in a small but influential group of conservative thinkers—thinkers with distinctly pre-modern or classical approaches to understanding political order. Of these thinkers, Leo Strauss has probably gained the greatest reputation, and perhaps the largest following of any of the post-war classical revivalists… [more]