originally published 11/19/2018

Poet and humanities professor James Matthew Wilson talks about how cultivating the desire to perceive the interior life of things sustains the basic human capacity for recognizing truth, pursuing wisdom, and contemplating beauty. The modern approach towards reality has surrendered that desire, settling instead for a “concupiscence of the eyes,” which views reality as a mere assembly of parts that can be decoded without being understood. Wilson is the author of The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition (Catholic University of America Press, 2017). This interview was first published on Volume 141 of the Journal.

23 minutes

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