Restoration of Reason

This book is a history of philosophy that is not a history of philosophy. Brown shows how major figures in modern philosophy have restricted or reduced reason to some one function. A surprising quartet of philosophers can help us to recover a fuller appreciation of reason, but reason finds its fullest realization in the ancient and mediaeval tradition of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. From this tradition, Brown makes the compelling case that reason's uses in speculative philosophy, in morality, and in aesthetics are irreducibly distinct yet the products of one human capacity. Like Gilson, Brown uses figures in the history of philosophy, not for the writing of history, but for the doing of philosophy."--Steven E. Baldner, St. Francis Xavier University.