The Review of Metaphysics

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) wrote his autobiography in three distinct volumes. Composing one volume of his complete works in his Gesammelte Werke (Felix Meiner Verlag, 1995) edited by Berthold Wald, he writes on his early (1904–1945), middle (1945–1964), and late years (1964–1985). Between Ignatius Press and St. Augustine’s Press, Pieper’s autobiographical writings have been translated into English over the last three decades. The first volume, Noch wusste es niemand: Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen 1904–1945 (Kosel-Verlag, 1979), was translated into English as No One Could Have Known: An Autobiography: The Early Years 1904–1945 (Ignatius, 1987). Three decades later the second volume, Noch nicht aller Tage Abend: Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen 1945–1964 (Kosel-Verlag, 1979), was published in English as Not Yet the Twilight: An Autobiography 1945–1964 (St. Augustine’s Press, 2017). Finally, the third volume, Eine Geschichte wie ein Strahl: Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen seit 1964 (Kosel-Verlag, 1988), has [End Page 392] been published under the title A Journey to Point Omega: Autobiography from 1964 (St. Augustine’s Press, 2020).

A Journey to Point Omega sums up nearly two decades of Pieper’s life, and thus this short book review provides a précis of what is found in the later, reflective Pieper in contrast to the Pieper of the earlier autobiographies. In A Journey to Point Omega, Pieper documents his travels to the Holy Land, America, American universities, New Mexico, Rome (specifically the Angelicum), Poland (specifically Krakow and Auschwitz), and Canada—among other travels with his wife, Hildegard. Pieper also writes about many intellectuals whom he met, including Karol Wojtyła (later Pope John Paul II), Pater Norbet Lutyen, Tomas Veres, Tadeusz Styczen, Karl Rahner, Eta Harich-Schneider, Bernard Lonergan, and Bishop von Galen. Among his travels and encounters with intellectuals, Pieper reports his various encounters with award offers, including those of The Aquinas Medal, The Thomas More Medal, and The International Balzan Prize.

Among the intellectuals, travels, and awards, Pieper’s writing relays confrontations with philosophical ideas that did and did not present themselves in his earlier work. There are two noteworthy examples in A Journey to Point Omega. First, in confronting the antinatalist sentiment of his late son Thomas, Pieper comments on the (il)legitimacy of psychotherapy: “I now became convinced that someone who has such direct access to the methodically exposed central core of another person [that is, a psychotherapist] must himself be ‘right’ in his thinking about the fundamentals of our existence, and even be ‘right’ in himself, if incurable damage is to be avoided.” Pieper directly applies his earlier writings on virtue and philosophical anthropology (being “right” about the fundamentals and in oneself, which he earlier calls “prudence”) to practical questions such as the legitimacy of psychotherapy. Second, reflecting on the state of philosophy and its future, Pieper writes: “My conclusion [regarding “the possible future of philosophy”] was that perhaps under the reign of sophistry and pseudo-sophistry true philosophy as a distinguishable independent discipline would disappear, and the specifically philosophical object—the root of things and the ultimate meaning of existence—would only be considered by those with faith.” While Pieper had earlier argued in Leisure: The Basis of Culture (1948) that philosophy without “a traditional interpretation of the world” was not possible, his argument here shifts in focus. Here he focuses on the future of philosophy framed not in terms of the preservation of theology, but in terms of the preservation of distinctively philosophical questions. Naturally, Pieper’s appeal to “faith” is unchanged, but his argument admonishes philosophy—and philosophers—to remain connected both to the latest social, political, and moral questions, and to the most fundamental questions of human existence that characterize the discipline of philosophy.

In A Journey to Point Omega, we also read of Pieper’s affinity for C. S. Lewis, whose work he translated and praised, as well as his continued [End Page 393] condemnation of Nazism and its moral atrocities. Pieper...