WATCH: What Are the Philosophical and Theological Roots of the Confusion in the West? by Edward Pentin

What are the roots of the widespread confusion that reigns in the West? What went wrong in philosophical and theological thought that has brought the West to what Benedict XVI once called “the edge of the abyss”?

These are the questions that led two highly distinguished English scholars — Professors John and Anna Rist — to delve into the probable causes and propose possible solutions, resulting in a new book: Confusion in the West: Retrieving Tradition in the Modern and Post-Modern World (Cambridge University Press 2022).

In it, they provide a panoramic overview ranging from antiquity to the present-day and explain how the foundational culture of the West, which they characterize as the “original tradition,” has been eroded, leading to anxiety about the entire value of Western thought. But the Rists also investigate the deeper causes of the confusion, beyond just the Enlightenment that is the focus of many critics of modernity, and examine such ills as modern totalitarianism, liberalism, scientism, consumerism, and prevailing nihilism. …