Where to Begin

Realism and Constitutive Order

If there were to be a foundational civic formation teaching and learning program dedicated to Realism and Constitutive Order, the purpose would not be to teach philosophy as an academic subject. It would be to restore the intellectual habits that make philosophy, science, law, medicine, theology and civic judgment possible in the first place. One of the deepest obstacles pedagogically is an objection I’ve seen a number of times to the necessity of formation and the objection itself is revealing. It assumes; ‘If reality is obvious, no formation should be necessary’. But that confuses the intelligibility of reality with the condition of the knower. Reality can be perfectly intelligible while our capacity to recognize it is impaired. That is true everywhere else.