Recovering Classical Philosophy in the Modern Context: The Work of Francis Slade

Francis Slade's spoken words and his writings are concrete and realistic: in their arresting formulations, their close reading and juxtaposition of texts, their use of literature and art, their insights into classical political philosophy, and their understanding of Christian faith. This article illustrates these features by examining three contrasts he develops in his work. First, the distinction between ends and purposes helps recover the classical significance of telos, which was done away with in modernity and has been lost to contemporary thought and culture. Second, Slade contrasts the premodern city, where political life naturally emerges in several kinds of communities in accord with the ends of human nature, with the modern state, which has been constructed by thought from “deracinated individuals” organized into a “depoliticized society” and governed by “decontextualized rule.” Third, Slade shows how Augustine's reevaluation of human experience and Greek thought in the light of Christian revelation differs from Machiavelli's rejection of classical and Christian thought in favor of effective rationalism.