The Human Wisdom of St. Thomas: A Breviary of Philosophy from the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas

PROF. JOSEF PIEPER (4 May 1904 - 6 November 1997) was a German Catholic philosopher and an important figure in the resurgence of interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas in early-to-mid 20th-century philosophy. Among his most notable works are The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1966); Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1952); and Guide to Thomas Aquinas (1962) (published in England as Introduction to Thomas Aquinas). Pieper was born in the small Westphalian village of Elte in Germany (then the German Empire) in 1904, where his father was the only teacher at the only school in the village. After attending the Gymnasium Paulinum, one of the oldest German schools, Pieper went on to study philosophy, law and sociology at the universities of Münster and Berlin. He served in the army during World War II and, after working as a sociologist and freelance writer, he taught at the University of Münster from 1950 to 1976. He served as an assistant at the Institute of Social Research, and later Professor of Philosophical Anthropology. As professor emeritus he continued to provide lectures until 1996. He received the Balzan Prize in Philosophy in 1981, and he was awarded the State Prize of the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen in 1987. He also received the Ehrenring of the Görres-Gesellschaft in 1990. Prof. Pieper passed away in Münster, Germany in 1997, aged 93. FR. DROSTAN MACLAREN was an English Catholic priest, author and translator. He published a paper, Private Property and the Natural Law: A Paper Read to the Aquinas Society of London on March 10, 1948, in 1948, and was the co-author (with Rodger Charles) of The Social Teaching of Vatican II : Its Origin and Development: Catholic Social Ethics: An Historical and Comparative Study, which was published in England in 1982.