Seeing Things as They Are. Duncan B. Reyburn

The jovial journalist, philosopher, and theologian G. K. Chesterton felt that the world was almost always in permanent danger of being misjudged or even overlooked, and so the pursuit of understanding, insight, and awareness was his perpetual preoccupation. Being sensitive to the boundaries and possibilities of perception, he was always encouraging his audience to find a clear view of things. His belief was that it really is possible, albeit in a limited way, to see things as they are. This book, which marries Chesterton's unique perspective with the discipline of philosophical hermeneutics, aims to outline what Chesterton can teach us about reading, interpreting, and participating in the drama of meaning as it unfolds before us in words and in the world. Strictly speaking, of course, Chesterton is not a hermeneutic philosopher, but his vast body of work involves important hermeneutic considerations. In fact, his unique interpretive approach seems to be the subtext and implicit fascination of all Chesterton scholarship to date, and yet this book is the first to comprehensively focus on the issue. By taking Chesterton back to his philosophical roots–via his marginalia, his approach to literary criticism, his Platonist-Thomist metaphysics, and his Catholic theology–this book explicitly and compellingly tackles the philosophical assumptions and goals that underpin his unique posture towards reality.