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The Heart
Reading Group
February 3, 10, 17, and 24
A four-week reading group through The Heart with Maria Fedoryka.
The group will meet over Zoom on Tuesday evenings (February 3, 10, 17, and 24) from 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET.
About the Text
In The Heart, Hildebrand is concerned rehabilitating the affective life of the human person. He thinks that for too long philosophers have held it in suspicion and thought of it as much inferior to the intellect and will, whereas in reality the heart, the center of affectivity, is just important a center of personal life as intellect and will. Hildebrand develops the idea that affectivity, rather than tending away from an objective relation to things, is in fact necessary for a fully objective relation to the world. Hildebrand also developed the important idea that the heart is “in many respects is more the real self of the person than his intellect or will.” The second half of The Heart makes the philosophical analysis fruitful for our understanding of the affectivity of the God-Man. Here readers will not only find important contributions to theology and spirituality but also an illuminating re-reading of familiar Scriptural passages.
Format
The meeting will be conducted live in Zoom. Links for the session will be sent out ahead of time.
To allow for rich discussion, the group is limited in size to a maximum of 20 participants. Once the group is full, additional registrations will be placed on a waitlist.
All participants are expected to have a copy of the text and to come prepared to each session having done the weekly reading (15-45 pages per week). The weekly reading schedule will be e-mailed to you.
Moderator
Dr. Maria Fedoryka lectures and publishes in both academic and popular fora in the field of the philosophy of love, examining issues spanning from the centrality of love in the being of God, to its role at the center of creation, to its meaning for marriage, family, and sexuality. Having been captivated by the writings of Dietrich von Hildebrand as a teenager and deeply drawn to his phenomenological and personalist philosophy, she pursued her studies under Josef Seifert and John Crosby at the International Academy of Philosophy. Among her scholarly writings are an analysis of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s philosophy of marital intimacy and procreation titled Finis superabundant Operis: Refining an Ancient Cause for Understanding the Spousal Act in the ACPQ, and “‘God is Love’”: Personal Plurality as the Completion of Aristotle’s Notion of Substance and Love as the Absolute Ground of the Divine Being” in the Proceedings of the ACPA. Among her popular publications are the booklet The Special Gift of Women for God, the Family and the World published by the Catholic Truth Society in England. She is currently working on an article comparing Hildebrand’s and Aquinas’s philosophy of affectivity, as well as an article on Hildebrand’s theory of motivation as the key to understanding deliberate moral wrongdoing.
Costs
Reading groups are free to attend.
If you are able, we invite you to make a donation to help defray the costs of organizing (reading groups cost the Hildebrand Project ~$900 for a four-week group). We are committed to making reading groups accessible to all; therefore, participation is not contingent on a donation.
Your gift support this reading group, our publications, web resources, and other events, all of which contribute to bringing the vital, life-giving witness of personalist philosophy into new and uncertain times.
Level:
Suitable for those with some philosophical background.
Readings:
Week 1: Forthcoming
Time:
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM ET
February 3 — 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT