James Matthew Wilson
James Matthew Wilson is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Augustinian Traditions at Villanova University.
Articles by James Matthew Wilson
Telling the Truth about Immigration
Berwyn, PA. Nobody wants to. Most politicians would rather appeal to platitudes about America as a "nation of immigrants" than confront their responsibility to attend to the common good of…
The Pythagorean Temptation
Berwyn, PA. In his Degrees of Knowledge, Jacques Maritain argues that one central fault of the modern mind has been its propensity to think of mathematics rather than metaphysics as first…
From the Trinity Capital
Beyond the purple velvet drapes, the skeins of billowed gossamer, my hotel window looks down on the back gates of Trinity College. Up three floors and pierced by a late…
Our Slippery Slope into the Age of “Big Love”
Berwyn, PA. Many of us will recall the criticism Rick Santorum endured regarding this passage from a 2003 interview: And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right…
Mark Mitchell at Villanova
Berwyn, PA. Mark Mitchell, FPR's founding father and Editor-in-Chief, will deliver a lecture at Villanova University next week. The event is open to the public, and any FPR readers in…
Abstraction Rightly Understood
Part III in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Read Part I, and Part II. Berwyn, PA. In the last installment of this series, I contended that an…
Fleeing the Fearful Loneliness of Thought: Our Post-rational Age
Berwyn, PA. In the first weeks of FPR, when we authors dared commit to writing one essay a week, as if we could all be either as drunk or logorheic…
Republicans and the Language of Citizenship
Berwyn, PA. I add my voice to the FPR symposium on the presidential election in this morning's edition of Crisis Magazine, where I assess the way in which President Obama…
True Politics in the Wake of Obama
Berwyn, PA. I woke this morning, prepared to write a point-by-point assessment of yesterday's election, though I was not looking forward to the job, since one must say this morning the…
The Wrong Side of History
Berwyn, PA. Cardinal George offers us the strong words -- not of oracular prophecy, but of historical wisdom. A few passages: Communism imposed a total way of life based upon the…
Against Rationalism, Idealism, and Abstraction
Part II in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Read Part I here. Where the traditionalist position I have sketched appears weakest is precisely where it speaks most…
The Problem of Place
Part I in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Devon, PA. Several times during the last couple years, the FPR comment boxes have received protests against the supposed “placelessness”…