Now, even purely abstract thoughts may produce "inclinations in the soul," e.g., thinking of truth, virtue, or God can produce an inclination of love.
Rather than thinking of intellectual virtues as cognitive faculties or abilities, he conceives them as personality traits, such as impartiality and intellectual courage.
Visions of sword-wielding powerhouses who are capable of Big Thinking by virtue of their epic title only go so far.
This type of activation is the basis for "deep reading" and the highest forms of thought in a society, from novel thinking to the deliberation of virtue.
This potential gives rise to a separate strain of thinking about virtue.
In his 1995 collection of essays, "Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness," Kushner writes, "A good play, like good lasagna, should be overstuffed.
Kushner's seriocomic "Slavs!," which was staged in 1994 at the New York Theatre Workshop — where "Homebody/ Kabul" is now playing, under the direction of Declan Donnellan — and is set in Moscow and Siberia in the years before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is subtitled "Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness".
It is also about what to do when you live in a world with no grand theory to guide you". This is a theme of many of Kushner's other works too, ranging from Slavs! Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness to The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures (brevity is not Kushner's thing).
Wisdom in essence is the product of virtue, as is developing mental health skills such as letting go, thinking creatively and being humane to oneself and others.
Through the years, our thinking about those who served in the war has been characterized by tension between a sense of virtue and a sense of shame.
