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Food for Thought

A Mind is a Wonderful Thing to Meet

Tim Madigan remembers Steve Allen’s Meeting of Minds.

“My mind does not simply receive impressions. It talks back to the authors, even the wisest of them, a response I’m sure they would warmly welcome. It is not possible, after all, to accept passively everything even the greatest minds have proposed. One naturally has profound respect for Socrates, Plato, Pascal, Augustine, Descartes, Newton, Locke, Voltaire, Paine, and other heroes of the pantheon of Western culture; but each made statements flatly contradicted by views of the others. So I see the literary and philosophical tradition of our culture not so much as a storehouse of facts and ideas but rather as a hopefully endless Great Debate at which one may be not only a privileged listener but even a modest participant.

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