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I am personally convinced that, when, at some time in the future, the intellectual history of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century is written, the name of Dietrich von Hildebrand will be most prominent among the figures of our time.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Von Hildebrands concept of affective response, essential to his ethics and to his meaning of the heart, was the wake-up call that mainstream philosophy and social neuroscience are finally recognizing and accepting. We are all in his debt. Andrew Tallon, Author of Head & Heart: Affection, Cognition, Volition as Triune Consciousness
Von Hildebrands book is a remarkably rich and illuminating exploration of that much neglected area of philosophical investigation, the affective life of the human person, symbolized by the human heart. First, the fundamental philosophical point is made that the affective life is not just a set of feelings, basically all on the same level. Rather, the affective life stretches over a wide spectrum of levels, from the lowest sensible to the highest spiritual, depending on the level of values to which it is responding. Secondly, he lays out a very insightful, perhaps unique, phenomenological description of the various kinds of affective responses, both healthy and unhealthy.
W. Norris Clarke, s.j., Fordham University
The notion of the heart has not been at the center of attention in the philosophical tradition, though it is front and center in Augustine and it plays a larger than expected role in Hegel. Dietrich von Hildebrands book, The Heart, is a welcome recovery of this core notion.
Robert E. Wood, University of Dallas
