Ideas have consequences

Richard M. Weaver, a University of Chicago professor, examines what he sees as the troubles of the modern era and argues that they can be understood and addressed. He holds that reality can be known and that people possess real freedom to choose. In his view, the disasters of his time grew from poorly reasoned decisions, and the way out is for people to grasp that every idea, much like every deed, produces results.

Weaver is optimistic that recovery is within reach. He locates the remedy in disciplined use of reason, in a return to belief in an unchanging reality, and in a renewed awareness that ideas shape the world just as actions do.

First published in 1948, the book is a cultural critique that traces modern thinking back to the medieval rejection of universal concepts.