Josef Pieper (; 4 May 1904 – 6 November 1997) was a German Catholic philosopher and an important figure in the resurgence of interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas in early-to-mid 20th-century philosophy. Among his most notable works are The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance; Leisure, the Basis of Culture; and Guide to Thomas Aquinas (published in England as Introduction to Thomas Aquinas). Life and career Pieper studied philosophy, law and sociology at the universities of Berlin and Münster. After working as a sociologist and freelance writer, he became ordinary professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Münster, and taught there from 1950 to 1976. As professor emeritus he continued to provide lectures until 1996. With his wife Hildegard, he translated C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain into German (Über den Schmerz, 1954) with an afterword, "On Simplicity of Language in Philosophy". A symposium to celebrate his 90th birthday was held in Münster in May 1994, with the papers read there published as Aufklärung durch Tradition ("Enlightenment through Tradition") in 1995. In 2010, a symposium was held in Paderborn on "Josef Pieper's and C. S. Lewis's View of Man", with papers published in Wahrheit und Selbstüberschreitung ("Truth and Self-Transcendence"). Philosophy His views are rooted primarily in the Scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas and in the teachings of Plato. In 60 years of creative work as a philosopher and writer, Pieper explicated the wisdom tradition of the West in clear language, and identified its enduring relevance. Legacy Recent champions of Pieper's philosophy in the English-speaking world include James V. Schall, S.J., professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University, Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., professor of theology at Fordham University, Steven Cortright at St. Mary's College of California, Francis Grabowski, professor of English at Rogers State University, and from within the Muslim community, Hamza Yusuf of Zaytuna College, Berkeley, California. The philosopher Kurt Flasch sees Pieper's 1934 writing as support for National Socialist social policy. However, Flasch qualifies that Pieper's attempts to act as a "bridge builder" between Catholicism and the Nazi state are visible "only in his world of thought of the years 1933 and 1934". In the early phase of the Nazi regime, Pieper "[clarified] the ethically correct intention of National Socialism and [...] explained to hesitant Catholics the parallel social teaching of the encyclical Quadragesimo of 1929" and thus at his place of work in Münster in