ABSTRACT
From the very beginning of his academic career, Viereck was concerned with the dangers of a rationality freed from the constraints of actual human life. Determining a particular thinker's views on human nature is indispensable to understanding their philosophy. Every statement Peter Viereck made-whether on reason, politics, history, poetry-was informed by his understanding of the nature of human existence. Theory enables thinkers to abstractly posit quixotic solutions whose fruition demands nothing less than the transfiguration of human nature. Rationality is an asset to civilization so long as it is used as a tool to address and not distort experience. Despite a few terse statements, Viereck unduly neglects the civilizational importance of reason in the maintenance of humane values. Informed by the vision of the moral imagination, philosophical reason is indispensable to understanding human life.
