Theologians have become increasingly attentive to the role emotion and experience must play in theological reflection. Several thinkers have recently done so by appropriating and developing Jon Sobrino’s understanding of orthopathy, or “right affect.” A close examination of these efforts, however, reveals inconsistencies in the way the category is understood and deployed. This article redresses these inconsistencies by complementing orthopathy with orthoaesthesis, or “right perception.” The article opens by considering various appeals to orthopathy before suggesting how William James’s theory of emotion might provide the category with clarifying content. The second stage engages Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch as practitioners of orthoaesthesis. Special attention is given to Murdoch’s “techniques” aimed at transforming how practitioners perceive reality. With Murdoch’s guidance, the article contends that orthopathy is ineluctably bound to and not possible without orthoaesthesis. The article concludes with a constructive proposal to show how orthoaesthesis-orthopathy contributes to a Christian theological anthropology.

This roundtable grew out of the 2017 meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), for which Karen Enriquez organized a panel on the topic of contemplative pedagogy for the Buddhist-Christian Studies Group. As part of that session, Maureen Walsh and Anita Houck presented early versions of two of the essays that follow. That session inspired some members of the College Theology Society to organize a pedagogical lunch on the topic of contemplative pedagogies for the 2018 CTS convention. Given the significant interest shown by CTS members, and the longstanding commitment to pedagogy in the CTS and Horizons, further conversation led to the idea of publishing a roundtable focused on contemplative approaches in Catholic institutions. The authors are grateful to Elena Procario-Foley for her support and guidance.

The work of Pierre Hadot can highlight understudied aspects of the work of Thomas Aquinas. Hadot offers two key concepts in his study of ancient philosophy: philosophy as a “way of life” and “spiritual exercises”, which help us to approach Thomas, especially given his regular use of the term “spiritual exercise” and the concept of “exercise.”

The work of the late Pierre Hadot has transformed our understanding of the practice of philosophy, especially in the pre-modern world. This article interrogates how we approach the study of later Islamic philosophy, especially the thought of the Safavid sage Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī (d. 1635), and considers whether the method proposed by Hadot is applicable to this intellectual tradition. While there is much to be gained from the application of a cognate hermeneutics of the text, I also suggest that we still do not know enough about the actual practice of philosophy, of philosophical communities in the Safavid period, to consider whether it constitutes a real intellectual and structural continuity with the late antique Neoplatonic past. Nevertheless, the paradigm of approaching philosophy as a way of life propounded by Hadot does seem to be the best way of making sense of philosophy in Safavid Iran.