It was Mário Ferreira dos Santos, and no other, who fully showed me the nobility of speculative philosophy, not because until then I had only come into contact with playful and vain writers, but because in him, more than in others, I saw the real need for the speculative exercise. A need arising from vital questions that found in this method the only possibility of a safe solution. The meticulousness, the stretching out and scrutiny come out not as a pretentious exhibition, but as a methodical demand inherent to the seriousness of the questions. As in Thomas Aquinas, digressions, numerous demonstrations: but everything, always, aiming at clarity, aiming at precise exposition. Great mind!
The Nobility of Speculative Philosophy
