Speaking of his friend Dan Walsh in his bestselling biography, The Seven Storey Mountain, Trappist Monk Thomas Merton draws a composite of what a Catholic philosopher ought to be from Dan Walsh's example:For [Walsh], like Gilson, had the most rare and admirable virtue of being able to rise above the petty differences of schools and systems and seeing Catholic philosophy in its wholeness, in its variegated unity, and in its true Catholicity. In other words, he was able to study St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus side by side, and to see them as complementing and reinforcing one...