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Abstract
In light of Josef Pieper’s celebrated English-language monograph Leisure: The Basis of Culture, and a few of his other publications, this concluding chapter reflects on preceding chapters in this collective volume to resolve what appears to be contradictory teachings between Pieper and the chapters contained in this volume related to whether religion or leisure is the basis of culture. While Pieper is often thought to have maintained that leisure is the proximate cause out of which cultures grow, all the contributors to this volume maintain a contrary opposite view—that religion, not leisure, is the proximate cause of all cultures. In contrast to a common way Pieper’s monograph Leisure: The Basis of Culture is mistakenly interpreted, this concluding chapter maintains that Pieper is firmly in the camp of the contributors to this volume in maintaining that religion, not leisure, is the proximate first principle of all human cultures; and it precisely explains why this is the case.