Brian Kemple
-
Reading Circle: Pierre Manent [2026-27]
Description Democracy without Nations?: The Fate of Self-Government in Europe (4 weeks) [March–April]This work, now over twenty years old, retains clear relevance today in light of the current crisis of the nation-state as a political form. The book is an extended essay on some of the consequences of late–twentieth-century changes in European governance. As an…
-
Rhetorica ad Herennium [English]
Among the tasks of the Lyceum Institute is a restoration of forgotten traditions and texts. Newly produced within this initiative is our republication of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, a classic work in Roman oratory, in the English translation by Harry Caplan. This text, from roughly 80BC, informed the study of rhetoric in the days of…
-
Reframing Our Understanding of Technology
Technology is often discussed and conceived in extreme terms: triumphant progress, mastering nature; or self-inflicted catastrophic destruction. But rarely is the question asked—and even more rarely answered well—what is technology? How are we affected in ourselves by our technologies? The 2024 Difficulties of Technology seminar, conducted within the multiyear Humanitas Technica project, asked these and…
-
What Classical Education Needs
In this conversation, Geoffrey Meadows (Head of Upper School, Tulsa Classical Academy) discusses being a “hunter of causes” and the need to translate enthusiasm into hard work in classical education. Together with Dr. Kemple, he discusses the importance of philosophy, the impact of technology on education, and the necessity of moral formation in students. Geoffrey…
-
Felicitates de Quodlibet, III.1
A Philosophical Happy Hour on… whatever! The first installment in our Felictates de Quodlibet series for 2026, in which we talk about whatever we want, so long as it is interesting, and for as long as we are interested. Or, to put this otherwise: do you have a philosophical question—any question whatsoever—you want seriously to…
-
Lecture: Broken Minds
On 29 January 2026, I (Brian Kemple) gave the annual Aquinas Lecture at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This lecture, including Q&A, was recorded and is now available online. Watch on YouTube.
-
What Makes a Thinker Worth Exploring?
A Philosophical Happy Hour asking why (or whether) we should read some thinkers over others, explore some ideas before the rest, and take some philosophers more seriously than others. A question surfaces again and again in philosophical discussion, sometimes with impatience: why do certain thinkers keep returning? Why are Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas,…
-
On Knowing Ourselves
A Philosophical Happy Hour questioning how and how well we come to know ourselves. Who are we, really? Commonly we presume today that we know ourselves by a turn inward. We associate self-knowledge with “introspection” and “authenticity”. But despite this contemporary insistence, it seems many people do not know themselves: conflicted in motivation and desire,…