Ethics: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from Hearing [Summer 2026]
Description Through careful attention to Aristotle’s own argument—against the backdrop of the Pre-Socratics and of Plato—the seminar will examine how the human good possesses universality and necessity without becoming disconnected from the concrete realities of human life. The good is neither imposed upon human nature by extrinsic causes nor fabricated by social agreement. Rather, it […]
On the Recovery of a Broad Vision
A Philosophical Happy Hour reflecting on the renewed demands for broader intellectual vision amidst academic narrowing. For decades, modern education has praised specialization as the hallmark of intellectual seriousness: the disciplined acquisition of precise methods, technical vocabulary, expert competence, and increasingly narrow mastery. No doubt, such knowledge has greatly benefitted our material existence. But does […]
Politics: Second Reality: On the Problem of Ideology [Summer 2026]
Description Our inquiry will begin with the philosophical roots of the ideological age, where suspicion toward truth and transcendence becomes a dominant feature of modern thought. From there, we will examine the rise of political ideologies in the twentieth century—communism, fascism, liberalism, and their totalitarian tendencies—not merely as historical movements, but as attempts to construct […]
Face to Face with Everything: How Philosophy Looks at the World and What It Sees
The Lyceum Institute is delighted to announce the first text in our series with St. Augustine’s Press, Philosophical Habit: New Paradigms for the Digital Age, has been published. This text was developed from a seminar taught at the Lyceum Institute. Face to Face with Everything: How Philosophy Looks at the World and What It Sees […]
Two Becoming One: Love, Knowledge, and the Intelligibility of Unity
A Philosophical Happy Hour discussing the metaphysical difficulty of unity—in the concrete relations of love and knowledge. Politicians often use the word “unity”. We must be united. Stand united. Present a unified front. But it takes little investigation to discover that our States—to say nothing of our world—are rather disunited. This fragmentation occurs, moreover, at […]
Literature, Writing, and the Recovery of Man
A Philosophical Happy Hour inquiring into the virtues of the written word—on literature, writing, and the possibility of meaningful truths amidst a flood of meaningless words. Walker Percy’s brief meditation, titled “From Facts to Fiction” begins autobiographically: a physician trained in the beauty, rigor, and explanatory power of science finds himself forced by illness into […]
A Preface to Metaphysics – Jacques Maritain
Among the tasks of the Lyceum Institute is a preservation and accessibility of great texts in the tradition. Our latest work in this initiative is the republication of Jacques Maritain’s Preface to Metaphysics: Seven Lectures on Being. Though it has remained available in public domain reprint editions for some time, these have been unreliable and […]
Is Democracy Viable?
A Philosophical Happy Hour inquiring into the long-term institutional viability of democratic governance. Why is democracy the favored form of governance in the modern world? The modern forms of democratic government emerged alongside an emphasis on individual rights, autonomy, and equality. Therefore it seems, at the root of such emergence, we find beliefs both about […]
On Informal Language and the Dissolution of Community
A Philosophical Happy Hour questioning whether informal language has erosive effects on community—and how formal articulation might aid our relations. How do we acquire language? We perhaps first need to understand what language is—and we might presume falsely that we do. But we may think, nonetheless, about how young children learn to speak, to communicate. […]
