Explorations and Excerpts of a Philosophical Nature
On Modernity, Ultramodernity, and Postmodernity
If you and I are to have a conversation—that is, a kind of living-together through discourse or the concrete articulations of language—we must, indeed, do so in the same “place”. Put otherwise, we cannot have a conversation unless the objects signified by our words are the same. I do not mean that each and every word used by each person in the conversation needs to have the exact same denotations and connotations as understood by every other person in the conversation. But without some common referents—some formal identities between us…
A Brief Life of St. Columban
“The missionary labours of the Irish were not confined to Great Britain, but extended far and wide through the west of Europe. In the sixth and seventh centuries, Irish monasteries were founded in Austrasia and Burgundy, Italy, Switzerland, Bavaria; they were established among Frisians, Saxons, Alemanni. And as centres of Latin education as well as Christianity, the names of Bobbio and St. Gall will occur to every one. Of these, the first directly and the second through a disciple were due to Columbanus. With him we enter the larger avenues…
On the Meanings of “Object”, “Objective”, and “Objectivity”
The word “language” often suffers a confusion in use because of a partial equivocation in signification. Sometimes, we use it to signify the species-specifically human capacity to express semantic depth pertaining to a being known as independent of our cognitive activity; in other words, we use the word “language” to indicate our ability for signifying things as they are in themselves and not merely as they considered by reference to our pragmatic considerations. To disambiguate the partial equivocation, we can call this the “linguistic capacity”. Other times, however, when we…
On Education and Its Institutions
The contemporary controversy concerning education centers around the institutions tasked with providing it. We ask ourselves what curricula should be implemented, what teaching methods are most effective, and how governmental agencies can assist in the growth of educational institutions—we debate the morality of teachers and their influence, the rights to speech and questioning, the difficulty of grading and assessment and so on and on. All too rarely, especially as these disputes intensify, do we pause to question our presuppositions concerning the true nature and purpose of education itself. Indeed: long…
Medieval Semiotics
Though “semiotics” is a word coined only in the late 17th century—and used consistently and meaningfully beginning only in the late 19th—the study of signs and their actions goes back millennia. During those thousands of years, some of the most important contributions were made during the age often called “Medieval” (though it would be better termed “Latin”) and especially by the Scholastic thinkers. Listen to this two-part podcast as Brian Kemple joins Hunter Olson to discuss the key figures and ideas from this period. And be sure to check out…
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The Peripatetic
The school of thought founded by Aristotle can be referred to in two ways: one, the Lyceum, signified the physical locale in which the Master and his students congregated. Two, the Peripatetics, was used to identify the adherents to Aristotle’s principles. This name was derived from their habit of having discussions while walking. Here, our thoughts meander in exploration, too.