News and Announcements
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The Essence of Tragedy
What is the essence of tragedy? How is it a phenomenon of life, a genre of art? In what actions, characters, and thoughts is it most clearly represented? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour as we take up a central question of artistic signification. “That dinner party was a complete tragedy.” “Her outfit is, like, totally…
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Seminar: Philosophy of Time, Part I
Fall 2026 | Philosophy of Time, Part I: From Antiquity to the Renaissance | Philosophy Seminar Time governs nearly everything human beings do: days are divided into hours, work into schedules, lives into years; clocks and calendars coordinate our activities today with extraordinary precision, allowing a kind of punctuality unprecedented. Yet the ease with which…
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Seminar: Hermeneutics – An Introduction
Fall 2026 | Hermeneutics – An Introduction | Philosophy Seminar Human beings are always interpreting: words, gestures, events, traditions, texts, and, perhaps most of all, one another. But interpretation is not simply extracting a meaning from these things we encounter. Every attempt to understand brings us into further questions: What makes understanding possible in the…
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The Common Good and the Toleration of Evil
Pornography, prostitution, gambling, capital punishment, slavery: each seems somehow evil, and yet—at one time or another—each has been tolerated by governments. Do these tolerations violate the common good? Our Philosophical Happy Hour takes up the unhappy question. How do we live rightly as members of a society when that society is permeated by evils? There…
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Conference Program
Friends, attendees, and anyone interested in the future of human education: we have added the program for our upcoming first-ever live event, Human Formation in the Digital Age. This conference will embrace the biggest challenges facing education today: challenges wrought by our technologies but resolved only through a deeper understanding of what it means to…
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For the Love of Wisdom
What makes a human being “wise”? What is “wisdom”? Why is it important? In an age of passionate reaction, it seems a virtue all too scarce, and most notably absent from those who govern. Join our Philosophical Happy Hour to discuss its nature and pursuit. We have more knowledge, expertise, and access to information today…
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On the Balance of Work and Study
How can we make time and space in our busy—and seemingly ever busier—lives for the life of the mind? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour this week as we strive together for a more balanced way of life. For much of human history, the life of the mind has been a domain of the privileged few—reserved,…
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On Imperfection and Error
Why is life imperfect? Why are human beings so deeply flawed? This week’s Philosophical Happy Hour looks at the imperfections and errors that characterize life—both those given to nature and those produced by our own choices. To err is to be human. Is this a maxim for forgiveness or to excuse our follies? In some…
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What Does AI Use Do To Us?
As AI use becomes increasingly widespread in the world, it becomes a pressing question to ask not only what effects it might produce in the world, but what consequences it has for users and their habits—and for the environment of thinking as a whole. Introducing SEPPUAI: A Semioethical Framework for Artificial Intelligence The Lyceum Institute…
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On Our Need for Truth
A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the nature and definition of truth, and its necessity for our living good lives. Do we need truth to live good lives? Do all human beings? And if so—what is the truth? How do we know it? Who “has” it? Where do we find it? What do we really mean…
