News and Announcements
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On the End of War
“Only the dead have seen the end of war,” wrote George Santayana in 1922. A century later his observation clearly remains poignant. War has proven a commonplace ever since, with seldom a year passing without violent conflict. Though we in the United States have lived fortunate enough never to have prolonged conflict upon our own…
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On Self-Education
As part of our program, members at the Lyceum Institute are encouraged to suggest rich topics for our weekly Philosophical Happy Hour. One member writes: What is the value of self-education? By this I mean education that one engages in, (either through books or courses) without the aid of a teacher. I think there is…
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Property, Ownership, and the Concentration of Wealth
What is property? What is wealth? Who has a right to ownership? What moral quandaries are to be found in the concentration of wealth? Over the past several decades, wealth has become, in many ways, largely dissociated from real things, from tangible beings. This dissociation stems not only from the movement to a fiat currency,…
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Discussing Certitude and Intuition
A Lyceum Member writes, proposing a Philosophical Happy Hour topic: What is certitude? What role do signs play in achieving certitude? What role do signs play in intuition? Can I be certain about my mother’s love – is it intuited through signs, or through some other means? The notions of certitude and intuition have played…
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A Philosophical Inquiry into Facts
What is a fact? The English word, used so commonly throughout the modern world, comes from its Latin cognate, factum: an event, occurrence, a deed, an achievement. But since the mid-17th century, under the auspices of the Enlightenment’s so-called “empiricism”, the word has been taken to be a “reality” known as independent of observation. The…
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Whose Tradition? Which Nostalgia?
Our next Philosophical Happy Hour continues our discussion of modernity. We turn to the topics of tradition and nostalgia, with a focus on the potential role of nostalgia in the increasing number of “return to tradition” and “create a new tradition” movements arising within contemporary societies. Though “modernity” is a difficult term to define, it…
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Last Chance to Register for Fall Seminars
With discussion sessions beginning this coming Saturday (9/23), I would be remiss if I did not put out a final call for registration in our Fall seminars. We have three provocative offerings, each of which promises to confront the errors of modernity in radically differing ways. An Encounter with the Thought of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Excerpt…
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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…
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On the Philosophy of Boredom
Who does not dislike the experience of boredom? To be bored is to feel one’s time, one’s energy, one’s capacities are wasted, withering away on nothing. But, at times, the boredom that seizes us disregards even our greatest loves: no matter the diversion attempted, boredom takes sway. We might pick up a favorite book, only…
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Ignorance of History and Moral Weakness
“Those ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it” — an oft-iterated maxim that is both often ignored, and, perhaps, misleads. Some history ought, perhaps, to be repeated. (Originality is seldom all that it is praised for being.) Nevertheless, an ignorance of history does have pernicious consequences. It makes us narrow-minded, arrogant, selfish, and ungrateful.…
