In his meditations upon the seven last words of Christ, spoken from the cross, St. Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) offers a series of reflective considerations most apt for this season, not only for the Christian, but for all who would think carefully on the meaning of life, death, and the universe. Particularly poignant in this, a […]

In the 19th and 20th centuries, a fever for scientific explanation of all phenomena gripped many an intellectual. Language, however, has proved resistant to the methods of modern science. Too many aspects of our experience prove irreducible to the empiriometric approach successful in disciplines such as chemistry or biology. This resistance vexes the reductionist’s mind. […]

Our extended senses, tools, technologies, through the ages, have been closed systems incapable of interplay or collective awareness.  Now, in the electric age, the very instantaneous nature of co-existence among our technological instruments has created a crisis quite new in human history.  Our extended faculties and senses now constitute a single field of experience which […]

Ho ho ho… Harvey is coming to town? One of the many fascinating contributions semiotics makes to contemporary philosophical discourse is role it sees for signs and sign-relations in the domain of logic. In this interview on Dogs with Torches, we are joined by the Lyceum’s very own Dr. Matthew K. Minerd to discuss the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The term kulturkampf, literally “culture struggle”, has long-since been translated into English as “culture war”.  I have no desire to participate in a “culture war”.  Indeed, as I will argue here, the very notion of the “culture war” is not only misguided but harmful.  But as someone living within a culture, however, I do believe […]

Unless you have been living under a rock—which might in fact be quite an enviable place to live, these days—I should not need to point out that masculinity has been a controversial topic over the past decade.  I could argue here against the various claims that have been made against something like a “traditional” concept […]