A Philosophical Happy Hour on Obstinate Views and the Discovery of Meaning Does it feel sometimes as though the reality you inhabit is not shared with others?  A recent Benedictine College commencement speech deemed controversial may well illustrate the point: some saw in these comments (particularly those beginning at 11:49) a demand that women “get […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour against the Inversion of our Knowledge What does it mean for something to be natural?  We find the word ubiquitous in today’s marketing: all natural bug spray, dog treats, body wash, shampoo, deodorant, laundry detergent, toothpaste, sunscreen.  Ironically, of course, none of these products occur by nature.  Each is a product […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour on the Unseriousness of Modern Objectors It has become fashionable for analytic philosophers in recent years[1] to attack arguments for the existence of God.  These attacks, though their permutations are quite numerous, ordinarily attempt to show that the conception of God somehow entails a contradiction.  These might include some form of […]

What immediate irony!  Reading about listening.  Indeed, we all tend to do far more reading, I suspect, than we do listening.  That often we read poorly does not take away from the fact that we read continually.  For a great many of us, the nature of work, study, and even distraction often involves a discernment […]

Questions concerning the nature of evolution—questions which find their way into discourse time and again—have cropped up yet again. This post will make an effort to outline some of these issues, with view to fostering a fruitful discussion for our Philosophical Happy Hour (24 April 2024) on how we ought to think of evolution. It […]

Positivism and Science A difficult and complex question in philosophy today concerns the discussion regarding the intersection and “boundaries” of the harder empirical sciences and the distinct activity of philosophical enquiry.  Given the success of scientific discovery, one temptation in the early 20th century was to claim that disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, and […]

The first step on the realist path is to recognize that one has always been a realist; the second is to recognize that, however hard one tries to think differently, one will never manage to; the third is to realize that those who claim they think differently, think as realists as soon as they forget […]

For this week’s Philosophical Happy Hour, we are discussing the proper attitude towards art. What is art’s end? To how should we comport ourselves with respect to art? A Lyceum Member writes: What is the proper relation that one should have toward art? It is common today for people to speak about art as a […]

The most well-known exemplar of the philosophical attitude, Socrates, was put to death for his habits of questioning.  On different occasions, Socrates described himself as a “midwife”—assisting his interlocutors through the difficult and painful process of giving birth to thought—and as a “gadfly” (an annoying, biting insect, difficult to shoo away).  This latter attribute, in […]

St. Thomas defines law in Summa Theologiae I-II q. 90 aa. 1-4. It is an ordinance of reason for the sake of the common good made by someone bestowed with the care of the common good and promulgated. Hence, human law, which St. Thomas treats in I-II q. 95, must share the above definition in […]