In addition to our philosophical focus through seminars, colloquia, and the study of language—both the Trivium and our other language studies—we occasionally share with one another works of art for discussion. These comprise literary works, paintings, sketches, photography, sculpture, music, and anything appreciated for the signs of meaning suffused intrinsically through the perceptual. In the words of the late Roger Scruton:
Art, nature and the human form all invite us to place this experience in the centre of our lives. If we do so, then it offers a place of refreshment of which we will never tire. But to imagine that we can do this, and still be free to see beauty as nothing more than a subjective preference or a source of transient pleasure, is to misunderstand the depth to which reason and value penetrate our lives. It is to fail to see that, for a free being, there is right feeling, right experience and right enjoyment just as much as right action. The judgement of beauty orders the emotions and desires of those who make it. It may express their pleasure and their taste: but it is pleasure in what they value and taste for their true ideals.
– Roger Scruton 2009: Beauty
As we grow, these aesthetic points of focus will grow into symposia: composed, either like colloquia, from a pre-recorded lecture and a live question and answer session with someone strongly knowledgeable in the topic, or like a course, with similar lectures and discussion sessions but also readings and discussion threads.
