Faculty Fellows contribute to the intellectual life of the Lyceum Institute for one-year but indefinitely renewable terms: teaching seminars, languages, giving colloquia, and participating in the community.
2023-2024
Fr. Scott Randall Paine, PhD
I am a priest of the archdiocese of Brasilia and tenured professor of medieval philosophy and Eastern thought at the city’s federal university. A native of the United States, since 1974 I have lived, studied, and taught in Europe, Asia and South America. In 1983 I was ordained by Pope St. John Paul II in Rome, where, in 1988, I also took my doctorate in philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas.
My research has long been dominated by the links between the humanities, philosophy, and religion (especially East-West conceptual confrontations, and what is sometimes called comparative religion). I also teach courses in Medieval philosophy, Indian and Chinese philosophy, metaphysics and phil. anthropology (focus on the notion of person). Outside of the classical authors (and among them I include Newman and Chesterton), the writers who have most impacted me have been: Thomas Gilby, Josef Pieper, Cornelio Fabro, John Deely, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Louis Dupré, Richard De Smet, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Rémi Brague and Roy Wilson Organ.
My recent works include an edition of the essays of Bernard Kelly, A Catholic Mind Awake (2017); a study of the thought of G.K. Chesterton, The Universe and Mr. Chesterton (2nd ed., 2019); most recently, The Other World We Live In: A Catholic Vision of Angelic Reality (2021), my philosophical travelogue, Seven Islands: A Philosopher Island-Hops Through the World (2021, now available on Amazon), and my forthcoming book on philosophy’s interfaces, Face to Face with Everything: Philosophy’s Synoptic and Cenoscopic Outlook. My CV (in Portuguese), my current writing, some podcasts, and other resources can be found on the website: 3wisdoms.com, and some videos on youtube.com/c/3wisdoms.
Kirk Kanzelberger, PhD
My name is Kirk Kanzelberger and I hold a Ph.D. in Philosophy (Fordham University, New York, 2011). My undergraduate degree is in Biology (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 1984), and I also hold a master’s degree in Philosophical and Systematic Theology (Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley, 1994). Originally from Wisconsin, I had a somewhat itinerant childhood, living in various places in the US, and in Madrid during the waning years of the Franco regime.
I am married to an organometallic chemist that I met in Dabney Hovse at Caltech (literally, the girl next door). We have six children and (so far) two grandchildren.
When I graduated from Caltech, the Silicon Valley tech boom was in an accelerative phase. Software technology was a convenient way to support a family while pursuing graduate studies in spurts, beginning at the Caltech Seismological Lab, where I programmed geophysics simulations to run on innovative parallel hardware. One thing led to another, and to a career in the software industry. During the 2000’s, I was lead engineer for a successful software startup, Netrics Inc., which brought to market best-in-class scalable inexact matching and machine learning components (AI before it became ubiquitous). In 2010, Netrics was acquired by a Silicon Valley firm (TIBCO).
My philosophical interests lie in Peircean semiotics, moral psychology, and metaphysics. On the technology front, I am an advisor to a startup (Peircy, Inc.) on basic technology involving the application of Peirce’s logic of the sign.
To learn about me and my interests, you might consult any of the following sources: my lecture on evil, “Daydreams and Dark Magic”, for the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics; my Lyceum Institute Colloquium lecture, “Mending the Cartesian Rift”, on Walker Percy and Charles Peirce; and my article, “Reality and the Meaning of Evil”, in the inaugural issue of REALITY: A Journal for Philosophical Discourse. You can also view my LinkedIn profile here.
Matthew Minerd, PhD
My name is Matthew Minerd, and I hold a PhD in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. I am a professor of philosophy and moral theology at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh, PA. I also do work as an academic translator from French and Latin (both in matters philosophical and theological). Several of my translations are currently in print, and a number are anticipated for publication over the next several years.
I am personally devoted to the recovery of past philosophical and theological works, not out of a spirit of intellectual archeology but, rather, as providing legitimate voices in contemporary discussions. Too much academic philosophy and theology centers on “the literature,” which often leaves out much wisdom from the great philosophers of the scholastic tradition which ran parallel to the modern “mainstream.” Much of my academic interest involves injecting these voices into the current discussions—many of which must extend beyond mainstream academia, given its present ideological and financial constrictions.
Francisco Plaza, PhD
My name is Francisco E. Plaza, I have a PhD in Philosophy from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. My dissertation work centers on Jacques Maritain’s philosophy of culture, and how it applies to politics in our time. I have had a number of publications on the subject, notably, my article “Subjectivity and the Prise de Conscience in Jacques Maritain” published by the American Maritain Association in Engaging the Times (2017), and “Maritain’s Philosophy of Culture: A Bridge between Metaphysics and Politics” published in In Search for Harmony (2019).My primary research interests are political theory, ethics, and the culture of modernity.
I am originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and having experienced first-hand the transition from the Democratic state it once was to the totalitarian state it is today, I became invested in political philosophy and, in particular, the crisis of modern culture. One of the main questions I sought to answer was how people could continue to support failed political ideologies even in the face of obvious problems created by their adoption (e.g. an exponential increase of poverty and crime, clear human rights abuse on the part of the government, rampant fear and despair in the culture, an undeniable removal of basic liberties, etc.). The work of thinkers like Jacques Maritain, Eric Voegelin, and Pope Saint John Paul II, helped me to understand the genesis of this problem, as well as how it may be resolved. In our time, we face an anthropological crisis of meaning within our culture, and this is primarily what I hope to address in my own work.
Daniel Wagner, PhD
I am Assistant Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Aquinas College, in Grand Rapids, MI. I received my Doctorate in Philosophy from the Center for Thomistic Studies, at the University of St. Thomas. My research focuses on the Philosophy of Nature and Science, Philosophical Anthropology, and the principles of Ethics in Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas (Dissertation: φύσις καί τὸ ἀνθρώπινον ἀγαθόν: The Aristotelian Foundations of the Human Good), and on the synthetic development of Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy with Phenomenology (“Penitential Method as Phenomenological: The Penitential ἐποχή,” and “On the Foundational Compatibility of Phenomenology & Thomism,” in Studia Gilsoniana).
With John P. Hittinger, I co-edited Thomas Aquinas: Teacher of Humanity (London, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), and I am currently also working alongside Michael W. Tkacz on a volume of essays by the late Thomist and philosopher of nature and science, William Wallace: The Intelligibility of Nature: The Wallace Reader, forthcoming (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2021).
John Boyer, PhD Candidate
My name is John Boyer. I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans.
My philosophical research interests include issues in philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and philosophy of nature. I am particularly focused on issues of causality and explanation in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. You can find my publications here.
Prior to coming to Loyola, I taught philosophy for six years at the University of St. Thomas (UST) in Houston, TX. I am currently a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at UST’s Center for Thomistic Studies; my dissertation is on Aristotle’s theory of causal explanation. Prior to this, I earned an MA in philosophy at the Center and a BA in liberal arts from Thomas Aquinas College (California).
In addition to teaching, I serve as a senior editor at Reality: A Journal for Philosophical Discourse.
Richard Sharpe, MA
Greetings! I serve as the Lyceum’s director of languages. I hold an MA in Philosophy from Duquesne University and a BA in Philosophy and Classical Studies from the Pontifical College Josephinum.
Besides my philosophical research interest in the relationship between scholastic metaphysics and hermeneutic phenomenology, I focus primarily on the translation and interpretation of philosophical and theological texts. I have taught Latin, Greek, and German for over fifteen years in both formal academic and tutoring settings.