A Philosophical Happy Hour on… whatever! The third installment in our Felictates de Quodlibet series for 2025, in which we talk about whatever we want, so long as it is interesting, and for as long as we are interested. Or, to put this otherwise: do you have a philosophical question—any question whatsoever—you want seriously to discuss with other people?
In the Scholastic university, renowned thinkers would regularly engage in open debate on questions posed by other scholars or students at the institution. Most often, these questions would concern a specific, pre-determined topic. From this we derive works such as Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestiones disputatae de Veritate and Quaestiones disputatae de Potentia Dei, etc. But sometimes, they would be completely open-floor: Quaestiones de Quodlibet, literally, “questions about whatever”.
This week—yet again—at the Lyceum Institute, we are combining that openness to serious and rigorous intellectual questioning with the joviality of our Happy Hour. In other words: we have no set topic this week, but want to entertain any serious or interesting philosophical question. Attendees are encouraged to think up a question beforehand. We will talk about a topic for as long as the conversation flows—and then proceed to the next.
These can be questions about which you are merely curious (is there a difference between being “correct” and something that is “true”?), in which you are deeply interested (is there really such a thing as “intuition”? Is government a “necessary evil”? Is it better to be feared than loved?), which revisit topics discussed previously (such as subsidiarity, phenomenology, comedy or tragedy, semiotics, social teaching); questions about specific thinkers or ideas; relations between philosophers; and so on and on!
So if you have any philosophical questions you want to ask, come join us this Wednesday, 16 July 2025! This is the seventh overall instance of the Felictates de Quodlibet; or, in honor of our forebears, we can identify this as the third quaestio of the second series—and we look forward to many more!