With discussion sessions beginning this coming Saturday (9/23), I would be remiss if I did not put out a final call for registration in our Fall seminars. We have three provocative offerings, each of which promises to confront the errors of modernity in radically differing ways.
Rosenstock’s insights have to do above all with speech, time and history – topics infamous for their unpredictability, and fractious in their irreducibility to mere ratiocination or univocal definition. Aristotle, after all, reminds us that, due to the very nature of human events, there will never be a science of history. And yet, with all the ambiguities and surprises, it is in time and history that we live and move and have our being. We use propositions and syllogisms, but they do not provide us with a human dwelling, nor can they console us in our trials.
The term “phenomenology” has received a multitude of meanings over the past several centuries but today refers primarily to the loose collection of approaches initiated by Edmund Husserl with his 1900 (and revised in 1913) Logichse Untersuchungen, or Logical Investigations. Yet these approaches, while all see in phenomenology something foundational about how it is that human beings know, vary widely in their conduct. Prominent among them, and very frequently misunderstood, is the phenomenological approach advocated by Martin Heidegger—who, although perhaps the best-known of Husserl’s students, also perhaps departs the most radically among all the phenomenologists from his one-time teacher.
The importance of habit’s influence on action has been well noted by Saint Thomas and his followers (as, indeed, by all thoughtful followers of Aristotle) with respect to virtue and vice. This influence will be only as it were, however, an incidental object of our study. For, of particular importance in this seminar will be not only a consideration of habits as developing the individual, but as constituting the intersubjective reality of environment, community, and culture: of habits not only as they cause a coalescence of actuality in the human being (secundum se) but between human beings and the world (ad aliud).
Put otherwise, if we are to understand the full importance of habit, we cannot see it merely as something within ourselves as individuals but must recognize its influence on how we relate amongst ourselves.
On 26 November 2022 at 11am ET (see event times around the world here and join the live Q&A here), Dr. Brian Kemple will present on “Poinsot: The Essence of the Sign”. Dr. Kemple holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of St. Thomas, in Houston TX, where he wrote his dissertation under the inimitable John Deely. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Lyceum Institute.
Philosophical interests and areas of study include: Thomas Aquinas, John Poinsot, Charles Peirce, Martin Heidegger, the history and importance of semiotics, scholasticism, phenomenology; as well as ancillary interests in the liberal arts, technology, and education as a moral habit. He has published two scholarly books—Ens Primum Cognitum in Thomas Aquinas and the Tradition (Brill: 2017) and The Intersections of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue (De Gruyter: 2019), as well as a number of scholarly articles, popular articles, and his own Introduction to Philosophical Principles: Logic, Physics, and the Human Person (2019; 2nd edition 2022) and the forthcoming Linguistic Signification: A Classical Course in Grammar and Composition (2021).
2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics (IO2S) | Website
This collaborative international open scientific initiative and celebration is jointly organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.
The fourteen questions which we will read in this seminar, comprising eighty-five articles, will explore the existence, nature, and intelligibility of God. The existential demonstration—the famous “five ways” of Aquinas—will be covered quickly: for their intelligibility grows the better we understand the rest of the questions, and we will be better equipped for grasping their significance in light of the divine nature and its intelligibility to us. In addition to the divine attributes (simplicity, perfection, goodness, infinity, omnipresence, immutability, eternality, and unity), we will take recurrent interest in the topics of analogy, significance, knowledge, and the relation of act and potency which cuts across all being.
In this seminar, lasting 8 weeks (see here for more information on all Lyceum Institute seminars), basic principles of metaphysics will be applied to an understanding of the existence, nature, and intelligibility of God. One should be at least passingly familiar with both Aristotle and Aquinas, and especially the doctrine of act and potency. The instructor for this seminar is Brian Kemple, PhD, the Executive Director of the Lyceum Institute. You can read more about Dr. Kemple here and download the syllabus here.
WHEN October 2–20 November Saturdays, 3:15-4:15pm ET/7:15-8:15pm UTC [8:15-9:15pm UTC after Nov.7]
WHERE Lyceum Institute digital platform run on Microsoft Teams
Lyceum Institute seminar costs are structured on a principle of financial subsidiarity. There are three payment levels, with discounts for those who are professors and clergy (whose continuing education is not sufficiently prioritized by their institutions) and for students (who are already taxed excessively by the educational system). However, if you are part of the working world and wish to take a seminar but cannot afford the “standard” rate, it is acceptable to sign up at one of these discounted prices. The idea is: pay what you can. Those who can pay more, should, so that those who cannot pay as much, need not. Lyceum Institute members receive a further discount (see here for details).
Exercitium Linguae Latinae (2:00-2:30pm ET). Legemus ex Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata ut melioremus nostrum locutionem et augeamus familiaritatem vocabulis.
Semiotics: An Introduction (6:00-6:45pm ET). Among the words one finds in all the key texts of Charles Sanders Peirce, “continuity” perhaps holds a principled place of importance: for the fundamental doctrine of Peirce is not his semiotic, but his synechism: his belief that the universe holds no gaps, no hard and fast distinctions in the occurrence, existence, and intelligibility of phanerons (or, we might say, “phenomena”). It is to the thinking through of this synechistic principle that we turn our attention in this the final week.
8/3 Tuesday
Ex Sancto Thoma Legimus (9:30-10:00am ET). Legemus ex Sancto Thoma et convertemus in linguam Anglicam; practicum bonum et utile est!
Ex Sancto Thoma Legimus (5:15-5:45pm ET — Iterum??!). Legemus ex Sancto Thoma et convertemus in linguam Anglicam; practicum bonum et utile est!
Philosophical Happy Hour (5:45-7:15pm ET). Slightly different time! Join us for drinks, conversation, lively debates, and get to know the Lyceum Institute and its members! Open to the public: use the “Send Us a Message” form here (write “Happy Hour” in the message box) and we’ll see you on Teams!
8/4 Wednesday
Exercitium Linguae Latinae (2:00-2:30pm ET). Legemus ex Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata ut melioremus nostrum locutionem et augeamus familiaritatem vocabulis.
Inquirere Session (5:00-7:00pm ET). These Quaestiones Disputate sessions allow us to work out our questions communally in a live chat. There are three ways in which someone may participate in an Inquirere session: as an Inquirer, as a Responder, or as an Observer. An Inquirer is seeking to define and develop a question. A Responder brings updates to their question and works in a live dialectic on what updates have been brought. Observers listen and comment on the inquiries and responses given.
8/5 Thursday
Ex Sancto Thoma Legimus (9:30-10:00am ET). Legemus ex Sancto Thoma et convertemus in linguam Anglicam; practicum bonum et utile est!
Elementary Latin Class (6:00-7:00pm ET). Discimus de dominis et servibus! Legimus et convertimus ex capitulo IV!
8/6 Friday
Open Chat (9:30-10:15am ET). Our regular Friday-morning open chat, allowing conversation between those in the West and those in the East–bridging the international community of the Lyceum Institute.
Exercitium in Lingua Latina (11pm-12am ET). Etiam exercitium in Lingua Latina! Ista hora conveniens Orientalibus est (11am Manila time).
8/7 Saturday
Intermediate Latin Class(10-11am ET). Cur Iulis rus amat? Quia in urbe, semper in negotio est, sed in ruri otio vivit. Legemus et convertemus ex capitulo XXVII!
Exercitium Linguae Latinae (2:00-2:30pm ET). Legemus ex Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata ut melioremus nostrum locutionem et augeamus familiaritatem vocabulis.
Semiotics: An Introduction (6:00-6:45pm ET). The second discussion of the week for the Semiotics seminar–how do signs shape our thinking? In what manner does the vehicle affect the interpretant, and how does the interpretant regard the object? How are we to classify the signs we use? These are open-ended questions, to which Peirce gives us guidance but no final resolutions..
7/20 Tuesday
Ex Sancto Thoma Legimus (9:30-10:00am ET). Legemus ex Sancto Thoma et convertit in linguam Anglicam; practicum bonum et utile est!
Philosophical Happy Hour (5:30-7:00pm ET). Join us for drinks, conversation, lively debates, and get to know the Lyceum Institute and its members! Open to the public: use the “Send Us a Message” form here (write “Happy Hour” in the message box) and we’ll see you on Teams!
7/21 Wednesday
Exercitium Linguae Latinae (2:00-2:30pm ET). Legemus ex Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata ut melioremus nostrum locutionem et augeamus familiaritatem vocabulis.
7/22 Thursday
Elementary Latin (6:00-7:00pm ET). Continuing into week two of our new introductory Latin Class, proceeding throughLingua Latina Per Se Illustrata. If you are interested in learning Latin, check out the class! It’s not too late to sign-up!
7/23 Friday
Open Chat (9:30-10:15am ET). Our regular Friday-morning open chat, allowing conversation between those in the West and those in the East–bridging the international community of the Lyceum Institute.
Exercitium in Lingua Latina (11pm-12am ET). Etiam exercitium in Lingua Latina! Ista hora conveniens Orientalibus est (11am Manila time).
7/24 Saturday
Intermediate Latin Class (10-11am ET). Postquam Syra facta Marci ad Quintum intimavit, ea narrat fabulam Theseum et Minotarum eum. Legemus et convertemus (in linguam Anglicam) capitulum XXV ex Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.
Seminar Discussion Sessions: Week 7 of 8.
Science: Aristotle’s Organon (1-2pm ET). Diving into book II of the Posterior Analytics, we progress to a consideration of the method of scientific examination itself. Here, we will see how important is the middle term in attaining demonstrations of a properly scientific kind.
Semiotics: An Introduction (3-4pm ET). What do we mean by “reality”? Or “belief”? How are they related to “truth”? These are our questions this week: and here, pulling together some of the varied threads we have seen in the previous weeks, we will see how the right understanding of signs can lead us from thought to truth itself: and all the benefits thereof.
Thomistic Psychology: World and Passions (5-6pm ET). Anger–rage–hatred. They are emotions familiar to us today, confronted as we are with a media panopticon of injustices and the suggestion that we are victims somehow. But is this the right and fitting purpose of anger? Or does it have some role to play, a more important role, in the pursuit not of vaguely-articulated rights, but rather in the rectifying of our pursuit of the true good?
2/2 Tuesday – Philosophical Happy Hour (5:30-7:00pm ET). Grab a drink and have a chat about things that really matter! Always open to suggested topics: any questions you may have, feel free to bring them. Open to the public. Use the “Send Us a Message” form here (write “happy hour” in the message box) and we’ll see you on Teams!
2/5 Friday – Open Chat (9:30-10:15am ET). Our regular Friday-morning open chat, allowing conversation between those in the West and those in the East–part of the truly international nature of the Lyceum Institute. A good way to bring the thinking of one week to a close and launch into the next.
2/6 Saturday – Latin Class(10-11am ET). Week three already! We continue progressing through Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: Familia Romana and learn to think in Latin. We’ll be having full conversations before long.
2/6 Saturday – Seminar Discussion Sessions. Already reaching the halfway point of our 2021 Winter Seminars–how fast it flies! At 1:15-2:15pm ET, Metaphysics: The Discovery of Ens inquantum Ens will take a deep look at the modes of procession in science, and specifically the “mode of intellect” as pertaining to metaphysics. Afterwards, at 3:00-4:00pm ET, Ethics: The Good Life seeks to understand the role of intellectual vision as it redounds to all the aspects of our lives in constituting our happiness.
2/7 Sunday – Open Chat Asia (4:00-5:30am ET/5:00-6:30pm GMT+8). Technically this is next week–but one of our members hosts an open chat for those on the other side of the world. A great opportunity for those living in far-removed parts of the world to meet some members and chat. Open to the public. Use the “Send Us a Message” form here (write “Open Chat Asia” in the message box) and we’ll see you on Teams!
