education
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On Life, Knowledge, and Vocation
A Philosophical Happy Hour contemplating the role of knowledge in the various vocations of life Lately—though, perhaps always, implicitly—we have found ourselves circling the topic of vocation. What is the calling of the human person? Does it fall into determinate categories—as husband or priest, mother or c-suite executive—or does it admit greater variability and complexity? …
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On the State of Higher Education
A Philosophical Happy Hour concerning the present conditions, future prospects, and most promising directions for the pursuit of higher education Every reality which exists only in the concrete, corporeal world—and especially those that exist only or primarily within the socially-constructed realities of human interaction—has a natural lifespan. They are born, they mature, and, eventually, they…
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On Self-Awareness, Morality, and the Machine
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the relationship between self-awareness, morality, and machine technologies What is the relationship between self-awareness and our moral convictions? How do our technologies affect this relationship? This week’s Philosophical Happy Hour takes up these questions and more. But let us set the stage for our conversation. A member brought this article…
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Final Push for Fundraising
It’s the last week of our Spring fundraiser! To date, we have raised $9,422. This is $15,578 short of our goal of $25,000. To get us as close to this goal as we can, we are asking for your help in this final week! Any donations, large or small, are greatly appreciated. As a token…
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On the Discomfort of Unfamiliar Studies
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the struggle to study unfamiliar topics, subjects, texts, and skills—and the necessity of that discomfort Atop my bookcases—visible just over my computer monitors, reminding me of its presence nearly every day—sits a nice four-volume hardcover set titled The World of Mathematics. This set intimidates me. Though I have a PhD…
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On Memory and its Training
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the nature, operations, and training of the memory. “This invention [of writing]”, says the Egyptian King Thamus, in Plato’s Phaedrus, “will produce forgetfulness in the souls who have learned it.” It perhaps shocks us, slightly at least, to read this condemnation of writing. But let us consider the rest of…
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Secure Our Foundations
Wisdom and Dignity This [ability to know things as they truly are], then, is that dignity of our nature which all naturally possess in equal measure, but which all do not equally understand. For the mind, stupefied by bodily sensations and enticed out of itself by sensuous forms, has forgotten what it was, and, because…
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On the Problem of Education
A Philosophical Happy Hour concerning the problem of universal education: should we educate everyone? To what extent? How? Why (not)? If we look today at the results of universal education, particularly over the past century, we may think that its institution was a mistake. The results are those of decline. High test scores in a…
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Historic Foundations
When we think of a Gothic cathedral, we tend to think upward: the spires of Cologne, the ascendant arches of Reims or Amiens; or the upward-soaring buttresses of Notre Dame de Paris; or the way one’s eyes are drawn along the high vault of a nave to the transepts or chancel. Perhaps we think of…