ethics
-
Humility: Wellspring of Virtue, or Cowardice in Disguise?
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the nature of humility and its status in contemporary society. What is Humility? For reasons personal, professional, and perhaps preposterous, I’m attempting to learn French. However, I must confess: I am having a rough go of it. Though I’ve a bit of a knack for picking up languages, I nonetheless…
-
On Cognitive Security
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the cognitive threats we face in an increasingly interconnected and digital world—and the possible solutions or approaches to them (the “security”). It is mid-2020 and you cannot shake the feeling that you are not getting the whole story. We are told that a lethal virus is raging across the global. …
-
Passion and the Capture of Reason
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the ways in which passion may capture and distort our exercise of reason—or, in proper subordination, affect a coherence of our persons Thinking clearly. It seems a vanishingly rare virtue. Ours is a reactionary time. Reaction, however, seldom comes from the clear light of reason—but rather from the murky vapors…
-
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? …
-
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…
-
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…
-
Lecture: The Centrality of Noble Goods for Human Flourishing
Last year, the Lyceum Institute hosted Dr. Daniel De Haan (Frederick Copleston Senior Research Fellow & Lecturer in Philosophy & Theology in the Catholic Tradition Blackfriars and Campion Hall / Research Fellow, Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford) for a colloquium presentation on “The Centrality of…
-
Reading Circle: Peirce’s Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism
What is pragmatism—according to the man who coined the term, Charles Sanders Peirce? In 1903, C.S. Peirce (1839–1914) was invited by his friend, William James, to deliver a series of lectures on pragmatism at Harvard University. As the editors of The Essential Peirce, vol.2 write, in these lectures, “Peirce sought to build a case for…
-
On the Postmodern, Postliberal, and Postacademic
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the meaning of the postliberal, the postmodern, and the postacademic—and what we signify by “post-”. We do not think often enough about the meanings of words, especially those that have entered into the popular lexicon. The term ‘postmodern’ provides a good example of this unthinking, and in two ways. First…