
A Lyceum Member writes, proposing a Philosophical Happy Hour topic: What is certitude? What role do signs play in achieving certitude? What role do signs play in intuition? Can I be certain about my mother’s love – is it intuited through signs, or through some other means? The notions of certitude and intuition have played […]

Today’s Philosophical Happy Hour concerns the issue of “tolerance”. As Geoffrey Meadows, who will be leading the discussion, writes: Tonight I thought we might discuss the definition, limit, and moral status of “tolerance,” since our discussion on kindness uncovered this underlying sensibility of our age. Perhaps a series of guided questions can get us started […]

Among the diverse ways in which people today live unreflectively, prominent is the attachment to kindness. Frequent are the admonitions to be kind—and, indeed, often it is used as a defense for one’s moral righteousness when caught out in immoral actions: “I’m not a bad person, I am kind…” (as though being kind covered up […]

We, as a society, are not well. Reports on “mental health” in the United States of America, in particular, estimate at least 25% of adult Americans meet the criteria for one or another mental illness. This number has only been increasing in recent decades, despite the large number of professionals who have entered in the […]

What is time? Many a philosopher has wrestled with this question, resulting in rather diverse results. Famous is Aristotle’s definition, which can be stated most simply as, “the measure of motion” (though, in truth, his claims are more complex than this). Famous also are the struggles to understand time in Book XI of Augustine’s Confessions […]

Distracted from distraction by distractionFilled with fancies and empty of meaningTumid apathy with no concentration-T.S. Eliot 1935: “Burnt Norton” (first of the Four Quartets), III. Few poets ever have and likely ever will attain the prescience of T.S. Eliot. I find myself repeating, with increasing frequency, the lines quoted above: not only so that I […]

Every Wednesday of 2022, the Lyceum Institute hosts an online Philosophical Happy Hour from 5:45-7:15pm ET (or later)—open to the public—where we discuss topics ranging far and wide in conversations civil, thoughtful, and conducted with an effort to understand better not only one another but the truth. Drinks optional: coffee, tea, wine, whiskey, beer, water, […]

Every Wednesday of 2022, the Lyceum Institute hosts an online Philosophical Happy Hour from 5:45-7:15pm ET (or later)—open to the public—where we discuss topics ranging far and wide in conversations civil, thoughtful, and conducted with an effort to understand better not only one another but the truth. Drinks optional: coffee, tea, wine, whiskey, beer, water, […]

What are you doing this evening? Well, why not come on down to the Lyceum Institute Philosophical Happy Hour, where we gather online to have a drink (if you so chose–no pressure!) and think through the interesting questions of life. As a prelude to tomorrow’s International Open Seminar on Semiotics interview, Dr. Kemple will have […]

Quaestiones Disputatae – Inquirere & Defensio There are two available September sessions for Inquirere & Defensio in the Quaestiones Disputatae program. Members are encouraged to participate as Observers, Inquirers, or Defenders. Fall Seminars Fall 2021 Seminars are now available to sign up (follow the link for Syllabi). Hard to believe we’re already approaching the last quarter of the year! Announcing […]