A Philosophical Happy Hour discussing the metaphysical difficulty of unity—in the concrete relations of love and knowledge. Politicians often use the word “unity”.  We must be united.  Stand united.  Present a unified front.  But it takes little investigation to discover that our States—to say nothing of our world—are rather disunited.  This fragmentation occurs, moreover, at […]

Who does not dislike the experience of boredom?  To be bored is to feel one’s time, one’s energy, one’s capacities are wasted, withering away on nothing.  But, at times, the boredom that seizes us disregards even our greatest loves: no matter the diversion attempted, boredom takes sway.  We might pick up a favorite book, only […]

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 […]

An excerpt from the concluding pages of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, Part II, recollecting time spent in the Butyrki transit prison of central Moscow. In particular, he here notes a contrast with the prisoners of his own generation—most of whom fought in the Second World War with some pride in their service for the Motherland—and the […]

This post presents a quick reflection on rediscovering the hidden hours—the hours that we lose in each day. Who among us has not found him- or herself wishing for an extra hour or two in the day? For many, there seems so much to get done, and so little time in which to do it. […]

A two-week Symposium event on Book IX of Paradise Lost, available to all Lyceum Members.