philosophy
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The Philosopher’s Laboratory
On the history of thinking and the “laboratory” experiments of philosophers. The great historian of philosophy—and through that exercise a profoundly philosophical historian—Étienne Gilson often defended the idea that one cannot truly conduct proper philosophical inquiry without an understanding of its history. As he writes in his 1937 Unity of Philosophical Experience:[1] One of the…
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Felicitates de Quodlibet, III.6
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the art of questioning. A sixth installment in our Felictates de Quodlibet series for 2026. In this installment, as in the fifth, we ask: do you have a serious question—any serious question whatsoever—which troubles your mind? What is that question? Do we really know what it is what we are…
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Fear, Horror, and the Moral Imagination
What drives an audience—be it of a movie or book—to subject itself to the emotions of fear and horror? What are these emotions? Do they play a role in forming the moral imagination? Our Philosophical Happy Hour gets spooky. I will confess—I have never myself been much a fan of horror movies. On the one…
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Why Education Still Needs Institutions
From Experiment to Institution: a reflection on the Lyceum’s Journey and Future. Recent years have seen a rapid decline amongst Americans in the perceived value of a college education. Earlier this month, Gallup reported that, compared to 70 percent in 2013, now only 31 percent of Americans consider a college education “very important”. Does this…
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On Closed Minds
Pivoting from the dangers of curiosity—the unrestrained desire to know all things—this week our Philosophical Happy Hour takes up the opposite vice: the closed and uninquiring mind. We all likely know a person or two (or twenty) who seem never to change their minds. Just this past Friday, I was reminded of my dissertation director’s…
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On the Effects of Curiosity
Do you want to know “what is happening”? Cannot resist peeking behind that curtain, over that fence, clicking that link? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour in this member-led discussion of curiosity. Curiosity Aristotle starts his Metaphysics with the claim that “All men naturally desire knowledge.” (1.1.1.980a21-2, Tredenick Translation). To modern eyes he seems to be…
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We All Dress Like the Emperor
I would dare to say that everyone raised in the Western world has taken “privacy” for granted as a natural right: such that, aside from voluntary participation in the public, each of us is protected from our activities being known. Is this a fairy tale? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour as we pry back the…
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New Publication: Humanitas Technica, Vol.1
Humanitas Technica, Volume I presents in print the results of the Lyceum Institute’s first two years of inquiry into the relation between human beings and technology (note: all these texts are available online and free, but for those who prefer print, this is an excellent solution!). Its central claim is that technology should not be…
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Initial Retrospect: Human Formation in the Digital Age
Last week, on 16-17 September 2026, we held our first ever in-person event, Human Formation in the Digital Age. The conference was an unqualified success. I do not mean it could not be improved—there are always things that can be done better. But I mean that it accomplished its purposes better than I could have…