A Philosophical Happy Hour on the ends and purposes of higher education, universities, and the needs of teaching and learning. —Reading Francis Slade’s “Ends and Purposes” In the nearly two-years since Claudine Gay’s revealed plagiarism and subsequent resignation from Harvard University, familiar questions concerning the function and legitimacy of academic work—questions that, despite their familiarity […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour on Owen Barfield’s “Philology and the Incarnation”, wherein we will think about meaning and metaphor in language. For this week’s Philosophical Happy Hour, we will again take up a specific short text to read and discuss: this time, Owen Barfield’s short article, “Philology and the Incarnation”, available in this attached PDF.  […]

Announcement of our Winter 2026 Philosophy Seminar, taking up the foundations of an Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics and discussing its seminal importance to all of life. Description Details This course includes eight weekly readings, lectures, and live class sessions. The class sessions are recorded but should be attended to fully participate. All required texts will be provided […]

Announcement of our Winter 2026 Philosophy Seminar, diving deep into a graduate level discussion of language as fundamental to our understanding of human experience. Description Details This course includes eight weekly readings, lectures, and live class sessions. The class sessions are recorded but should be attended to fully participate. All required texts will be provided […]

The Lyceum continues to grow: in 2019, a single instructor gave 4 philosophy seminars. In 2026, twelve Faculty plan to offer no fewer than 20 distinct courses, across the Trivium, Latin, Greek, Philosophy Seminars, and Reading Circles. We plan to offer several studies in Literature and Colloquia, as well. The concrete planned offerings are as […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour thinking through the challenges posed by Francis Bacon’s Idols of the Mind. The concept of idols as a philosophical problem is one that has captured the attention of a wide variety of thinkers, from early modern philosophers such as Descartes and Francis Bacon to 20th century phenomenologists such as Jean-Luc Marion. […]

In this conversation, Dr. Matthew K. Minerd reflects on his intellectual journey, highlighting the influence of language and philosophy—the dance of νοῦς before our eyes—in shaping his understanding of the world and his habits of inquiry. Listen as he and Dr. Kemple discuss the discovery of meaningful study, the development of a global intellectual perspective, […]

Executive Director Brian Kemple joined Dcn. Harrison Garlick of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast to discuss a short story of Flannery O’Connor, “The Lame Shall Enter First”. You can find (and follow) Ascend on X.com here, and listen to their podcasts on all these many platforms—or watch on YouTube below.

John Boyer joins Brian Kemple to discuss the decline of traditional liberal education and its impact on university curricula, emphasizing the superficial engagement with important questions in contemporary society, particularly through social media. In place of these superficial approaches, we ought to recover the Aristotelian understanding of causality, developing habits of real inquiry, and discovery […]

In 2026, the Lyceum Institute will offer four Latin Courses: our three Foundations Courses, teaching students the fundamentals of Latin, including common vocabulary and basics of grammar (comprising morphology and syntax), an an intermediate selected readings course on St. Thomas Aquinas’ De aeternitate mundi, which will focus on some of the specific nuances of Scholastic […]