Retrospect: Retrieving Dialectic in a “Rhetorical” Age
Recapitulating our Philosophical Happy Hour on the history, nature, meaning, and importance of dialectic. A few key insights derived from our Happy Hour: First, outside rare situations, Aristotelian dialectic has become almost impossible in the US (and many other countries as well). This near-impossibility has rendered many persons not only unfamiliar with the practice, but […]
On Dialectic: Its History and Importance
A Philosophical Happy Hour discussing the history, nature, meaning, and importance of dialectic—including its relation to logic, demonstration, and rhetoric. Old words of long and widespread use often suffer many interpretations: idea, object, concept, form. One word which has suffered greatly is “dialectic”. The word’s Greek etymology indicates “speaking across”, that is, a conversational speaking. […]
On the Difficulties of Consciousness
A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the apparent problems of consciousness, with particular focus on human beings and the signs by which our experience is known. A retrospective reflection on this Happy Hour can be found here: Resolving the Difficulties of Consciousness. Imagine yourself in the grip of a powerful passion: say, anger or lust, perhaps […]
Ethics: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from Hearing [Summer 2026]
Description Through careful attention to Aristotle’s own argument—against the backdrop of the Pre-Socratics and of Plato—the seminar will examine how the human good possesses universality and necessity without becoming disconnected from the concrete realities of human life. The good is neither imposed upon human nature by extrinsic causes nor fabricated by social agreement. Rather, it […]
Face to Face with Everything: How Philosophy Looks at the World and What It Sees
The Lyceum Institute is delighted to announce the first text in our series with St. Augustine’s Press, Philosophical Habit: New Paradigms for the Digital Age, has been published. This text was developed from a seminar taught at the Lyceum Institute. Face to Face with Everything: How Philosophy Looks at the World and What It Sees […]
A Preface to Metaphysics – Jacques Maritain
Among the tasks of the Lyceum Institute is a preservation and accessibility of great texts in the tradition. Our latest work in this initiative is the republication of Jacques Maritain’s Preface to Metaphysics: Seven Lectures on Being. Though it has remained available in public domain reprint editions for some time, these have been unreliable and […]
The Cult of Authenticity and Hypocrisy
A Philosophical Happy Hour reflecting on the pressure to exhibit personal authenticity in an age of hypocrisy. We hear constant calls to “be authentic”, “be yourself”, and “say what you really think”. These imperatives are often treated as uncontroversially liberating—as though the chief moral danger of human life were merely to live under false pretenses. […]
On Lying, Concealment, and Strategic Deception
A Philosophical Happy Hour considering whether every intentional deception is forbidden, or whether some concealment is not only permitted but required. What is a lie? And do we often call things “lies” that aren’t, or conflate lies with other forms of concealment or deception? A difficult and uncomfortable question—but one, perhaps, crucial to ask today. […]
On the Necessity of Solitude for Abiding in the Truth
A Philosophical Happy Hour inquiring into the nature of solitude and its role for our intellectual lives: not as that whereby truth is merely discovered, but by which we abide in it. Two weeks ago, we asked in our Philosophical Happy Hour how and why it is that friendship is necessary for discovering the good. […]
