On Restoring Humanity
A Philosophical Happy Hour continuing our investigation into economics, politics, Catholic Social teaching, and the restoration of the good life for humanity. Last week, our Philosophical Happy Hour asked what Rerum Novarum, the 1891 Encyclical promulgated by Pope Leo XIII—and chief inspiration for the newly-elected Pope Leo XIV’s choice of name—could tell us about the […]
On Rerum Novarum and the Future of Human Society
A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, highlighting key passages and inquiring into their relevance today for considering the future of human society. Rerum novarum semel excitata cupidine, Pope Leo XII begins his famed Encyclical of 1891, “The desire of new things once having been aroused”, passes beyond the […]
On the Relation of Reason to Faith
In this Philosophical Happy Hour we will turn our attention to the ever-persistent question of the relation between faith and reason. How should we understand the relationship between faith and reason? We will explore this question through the sharp and illuminating lens of St. Thomas Aquinas in his commentary on Boethius’ De Trinitate, specifically question […]
On Authentic Play
A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the nature, significance, and importance of authentic play. What does it mean to play? Though we are all acquainted with play from an early age, we might be hard-pressed nonetheless to define it. On the one hand, it seems something common to higher animals: not only our pets—dogs and cats—but […]
On the Significance of Death
An essay on avoidance of thought about the significance of death. By now, even without knowing much about him, I suspect that most people have likely heard of Bryan Johnson, the men employing the most extreme and elaborate (and expensive) anti-aging protocol in recorded history. Johnson believes that, through the use of medicine, scientific understanding, […]
On the Postmodern, Postliberal, and Postacademic
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the meaning of the postliberal, the postmodern, and the postacademic—and what we signify by “post-”. We do not think often enough about the meanings of words, especially those that have entered into the popular lexicon. The term ‘postmodern’ provides a good example of this unthinking, and in two ways. First […]
On the Experience of Evil in Our Souls
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the question: do we (some of us, all of us) need to experience evil—even sin, that experience of our own moral fault—in order to discover and know the good? Drawing upon some of the works of the great tradition, a member asks the question: “to what extent is it important […]
On the Future of Education and Technology
A Philosophical Happy Hour discussing education and technology in light of the first entry in Adam Pugen’s “Future is Technoclassical” article. In a recent article, published here on the Peripatetic Periodical, Faculty Fellow Adam Pugen investigates the resurgence in “classical education” that has been affected through the digital environment. The precise nature of this technologically-mediated […]
On Slicing Through “Conspiracy Theories”
A Philosophical Happy Hour on how we ought to approach conspiracy theories.“The truth is out there”? Human history finds itself interwoven, in every age, with falsehood. We suffer, to steal a phrase of Umberto Eco’s, a “fatal imbalance between story and plot”—between what underlies, the reality, and what sits atop, the narrative. In recent years, […]
On the Thought of Immanuel Kant
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the structure and merits of Immanuel Kant’s key contributions to theories of knowledge and morality. Immanuel Kant’s philosophy remains a turning point in the history of thought, one that has shaped not only modern theories of knowledge—which “epistemology” has wound its way into countless other domains of human activity—but also […]
