thinking
-
Defragmenting Mental Disorder
A Philosophical Happy Hour on better habits of order. Ours is a mentally broken society. This brokenness has been unveiled, in many ways, by the internet: operating under a premise of anonymity (at the very least of distance from personal judgment), there is less fear to inhibit many from sharing their brokenness. Such sharing may…
-
On Habits of Interpretation
A Philosophical Happy Hour on Obstinate Views and the Discovery of Meaning Does it feel sometimes as though the reality you inhabit is not shared with others? A recent Benedictine College commencement speech deemed controversial may well illustrate the point: some saw in these comments (particularly those beginning at 11:49) a demand that women “get…
-
Announcing: Latin 2024
We are delighted to announce our Latin courses available in 2024. But… why Latin? Does the study of Latin—a language spoken by no people, no country, no nation today—offer us anything other than an affectation or the satisfaction of niche reading (or liturgical) interests? Do we gain anything from this language itself, or does it…
-
Fall 2023: Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
Rosenstock-Huessy’s is a powerful and original mind. What is most important in his work is the understanding of the relevance of traditional values to a civilization still undergoing revolutionary transformations; and this contribution will gain rather than lose significance in the future. “Rosenstock-Huessy, Who Is He?” Join us for an invigorating seminar that delves into…
-
What does it mean to be “Rational”?
Common sense. “Practical.” “She has a good head on her shoulders.” “You’re being irrational!” Sayings uttered with frequency—but are they said with understanding? What do we mean by “being rational”? We contrast reason with feeling or emotion. We contrast reason or the rational, also, with the “irrational”. Does this mean that feelings or emotions are…
-
The Habit of Conversation
Distracted from distraction by distractionFilled with fancies and empty of meaningTumid apathy with no concentration-T.S. Eliot 1935: “Burnt Norton” (first of the Four Quartets), III. Few poets ever have and likely ever will attain the prescience of T.S. Eliot. I find myself repeating, with increasing frequency, the lines quoted above: not only so that I…
-
John Deely on the “Practical Value” of Logic
Peirce rightly speaks of the practice of boasting of the utility of this or that science as a “nauseating custom” (1898a, alt. ver. : CP 1.667). This is because the practice in question almost invariably is indulged in for purposes quite unrelated to the true character of the science in question or to the advance…
-
I.M. Bochenski on the Concept of Formal Logic
Preliminary definition of the subject matter of the history of logic is hard to come by. For apart from ‘philosophy’ there is perhaps no name of a branch of knowledge that has been given so many meanings as ‘logic’. Sometimes the whole history of philosophy, and even knowledge in general, has been thus named, from…
-
A Meditation on Exile
But exile—like that faced by Aeneas—more rapidly ages any man or woman, and, today, we are all today wandering in exile. We want for a home… many seem not to possess even the sense of what “home” is. This deprivation seems especially true of my own generation (millennials) and younger. Not only are we geographically…
-
Trivium: Art of Grammar 2023
Today (2 January) we begin our 2023 course in studying the Trivium: Art of Grammar. Our first discussion session will take place on 9 January 2023 at 6:00pm ET. This course is open to all enrolled Lyceum Institute members. If you would like to sign-up and take this course, enroll here. You can find out…