On Our Need for Truth
A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the nature and definition of truth, and its necessity for our living good lives. Do we need truth to live good lives? Do all human beings? And if so—what is the truth? How do we know it? Who “has” it? Where do we find it? What do we really mean […]
“Partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4): Aquinas’s Participatory Metaphysics and Moral Theology
Our Colloquium series reignites in 2026 with a provocative question from Dr. Christopher Ragusa on the importance of “participation” in Thomas Aquinas’ moral theology. Dr. Ragusa is a Louisiana native and an assistant professor of Theology at FranU. Dr. Ragusa specializes in natural law, virtue ethics, and Aquinas’s metaphysics of participation. He is the Coordinator […]
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. […]
Controversies: Faith and Reason [Spring 2026]
Description Our guiding questions: Is the act of faith or belief in revelation distinct in kind from the operations of reason? Can reason prove faith? Can reason disprove faith? Can reason show faith as compatible with reason? | How is the faith to be made known? Sacred texts, whether the Bible, Qur’an, or Torah, have […]
Semiotics: Thought and Contributions of John Deely [Spring 2026]
Description To understand and affect this maturation into postmodernity, we will turn our attention in this seminar to the major contributions to semiotics given by Deely: the proto-semiotic history, an expanded doctrine of causality, the retrieved and clarified notion of relation, the concept of physiosemiosis, the continuity of culture and nature, the notion of purely objective reality, and the real interdisciplinarity which semiotics fosters. This is […]
Lecture: Broken Minds
On 29 January 2026, I (Brian Kemple) gave the annual Aquinas Lecture at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This lecture, including Q&A, was recorded and is now available online. Watch on YouTube.
