Thomism

  • On the Univocal and the Analogical

    A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the principles and aims of language through univocal and analogical predication. What is the meaning or the significance of a word?  This question may operate on two levels: first, concerning a specific word’s meaning—“tree” or “justice”, “fruit” or “truth”; or, second, concerning the relationship between meaning in general and words…

    Read →

  • 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…

    Read →

  • 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…

    Read →

  • Reframing Our Understanding of Technology

    Technology is often discussed and conceived in extreme terms: triumphant progress, mastering nature; or self-inflicted catastrophic destruction. But rarely is the question asked—and even more rarely answered well—what is technology? How are we affected in ourselves by our technologies? The 2024 Difficulties of Technology seminar, conducted within the multiyear Humanitas Technica project, asked these and…

    Read →

  • 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.

    Read →

  • What Makes a Thinker Worth Exploring?

    A Philosophical Happy Hour asking why (or whether) we should read some thinkers over others, explore some ideas before the rest, and take some philosophers more seriously than others. A question surfaces again and again in philosophical discussion, sometimes with impatience: why do certain thinkers keep returning? Why are Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas,…

    Read →

  • Adam Pugen

    Read →

  • Daniel Wagner

    Read →

  • Francisco Plaza

    Read →

  • Matthew Minerd

    Read →