truth

  • What is “Reality”?

    We often say that things are or are not real.  But what does this really mean?  Though a common conception upon which we all rely, “reality” proves rather slippery to describe.  Join our Philosophical Happy Hour as we try to grasp it. What do we mean when we call something “real”?  It sounds simple—almost embarrassingly…

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  • Initial Retrospect: Human Formation in the Digital Age

    Last week, on 16-17 September 2026, we held our first ever in-person event, Human Formation in the Digital Age. The conference was an unqualified success. I do not mean it could not be improved—there are always things that can be done better. But I mean that it accomplished its purposes better than I could have…

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  • Signs and Obfuscations: Can the Weather Lie?

    The forecast calls for rain, but it remains dry.  Someone smiles cheerfully at you, while plotting your downfall.  You’ve got a fever—but the only cure is more cowbell.  Our Philosophical Happy Hour takes up the question of signs, obfuscation, obscurity, and the signs by which truth and falsity are known. Nobody—or almost nobody—expects a career…

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  • Retrospect: On Questioning

    Our Philosophical Happy Hour (2 September 2026) focused on the art of questioning—and precisely how we have come, wrongly, to expect answers today.  Here is a reflection on what was discussed. These brief reflections are structured principally around four questions asked: first, concerning the evaluation of propositions the content of which are not immediately evident…

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  • Felicitates de Quodlibet, III.5

    A Philosophical Happy Hour on the art of questioning. A unique fifth installment in our Felictates de Quodlibet series for 2026. In this installment, we ask: do you have a serious question—any serious question whatsoever—which troubles your mind? What is that question? Do we really know what it is what we are seeking? The Lyceum’s…

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  • The Common Good and the Toleration of Evil

    Pornography, prostitution, gambling, capital punishment, slavery: each seems somehow evil, and yet—at one time or another—each has been tolerated by governments.  Do these tolerations violate the common good?  Our Philosophical Happy Hour takes up the unhappy question. How do we live rightly as members of a society when that society is permeated by evils?  There…

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  • Culture as a Technology

    “Culture”.  We hear the word all the time: the culture is in decline, we are losing our culture, we are fighting a culture war.  But ask someone to define culture, and you will likely receive many different answers—answers which consist primarily in listing what kinds of thing belong to culture: language, art, movies, music, politics,…

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  • Conference Program

    Friends, attendees, and anyone interested in the future of human education: we have added the program for our upcoming first-ever live event, Human Formation in the Digital Age. This conference will embrace the biggest challenges facing education today: challenges wrought by our technologies but resolved only through a deeper understanding of what it means to…

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  • For the Love of Wisdom

    What makes a human being “wise”?  What is “wisdom”?  Why is it important?  In an age of passionate reaction, it seems a virtue all too scarce, and most notably absent from those who govern.  Join our Philosophical Happy Hour to discuss its nature and pursuit. We have more knowledge, expertise, and access to information today…

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  • Technologizing Our Bodies

    Commonly, we find the human body today treated as a possession, a something-other which is distinct from the self.  This opposition of the “self” to the body may result in various forms of neglect or abuse of the latter.  But it may also, in recognizing the importance of the body for life even as it…

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