truth
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Why Education Still Needs Institutions
From Experiment to Institution: a reflection on the Lyceum’s Journey and Future. Recent years have seen a rapid decline amongst Americans in the perceived value of a college education. Earlier this month, Gallup reported that, compared to 70 percent in 2013, now only 31 percent of Americans consider a college education “very important”. Does this…
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On Closed Minds
Pivoting from the dangers of curiosity—the unrestrained desire to know all things—this week our Philosophical Happy Hour takes up the opposite vice: the closed and uninquiring mind. We all likely know a person or two (or twenty) who seem never to change their minds. Just this past Friday, I was reminded of my dissertation director’s…
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On the Effects of Curiosity
Do you want to know “what is happening”? Cannot resist peeking behind that curtain, over that fence, clicking that link? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour in this member-led discussion of curiosity. Curiosity Aristotle starts his Metaphysics with the claim that “All men naturally desire knowledge.” (1.1.1.980a21-2, Tredenick Translation). To modern eyes he seems to be…
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We All Dress Like the Emperor
I would dare to say that everyone raised in the Western world has taken “privacy” for granted as a natural right: such that, aside from voluntary participation in the public, each of us is protected from our activities being known. Is this a fairy tale? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour as we pry back the…
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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…