Retrospect: Retrieving Dialectic in a “Rhetorical” Age
Recapitulating our Philosophical Happy Hour on the history, nature, meaning, and importance of dialectic. A few key insights derived from our Happy Hour: First, outside rare situations, Aristotelian dialectic has become almost impossible in the US (and many other countries as well). This near-impossibility has rendered many persons not only unfamiliar with the practice, but […]
On Dialectic: Its History and Importance
A Philosophical Happy Hour discussing the history, nature, meaning, and importance of dialectic—including its relation to logic, demonstration, and rhetoric. Old words of long and widespread use often suffer many interpretations: idea, object, concept, form. One word which has suffered greatly is “dialectic”. The word’s Greek etymology indicates “speaking across”, that is, a conversational speaking. […]
Retrospect: Resolving the Difficulties of Consciousness
A retrospective reflection on our Philosophical Happy Hour on Consciousness. Many of these themes will be discussed in depth at our upcoming conference in September. Learn more here. Our Philosophical Happy Hour conversation concerning “consciousness” (held 10 June 2026) and spanning more than two hours covered a great many particular topics: the distinction between “being […]
Retrospect: On the Question of Beauty
On 3 June 2026, we engaged in a nearly 2-hour conversation concerning beauty. A few highlights, conclusions, and elaborations: 1. Beauty is necessarily encountered first through the senses. It is also, in our experience as human, always connected somehow to a sensory experience, even if the object greatly exceeds what sense alone can provide. Mathematics, […]
On the Difficulties of Consciousness
A Philosophical Happy Hour investigating the apparent problems of consciousness, with particular focus on human beings and the signs by which our experience is known. A retrospective reflection on this Happy Hour can be found here: Resolving the Difficulties of Consciousness. Imagine yourself in the grip of a powerful passion: say, anger or lust, perhaps […]
On the Question of Beauty
A Philosophical Happy Hour inquiring after the nature, perception, and intelligible of beauty and the beautiful. “What is beauty?” If you have spent any time of your life at all around centers of philosophical inquiry, or persons who enjoy questions of deep and abiding human significance, no doubt you have heard this asked. Quite probably, […]
Felicitates de Quodlibet, III.3
A Philosophical Happy Hour on… whatever! The third installment in our Felictates de Quodlibet series for 2026, in which we talk about whatever we want, so long as it is interesting, and for as long as we are interested. Or, to put this otherwise: do you have a philosophical question—any question whatsoever—you want seriously to […]
Ethics: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from Hearing [Summer 2026]
Description Through careful attention to Aristotle’s own argument—against the backdrop of the Pre-Socratics and of Plato—the seminar will examine how the human good possesses universality and necessity without becoming disconnected from the concrete realities of human life. The good is neither imposed upon human nature by extrinsic causes nor fabricated by social agreement. Rather, it […]
Politics: Second Reality: On the Problem of Ideology [Summer 2026]
Description Our inquiry will begin with the philosophical roots of the ideological age, where suspicion toward truth and transcendence becomes a dominant feature of modern thought. From there, we will examine the rise of political ideologies in the twentieth century—communism, fascism, liberalism, and their totalitarian tendencies—not merely as historical movements, but as attempts to construct […]
