An essay on avoidance of thought about the significance of death. By now, even without knowing much about him, I suspect that most people have likely heard of Bryan Johnson, the men employing the most extreme and elaborate (and expensive) anti-aging protocol in recorded history.  Johnson believes that, through the use of medicine, scientific understanding, […]

The Future of Education We are in the midst of institutional collapse, set in motion by endless educational confusions. The places once trusted to lead us to wisdom have become hollow shells—reduced to content delivery and credentialing. Reforming the extant model of education is not enough. We need to build new institutions, institutions capable of […]

Announcing enrollment for our two Spring Seminars: Culture: More than Aesthetics and Thomistic Psychology: The Life of Thought. Culture: More than Aesthetics Thinking of art, we tend to think of the beautiful—and rightly so, for this, in some way, is to what all art aspires: if not directly, then indirectly, inasmuch as even the simple […]

In lieu of Happy Hour on this Ash Wednesday, a brief reflection on the admission that we have “bad taste” in popular society, and the embarrassments that prevent our honesty. Since it is always unpleasant to have to admit the lack of something that everyone has as a matter of course, and which therefore properly […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour on… whatever! Renewing our Felictates de Quodlibet series for 2025, 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 discuss with other […]

We have completed our 2025 catalog and preliminary schedule for all seminars and courses!  While the unpredictability of life means these offerings are subject to change, we nevertheless have a very exciting line-up to offer: Seminar Catalog winter (q1 1/11–3/8) » Ethics: The Good Life [Registration open!] » Semiotics: Thought and Contributions of John Deely […]

Description This is an introductory seminar which provides an entryway into the practice of philosophical reflection. Participants should be able to dedicate a minimum of one hour per day to its study. Details All Lyceum Institute seminars include weekly readings, lectures, and live discussion sessions. The discussion sessions are recorded. This seminar includes a range […]

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 […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour discussing how personal relations affect our reception and transmission of tradition, especially intellectual tradition. Intellectual Tradition Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend, along with a number of colleagues and friends, the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.  This year’s president was Dr. Mary-Catherine Sommers, Director of the […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour on the habit of artistic judgment and both the means and importance of its formation. Why do we care about art? (We will bypass the question of why we care about anything.) It provides us no corporeal benefits, except perhaps an opportunity or excuse for rest and relaxation. Were this the […]