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The Mystery of Being and the Rediscovery of Tradition
In this conversation, Dr. Matthew K. Minerd reflects on his intellectual journey, highlighting the influence of language and philosophy—the dance of νοῦς before our eyes—in shaping his understanding of the world and his habits of inquiry. Listen as he and Dr. Kemple discuss the discovery of meaningful study, the development of a global intellectual perspective,…
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Philosophy and the Art of Reasoning
John Boyer joins Brian Kemple to discuss the decline of traditional liberal education and its impact on university curricula, emphasizing the superficial engagement with important questions in contemporary society, particularly through social media. In place of these superficial approaches, we ought to recover the Aristotelian understanding of causality, developing habits of real inquiry, and discovery…
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On Gratitude and Debts
A Philosophical Happy Hour on gratitude and the repayment of gifts—that is, the satisfaction of debts for the gratuitously-given—through the insight of St. Thomas Aquinas. The virtue of gratitude, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, “always inclines, insofar as possible, to pay back something greater” than one has received. In a world of diminished personal bonds,…
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Classical Liberalism’s Widening Gyres
A polemic on why the lukewarm “center” cannot hold. There is an episode of the sitcom Parks and Recreation featuring a cult that named themselves “the Reasonabilists”.[1] The cult worships “Zorp, the giant lizard god who will destroy the earth with his cleansing fire of judgment.” When asked why the cultists call themselves “the Reasonabilists”,…
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Building Habits of True Learning
In this conversation, Dr. Jacob Joseph Andrews discusses his journey into the intellectual life, emphasizing the importance of personal development, moral formation, and the role of classical education. He highlights the significance of language study, particularly Latin, in understanding culture and fostering intellectual habits. Andrews also reflects on the value of specialized study and the…
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On Human Uselessness
A Philosophical Happy Hour on Jacques Ellul’s “Meditation on Inutility”, challenging us to think about the uselessness of human action. For this week’s Philosophical Happy Hour, we will take up a specific short text to read and discuss: the postscript to Jacques Ellul’s Politics of God and Politics of Man, titled “a meditation on inutility”. …
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Maritain Musings
I would like to draw attention to two episodes of the American Maritain Association’s podcast, Maritain Musings, hosted by our own Dr. Matthew Minerd. The first features friend of the Lyceum Institute, Dr. Jim Jacobs, Director of Philosophy Programs at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana. Together with Dr. Minerd, Dr. Jacobs discusses the…
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Signs of Life: Music, Literature, Science, and Philosophy
Listen to Dr. Kirk Kanzelberger as he relates his intellectual journey through life—the continuous thread of learning—from young tragedy and early literacy, through music, moral formation through the literature of Tolkien, work in science, technology, semiotics, philosophy, and more. An enlightening and moving conversation that sheds great light on what it means to pursue knowledge…