On Hearing Dvorak’s “Stabat Mater”
One afternoon, I was in the Woodstock Center Xeroxing something or other. The young man in charge of the operations there told me that the following Friday…
The Desires of Man
At the beginning of each academic year, we talk of a desire to learn. We think we have developed institutions that facilitate this learning. True, we question…
Is There a Patron Saint of Teachers?
“Your total ignorance of that which you profess to teach merits the death penalty. I doubt whether you would know that St. Cassian of Imola was stabbed…
On the Mystery of Teachers I Never Met
In The Apology, Socrates brought up the question of whether he was paid for being a teacher, like the Sophists, who were paid for their skill in teaching whatever it was…
Truth as a Democratic Project
I During the Presidential Campaign of 1996, in California, President Bill Clinton said that democracy is “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”…
Jonathan Swift: Vexing the Rascally World
In a letter of Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) addressed to the poet Alexander Pope (1688–1744), dated September 29, 1725, Swift spoke of returning to the grand monde of Dublin…
On the Measure and Conversation of Human Things
For the truth of knowledge is measured by the knowable object. For it is because a thing is so or is not so that a statement is…
Mysticism, Political Philosophy, and Play
"Spiritualism seems to me absolutely right on all its mystical side. The supernatural part of it seems to me quite natural. The incredible part of it seems…
On Leisure and Culture: Why Human Things Exist and Why They Are “Unimportant”
Let me begin by citing two passages that graphically underscore the themes that I wish to consider here—the things of leisure and culture, of what is and…
A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning
In today’s world, when the topic of the defects of university teaching and curricula comes up, the most well-known alternative put forward is the “great books programs.” I…
On The Universe We Think In
Some astronomers think that a great, even infinite, number of universes are floating about somewhere out there in space. These worlds, with no real evidence, to be…
The Enduring Nature of Scholasticism
“Truth is the self-manifestation and state of evidence of real things. Consequently, truth is something secondary, following from something else. Truth does not exist for itself alone.…
On the Place of Augustine in Political Philosophy: A Second Look at Some Augustinian Literature
“Shall it (the happy life) be that of the philosophers, who put forward as the chief good, the good which is in ourselves? Is this the true…
On the Depths of Villainy
Probably the most famous letter writer of the ancient world was Cicero. In 59 B.C., Cicero wrote to Gaius Scribonius: “There are many sorts of letters. But…
The Tyrant’s Unexamined Soul
A recurring theme in Plato’s dialogues, including his Seventh Letter, describes the education of a young man who wants to achieve the highest things, which he considers…