“Education is the best provision for old age.”
- Aristotle
Decorum and Morality in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus
When honor and decorum clash, which wins? Do familial concerns supercede military ethics? Shakespeare’s Coriolanus answers this question through the story of a one of the most valorous Roman generals of all time.
Hebrew Vorlage of Ezekiel 37:1–10
What did the UR text of the famous “dry bones” passage look like? Using Greek and Hebrew translations, this essay suggests an original textual witness.
Genesis, Reason, and Saint Augustine
Can one be faithful while questioning his religion’s sacred texts? Augustine says so. This formidable father and engaging intellectual has fostered discussions lasting millennia. How have his questions remained relevant?
Procrustean Pedagogy
Nietzsche and Beethoven: Against Mere Rationality
Nietzsche and Beethoven both contradict the Englightenmen’s exaltation of reason over sentiment. Through music and philosophy, they argue forcefully that full-fledged human life requires sentiment for flourishing.
The Prince (Annotated)
Samplings from classical history demonstrate that a Machiavellian prince makes an ideal leader insofar as he eschews lavish spending, but he falls short of an ideal leader in that he must cohabitate with his people.
The Beginning of Conservation
The US has nearly two-hundred million acres of national forests. How did these come to be protected? Their origin was, for many decades, shrouded in mystery.
Clement and the Presocratics
Unlike other church fathers, Clement loved Greek philosophy. This essay explores the ways that he used Parmenides and Heraclitus’s writings to further his theological discussions.
Being-Founded
How should humans conceptualize their inherent vulnerability? Writer and philosopher Edward Farley gives a model that maps well onto extant religious frameworks and makes sense of suffering.
Faith: Intellectual or Practical?
Is religious faith guided by reason or by practicalities? Should it be guided by one as opposed to the other? C.S. Lewis has some insights to help us explore these questions.
Austin Farrer on C.S. Lewis
In his eulogy of C.S. Lewis, Austin Farrer makes the acute observation that Lewis, rather than writing arguments, writes a compelling, albeit not provable, vision of the world.
Where Kant Went Wrong
Do good deeds have to hurt you to be truly good? Does “no pain, no gain” apply to ethics? Kant thinks so, but Aristotle begs to differ.
Humean Aesthetics
Stoic Christianity
Radical Contractarianism
David Gauthier argues forcefully that new revelations of cultural myths are driving culture toward radical contractarianism. The notion that the market will flood with self-aware, utility-maximizing appropriators and spiral out of control, however, is not likely.
Weak and Strong in Corinth
Before Paul penned his epistles, a rhetorical tradition had developed which emphasized inversion. Following this tradition, Paul inverts worldly paradigms of weakness and strength and laments that his Corinthian audience misses the point.
The Thinking Machine
This short story tells of a man who discovers a machine that will do all of his thinking for him. All he needs to do is to tell it his opinions.
Permanence in a Plague
When a plague upends the world, the world shows its underbelly. Realities turn to falsehoods and presumptions melt in the face of this new vision, new evidence. Things thought to be sure, set, determined prove as shifting as sand and as concrete as the collective imagination.
Miserable Truths
Nietsche calls truth “that explanation of things which causes us the smallest amount of mental exertion.” But facile explanations can hurt more than they help.
Apophatic Living
According to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, God is best known by the features that do not define him. The good life can be described in a similar manner.