A Backwards Civilization: Unthinking Leaders, Frenzied Citizens

By |2023-02-07T17:08:49-06:00February 7th, 2023|Categories: Civil Society, Civilization, Democracy, Featured, Meno, Modernity, Plato, Political Philosophy, Politics, Socrates, Timeless Essays|

In America today, we are living in a toxic political climate that is the product of a very dangerous combination: Our rulers lack the learning necessary to ask the kinds of deep and fundamental questions that leaders and lawgivers ought to make a habit of pondering, while our people rebelliously scrutinize all orthodoxies and impose [...]

Liberal Learning and Plato’s “Meno”: Interview With Eva Brann

By |2023-05-21T11:28:50-05:00September 3rd, 2022|Categories: Classics, E.B., Eva Brann, Liberal Learning, Meno, Plato, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, W. Winston Elliott III|

“First attend to the adjustment of your own soul, particularly the regulative liberal learning of your intellect, then project your internal economy on the world as social and political justice. The other way around is headless.”  – Eva Brann, The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates’ Conversations and Plato’s Writings Eva Brann is a [...]

The Virtue of Recollection in Plato’s “Meno”

By |2022-08-07T08:52:39-05:00August 6th, 2022|Categories: Meno, Peter Kalkavage, Philosophy, Plato, St. John's College, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

To question is not merely to know that one lacks knowledge but to love knowledge passionately, to pursue it and never give up. “…by indirections find directions out…” ~Hamlet, 2.1 The Meno holds a distinguished place in the St. John’s curriculum. As the first Platonic dialogue that our freshmen read, it is the gateway to [...]

Jacob Klein: European Scholar and American Teacher

By |2023-05-21T11:29:13-05:00December 2nd, 2019|Categories: E.B., Education, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Jacob Klein, Meno, Plato, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

Jacob Klein presents the model of teaching best fitting a stable community of liberal learning. He was a master of the somewhat mysterious art of leading from behind—by solicitous listening, by intimating questions, even by expectant silence. The subtitle of my talk might be “Liberal Education: Program and/or Pedagogy?” The reason is that I think of Jacob [...]

Liberal Learning, the Human Person, and Plato’s “Meno”

By |2023-05-21T11:29:55-05:00January 28th, 2019|Categories: Audio/Video, Classics, E.B., Eva Brann, Great Books, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Liberal Learning, Meno, Plato, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

“First attend to the adjustment of your own soul, particularly the regulative liberal learning of your intellect, then project your internal economy on the world as social and political justice. The other way around is headless.”  – Eva Brann, The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates’ Conversations and Plato’s Writings Eva Brann is a [...]

Jacob Klein: A Great Scholar, An Even Greater Man

By |2023-05-21T11:30:32-05:00July 15th, 2017|Categories: E.B., Eva Brann, Jacob Klein, Meno, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

Jacob Klein was, first and last, every inch a teacher, a teacher who stymied discipleship in the very effort to induce learning. He did, indeed, have some teachings to convey—a few, though those were powerful and of large consequence. Editor’s Note: This essay was read as a tribute to philosopher and long-time tutor of St. [...]

Jacob Klein: European Scholar and American Teacher

By |2023-05-21T11:31:09-05:00February 1st, 2016|Categories: E.B., Education, Eva Brann, Featured, Jacob Klein, Liberal Learning, Meno, Plato, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

The subtitle of my talk might be “Liberal Education: Program and/or Pedagogy?” The reason is that I think of Jacob Klein’s life as being an embodiment of that slash, “and/or” and therefore an occasion for asking what seems to me a question the answer to which determines the success—I mean the lively and secure survival—of [...]

The Imitation of Socrates

By |2021-05-21T12:07:42-05:00August 4th, 2014|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Classical Education, Classics, Education, Featured, Meno, Plato, Socrates, St. John's College|

At an earlier session I spoke about Socrates as a model for imitating heroes, because he shows us how to use the lives of extraordinary people to help us make and remake a life worth living for ourselves. Now I’d like to speak about Socrates as a model for teachers to emulate. Teachers have chosen [...]

The Sting of the Torpedo Fish

By |2022-09-29T11:20:23-05:00October 24th, 2012|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Classics, Liberal Learning, Meno, Socrates, St. John's College, Virtue|

Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue can be taught? [to continue] Or if not teachable, is it acquired by practice, or if neither, whether men possess it by nature or in some other way?” So begins Plato’s dialogue, Meno, opening as abruptly upon the reader as my remarks have upon you this afternoon. You [...]

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