We should learn to cultivate the unwillingness to tolerate the unwitting, untold lie in the soul, and the wit and wisdom to transmute the unavoidable lying of any utterance into the telling lies that reveal truth. The first lecture of the school year is, by an old tradition, dedicated to the freshmen among us. Whether you [...]
Why do we love Plato? Because Plato himself was a lover: lover of comrades, lover of the intoxication of dialectical revelry, passionate seeker of the elusive reality behind thoughts and things. We love him for his unstinted energy, for the wild nomadic play of his fancy, for the joy which he found in life in [...]
Before reviewing Peter Kalkavage’s Focus Press translation of the Timaeus, I must, in all fairness, confess my partiality. He, Eric Salem, and myself were the co-translators of Plato’s Phaedo and his Sophist for the same publisher. Together, over several years, we worked out some principles of translation which are discernible in this Timaeus version. In [...]
“Socrates is setting the bar for political rhetoric very high. He is demanding not only that a politician not pander to the crowd but that he go to the opposite extreme to discipline it. And he judges the politicians of the past not by any worthwhile policies they may have pursued, but solely by whether [...]
Rev. James Schall 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 there is one unmistakable sort, which actually caused letter-writing to be invented in the first place, namely the sort intended to give people [...]
Any keen and realistic observer of our deplorable epoch will know that modern society seems to have lost its mind. In these disintegrating times it appears that anything goes because nobody knows the value of the permanent things upon which all civilized societies are built. Since this is so it might be helpful to remind [...]
“A debater treats the other speaker as someone who can only be right if he himself is wrong, whom he must defeat at all costs. In a conversation, though, we generally have the decency to accept the things another person says, at least temporarily and tentatively. If we disagree, and take the matter seriously, we [...]
Thucydides' account of the twenty-seven-year war between Athens and Sparta is filled with timeless questions about human conflict: When are aggression and vengeance justified? Can peace ever truly be secured by war? How does war affect the integrity of language and character? What is the role of chance in war? Is war ever truly inevitable? Additionally, the participants [...]
Thus says the Lord: Do not learn the ways of the nations, and have no fear of the signs of the heavens, even though the nations fear them. For the carvings of the nations are nonentities, wood cut from the forest, fashioned by artisans with the adze, adorned with silver and gold. With nails and [...]
Modernism is an ancient phenomenon. If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then modernism is the world’s oldest heresy. Modernism’s essential features were already understood long before the era of modernity. Plato reveals them in his dialogue The Euthyphro. The character of Euthyphro is a prototype of modern man. In the dialogue Euthyphro is prosecuting [...]
I wonder about the presuppositions when voices are raised concerning the fragmentation of society and problems of disconnectedness.[1] At the heart of these concerns is a philosophical anthropology, i.e., one’s beliefs about what it means to be human. What is it exactly that is fragmented or disconnected? It is probably incumbent on me to disclose [...]
The written word has obviously been crucial to the preservation and development of Western civilization. Without the invention of the alphabet and the printing press, or the widespread use of writing, you would not have access to the minds of those who contributed to Western thought. Considering that you live in a culture sculpted and hewn [...]
Critics of popular music have pointed to its often violent, misogynistic, or sexually explicit lyrics in explaining why we should worry about what plays on our iPods. Defenders of pop music have countered this charge by pointing out that many listeners pay little or no attention to the lyrics, and when they do, they do [...]
So I just finished reading the most recent contributions to Postmodern Conservative. The quality is high, and the depth and breadth of insight is real. And I wish I could say something to show I am anywhere near their pay grade when it comes to classical or contemporary events. I agree with Peter Spiliakos that [...]