In “The Kekulé Problem”, Cormac McCarthy asks why the unconscious communicates with ambiguous images rather than in plain language. Why, when Kekulé was perplexed by the chemical structure of benzene, did the image of an ouroboros come to mind rather than the word “ring”? The answer is straightforward. The unconscious speaks in images because it […]
24
Jun
Jun
The Renaissance polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa defined occult qualities as those whose “causes lie hid, and man’s intellect cannot in any way reach and find them out.”1 Though his Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic was condemned by Catholic and Protestant authorities, it remained influential in esoteric circles. The Scientific Revolution dealt the greater […]
11
Jun
Jun
Several weeks ago, I spent a bit of free time learning Italian online in preparation for traveling to Rome for a Memoria College seminar. In fact, I’ve been spending more and more free time online—more than I’d like to admit, if I’m honest with myself. I heard about a free language-learning website, and the animations […]
25
May
May
The term “intellect” is often associated with a narrow sector of human life: the academic. It may even be associated with empty erudition in contrast to the solid realism of common sense. Boethius defined a person as an individual substance of a rational nature. Does that strike you as an impoverished way to think of […]
Having written about education in general and classical education in particular for over 30 years, I have addressed one issue more than any other: what classical education actually is—what it is, what it is for, what it consists of, and how it is conducted. The question of whether someone’s definition of classical education is correct […]
Lost in the dark forest of his life, standing at the threshold of his cosmos-spanning journey through Hell, Purgatory, and the Paradiso, Dante finds beside him his guide: Virgil. Not an apostle, nor a saint—indeed, not even a Christian—but a pagan poet from ancient Rome, now leading the medieval pilgrim soul toward the vision of […]
The Parnassus Prize is Memoria College’s annual literary award given to a recent book that best contributes to the cultivation of the Western liberal arts tradition. Memoria College has released its shortlist of books being considered for the 2026 prize: Galahad and the Grail, by Malcolm Guite Why Literature Still Matters, by Jason M. Baxter […]
Education, Medieval philosophy, Modernity, Reading, Thomas Aquinas, Uncategorized
A Tale of Two Thomases
13
May
May
In Knowledge Worthily Received, we considered the paradox that Socrates considered himself “barren of wisdom”—yet was able to help bring forth knowledge in his students. We considered the temptation of “easy knowledge,” of the illusion of learning without struggle. We recalled St. Thomas’ claim that truth, properly speaking, is in the mind—with the peculiar result […]
In Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe, Jeffrey Hart says of the Socratics that they “sought to know ‘actuality,’ which ultimately had to include everything, and do so independently of religion, myth, and received tradition.”1 While the search for knowledge and understanding of science and philosophy is admirable, the attempt to do so independently of religion […]
01
May
May
In the Theaetetus, Socrates describes himself as a midwife of the mind: The difference is that I attend men and not women, and that I watch over the labor of their souls, not of their bodies. Theaetetus 150b. Socrates, however, declared himself “barren of wisdom” (150c). Yet he is one of the greatest teachers in […]