The difference between atheism and theism is fundamentally a difference between mythic and scientific thinking. That is to say, it is a difference between those who insist that reality is what is revealed by rational procedures, and those who retreat from the demands of critical thinking to the cover provided by imaginative storytelling. Which camp […]
Category Archives: philosophy
The following is an edited excerpt from Dr. Louis Markos’ article “Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in Plato’s Myths,” in the 2025 issue of Meliora, the academic journal of Memoria College. Apart from the order, balance, and harmony that unite Truth to Goodness and Goodness to Beauty, there would be no center around which to organize […]
The following is an edited excerpt from James Hankins’ article “The Christian Humanism of the Renaissance and the Revival of Classical Latin,” in the 2025 issue of Meliora, the academic journal of Memoria College. In my teaching and writing over many years about Renaissance humanism, I’ve discovered that the word “humanism” can be an obstacle […]
In the Republic, Socrates proposes to his interlocutors that in order to understand the principle of justice in the soul, they should look for the principle of justice in a city. If they grasp the principle of justice in the city, then that principle can be understood in the soul. My proposal is to reverse […]
The Epicurean philosophy of Horace’s Odes has something vital to teach those today who are besieged by anxiety and stress. While Epicurean philosophy misses the mark concerning what justice, the good, and freedom are, there is an important kernel of truth that I believe is extremely important for us to consider. Life in our modern […]
In “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, Thomas Nagel argues that consciousness cannot be explained by contemporary physical science. The inner lives of bats must be so different from our own, not least in their reliance on echolocation over sight. Although scientific methods tell us a great deal about bats, the subjective, inner […]
Philosophers ask many questions about many things, including their own discipline. One of the important questions about the discipline of philosophy is this: Is philosophy a reliable means of knowledge? The question whether philosophy can amount to knowledge becomes particularly acute when it is considered in the contrast with the hard sciences. The history of […]
02
Mar
Mar
Memoria College professor Dan Sheffler’s new article in The Classical Teacher: The study of logic is the study of that which makes sense, the study of those structures that necessarily must be in order for things to hang together without contradiction. The Greeks called the intelligible structure of something its logos, and this is […]
08
Feb
Feb
Memoria College tutor Thomas Cothran, writing at Eclectic Orthodoxy, about St. Thomas Aquinas’ position on the problem of predestination: God causes all of our actions, including our acts of choosing. He does not merely give mankind the power of choice, he causes the act of choosing itself. We are mere instruments of God’s will. […]