Intellectuals and Democracy: The Case Against Radical Ideology
I Introduction: Revel and Popper on a “Way of Being for Man in the World” The first chapter of Jean-François Revel’s incisive 1983 book How…
Metaphysics
Past and Future Gulags
Vladimir Solovyov’s insightful The Crisis of Western Philosophy can enlighten us today as to the importance of re-telling history to educate subsequent generations. With its…
A Manifesto of Neo-Romanticism
He is thinking: “See how God writes straigh on crooked lines.”1 What realistic form can a manifesto of neo-romanticism take in a positivistic age? How…
Scientism, Existential Reflection and God
I Scientism, Science and Technology Scientism is not science. Instead, scientism is an ideology that reduces man’s hope and aspirations to the scientific method. Scientism…
Marxism and Secularism’s Cultural Overreach
I God is the “Opiate of the People” For Karl Marx, God is what he calls the “opiate of the people.” That is, belief in…
Sam Harris: The Unconverted
René Girard argues that all the great tales are conversion stories; the sinner redeemed. This is why Dostoevsky novels are ultimately uplifting. As someone commented,…
Keats’ Negative Capability and Ontological Mystery
In December 1817 the romantic poet, John Keats (1795-1821), wrote a letter to his two brothers, George and Thomas, where his now famous expression negative…
2017 Symposium II – James Kalb
Dissolving the Black Hole of Modernity What should traditionalists do about the situation in which we find ourselves? The problems go deep, and our response…
2017 Symposium – Richard Cocks
Philosophy and The Crisis of the Modern World To find a way out of the current confusions and rifts in modern Western societies, and for…
René Girard – Imitation and Life Without God
In preparation for teaching a literature course in the 1950s, René Girard reread some of the classic novels. In the process he realized that the…