Foolishness to the Greeks

A new conversation with @RFultonBrown "Foolishness to the Greeks: History and Liberal Learning in a Christian Key." Enjoy. https://t.co/R4CqEpx536 @stthomashouston @USTMAXCenter @ustcsb

— Spelunking with Plato: Arts & Sciences @ UST (@ArtsUst) June 30, 2022

Think Better

"This is a fresh and wondrous introduction to #philosophical thinking, a true delight, a cool and restorative oasis in what’s too often a vast desert of dry pedantic texts."@TomVMorris, Philosopher & Bestseller Author #Philosophy #reason #homeschooling https://t.co/ZyXkHzOZnc

— Ulrich L. Lehner (@ulrichlehner) July 3, 2021

Baker Publishing

Insights and Manipulations by Harvey Flaumenhaft

This is unbelievably exciting. If you are already excited about Apollonius of Perga, buy this book. If you aren't ... well, GET EXCITED! https://t.co/UAT5s6LhLA

— Zena Hitz (@zenahitz) November 9, 2020

St. Augustine's Press

Aquinas Institute Offers Online Programs

NLM

Aquinas Institute

Logic as a Liberal Art: An Introduction to Rhetoric and Reasoning by R. E. Houser.

CUA Press

A recview:

"Houser, whose text primarily relies on the deductive reasoning of Aristotelian logic—with a healthy dose of grammar and rhetoric at the beginning—helps us identify the prevalence of illogic in public discourse." @CUAPress https://t.co/QfGeKv66Bu

— Russell Kirk Center (@KirkCenter) June 12, 2020

Tom Hibbs on Catholic Liberal Education

The Importance of "Natural Philosophy"

Public Discourse: A Natural Philosopher’s Lament By John G. Brungardt

Jean Bethke Elshtain Videos

Related:

A explanation of the curriculum at St. John's College: Reflections on St. John’s College: The Conservative Contrarian

Two on university education

Robert John Araujo, SJ, The University as the Classroom of Life

While public service is often heralded and promoted in “service learning” that has become another feature of contemporary education, the nature and extent of what constitutes public service is often determined by the autonomous individual (usually director who has some kind of “expertise”) who has been empowered, through leading and living “an extraordinary life,” to decide what the public needs regardless of whether this is beneficial or detrimental to the common good.


What is missing from all of these shaping factors of the “good education” are crucial elements of Catholic social thought whose benefits are not restricted to Catholic thinking and institutions: (1) the inviolability of the human dignity that belongs to everyone; (2) the common good as defined by the inextricable connection of the righteous life well-lived by everyone (and I do mean everyone) in cooperation with the destiny of everyone to do the same; (3) the idea of solidarity which underscores the common good; and (4) the cultivation of the cardinal virtues of justice, fortitude or courage, prudence, and temperance or forbearance. Unfortunately, too many members of the mainstream contemporary academy respond to these elements as I have proposed them as old fashioned. The fact that these elements also undergird much of the development of western law and legal theory is oft forgotten in most law school—to say nothing of undergraduate—education of the present day.

In an oversized society, a university cannot teach about the common good and legal justice because it does not exist in a community, and Behemoth U. itself is often too large to be a community as well.

Bradley J. Birzer, A Modest Proposal: A Freshman Year of Studies

While I have immense appreciation of a Great Books approach, such as that found at St. John’s, I’ve been far more influenced by a cultural approach to the liberal arts as understood by my heroes, Christopher Dawson, Russell Kirk, and Jacques Barzun.

The cultural approach (or the poetic education of John Senior) may be a necessary part of a liberal education, but is freshman year too late? No, if the freshman are 14 year-olds. If I were in charge, I'd do more to reverse the infantilization of young adults. (Would such a cultural component of a liberal education be necessary if our young grew up in real communities with real story-telling? I don't think so.)


Shakespeare's Spirituality: A Perspective, An Interview with Dr. Martin Lings
World Wisdom profile of Dr. Lings