Occasionally, I tell certain students that they can be right or they can be happy. They have usually been eristic, more clever than kind, critical or corrective of their peers in ways which are not fruitful. More in love with their own rightness than is meet. In other words, they are like me, writing checks … Continue reading Would You Rather be Right or Happy?
From Measure for Measure ISABELLA Yet show some pity. ANGELO I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know, Which a dismiss’d offence would after gall; And do him right that, answering one foul wrong, Lives not to act another. Be satisfied; Your brother dies … Continue reading On the Liberal Arts and the Third Use of the Law
What is it for a teacher to teach the texts and lessons of old, to revisit each year such things with new faces. It is to visit upon old friends with new; it is to find that in a community of genuine learners and learning, indeed all things are made new. It is to prepare … Continue reading Behold, All Things are Made New by A Child in the Midst
The Heavens declare the glory of God and the skies showeth his handiwork (Psalm 19:1) When we step outside the walls of a school, when we walk about in a park, when we look up at the sky, as we are about to, we observe. We take in and experience the world. And we all … Continue reading An Address on the Eclipse to the Christian Student
Image Courtesy of David Joyce at Clarke University There are several ways that one might produce a line equal to a given line. A carpenter might use a tape measure or a story-stick. A story-stick is an unmarked object of equivalent length to another. Its advantage lies in that it eliminates measurement. There are no … Continue reading Mechanical Art vs. Science: Euclid, Book I, Proposition 2
We study the world that we may understand Scripture, and Scripture teaches us to truly read the world. Is this a conflict of principle or a vicious circle? No, it is the ordinary course of human learning elevated to a glorious pitch. God is pleased to use the things of His creation as a tutor unto … Continue reading On Christian Doctrine: The Rule of Scripture and Knowledge of the Profane
A Reflection from a Class at Holy Apostles College and Seminary Why can’t there be a private language, according to Wittgenstein? What is the significance of the discussion? Language is a social phenomena which we learn and confirm socially. To show we understand a statement is to respond accordingly in a form of language or … Continue reading Wittgenstein on Private Language
Kierkegaard’s reaction seems to correspond not only to what is happening in the Danish church, but in the overall attitude symptomatic of Modern Philosophy and the Enlightenment. This period of history might be characterized as the era of the ‘fact’–the era where human reason stands over and at a distance from the objects it studies. … Continue reading Kierkegaard in the Age of Fact
The liberal view of the state is that law is a necessary evil. There are several assumptions built into this belief. a. Freedom is wholly subjective b. Our happiness is to be individual and self-determined c. the state itself is perhaps a necessary evil Hegel rejects each of these assumptions. Freedom is the outworking of … Continue reading Hegel’s Rejection of Liberalism: A Comment from a Class at HACS
In his Companion to a Higher English Grammar, a most delightful and erudite read by the way, Alexander Bain considers whether to define a noun by its meaning or its office, that is, by what objects a noun names or by what function a noun plays in a sentence. He first does admirable work unfolding the … Continue reading What is a Noun?
Same & Other 