Russell Hittinger (University of Tulsa) This lecture will compare the great pontificates that represented two “modern times”: Leo XIII at the end of the 19th century and John Paul II at the end of the 20th. Between Leo’s birth in 1810 to JPII’s death in 2005, the lived experience of these two men encompass all […]
Cosponsored by the Medieval Studies Workshop Thomas Aquinas’ famous five ways of proving the existence of a God continue to intrigue and perplex his readers. The most troublesome is perhaps the third—the one based on the possible and the necessary—to which all sorts of objections can be heard: logical, scientific, theological, phenomenological, even Thomistic. Contrary to the usual assumption, […]
Rémi Brague (Sorbonne/University of Munich) cosponsored by the France Chicago Center at the University of Chicago We commonly conceive of the Good as being what we should do, sharing Aristotle’s rejection of Plato’s Idea of the Good and his reduction of the good to what can be done by a free subject. Since this subject […]
“The Spiritual Nature of Man” Anselm Muller, University of Trier Cosponsored by the Department of Philosophy Are human beings essentially spiritual creatures or can human life be explained entirely by material principles? The great twentieth century philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe, suggests that we are essentially spiritual beings because we are naturally and consciously oriented beyond our […]
Cosponsored by the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures and the Medieval Studies Workshop Often considered the greatest work of Italian literature, Dante’s Divine Comedy depicts the exiled soul’s journey to God. At the end of thePurgatorio, Dante reaches the Garden of Eden. But, despite the setting of earthly paradise and the reappearance of the poet’s youthful love […]
Cosponsored by the Department of Music and the Medieval Studies Workshop A principal Medieval definition of beauty is splendor formae, the manifesting of the very nature or form of a thing. While the liturgy can be described as a great divine action, it is also comprised of a variety of discrete chants. Being entirely sung, its Gregorian […]
Co-sponsored by the Department of History and The Early Modern Workshop In his latest book, The Unintended Reformation, Brad Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation and traces how it has shaped the modern condition. He argues that hyperpluralism, an absence of a shared sense of the common good, and the triumph of consumerism […]
Co-sponsored by the Ancient Philosophy Workshop and the Practical Philosophy Workshop
Co-sponsored by the Department of Philosophy TO LISTEN: right click on below links to download or open in new window “The Importance of Elizabeth Anscombe,” Anselm Mueller (part 1) “The Importance of Elizabeth Anscombe,” Anselm Mueller (part 2) “The Importance of Elizabeth Anscombe,” Anselm Mueller (part 3) Elizabeth Anscombe has become known as a pupil and literary executor […]
This lecture will investigate the interpretation of the Book of Revelation, or Apocalypse, in Origen and the Origenian tradition. Why does Origen accept this book, whereas many Origenian exegetes do not? What role does Millenarianism play in this choice, and what kind of exegesis does Origen apply in order to accept the Apocalypse? In answering these questions and others, the lecture looks to two […]
The broad public debates on religion and ethics frequently suffer from empirical deficiencies. All sides tend to argue in a way one might call an “a priori” mode of argumentation. In contrast, this lecture offers some empirically grounded reflections. First, Hans Joas asks whether the morality of secularized societies could be a mere remnant or […]
