2023
-
26 May 2023
Constrained Goods
Sometimes we cherish things that we would not wish upon our own children. Isn't this a puzzle? If such things are so good, why would we strive to eliminate the conditions that make them possible? I propose a basic distinction between constrained goods and liberal goods that will help to solve the puzzle.
-
19 May 2023
Vulcans and Androids
Science fiction has made popular a certain trope concerning us logicians. The thought is that logic is somehow cold and calculating, the activity of a merely robotic kind of intelligence. Students sometimes assume that this is the point of logic class. Emotions get you into trouble, so your parents want you to be more like Spock. The unfortunate side-effect of the treatment is that you will be less fun at parties. In defense of logicians everywhere, especially those passionate, very-fun-at-parties, Platonic logicians, I submit that this stereotype misses a deep truth about the nature of the human soul.
-
12 May 2023
The Socrates Effect
A curious thing happens when a young man meets Socrates for the first time. To a young man, the humiliation of successful men in the previous generation holds a perennial fascination. They gathered around. They enjoyed the spectacle. They imitated the method. A few of them listened and understood.
-
5 May 2023
Against Polemics
I hereby declare war on all polemics. The kind of person who writes aggressive, sarcastic, negative pieces about other people is so odious to me that I find their presence nauseating. Hit pieces, exposés, hell-fire preaching, complaining blog posts, most existentialism, songs of the rebellious youth, letters sent by Susan to the HOA, all reveal a wicked character. We must vilify such people and all their works in no uncertain terms lest their moral contagion spread to the beautiful and the good (you and me, my dear reader).
-
28 April 2023
Student Writing
I am often required to give students "helpful feedback" on their writing. I mark missing commas or misspelled words in red ink. I circle the occasional awkward phrase. I fear, however, that these marks are really doing the students a disservice. They give the illusion that their bad writing would become good writing if they were to insert the missing commas and fix the spelling mistakes. To become good the whole thing would need to change, and this means a change to the student's deeper habits of life. So here are my four recommendations.
-
21 April 2023
The Abdication of Ethics
Self-help literature has come to fill the void left in contemporary ethics by the abdication of wisdom. Ancient ethics concerned itself with providing real guidance toward living a good life. Modern ethics concerns itself with large-scale social questions or abstract thought-experiments. The result is that people turn to self-improvement literature for concrete guidance, a genre that studiously avoids broaching the hard questions.
-
14 April 2023
The Logic of the World
The study of logic is the study of that which makes sense, the study of those structures that necessarily must be for things to hang together without contradiction. The Greeks called the intelligible structure of something its "logos," and this is where we get our word. These necessary structures, these "logoi," are not things that we make up in our heads or record in our books. They are all around us, everywhere, the basic fabric of the world we inhabit.
-
7 April 2023
The Cost of Beauty
With an excess of wealth, one can afford the uselessness of finer things. It helps that this uselessness signals to everyone else just how much you can afford. Rich or poor, however, there is one splendid reality that confronts us all every single day and gives the lie to the idea that beautiful things must be expensive. Every morning the sky shows its face, smiling simply in bright blues or flirting coyly in wisps of white. Sometimes it downright sulks in gloomy greys, or blasts its anger in overwhelming tempest blacks.
-
31 March 2023
Gratitude
Every morning, I write my gratitude. Lest I offend my disgruntled waking eyes, only one small desk lamp illumines the leather chair in my office. I begin by writing the date in Shaeffer red with a fountain pen that I have dedicated to this color. Then I write at least one paragraph in sepia, beginning with the words "I am grateful for..."
-
24 March 2023
In Defense of the Non-Moral
Of course we aim at virtue, and of course the pursuit of virtue should take pride of place in everything we do. But the truth is that we should also educate our children in non-moral excellencies that are intrinsically valuable and choiceworthy for their own sake. It is simply a beautiful thing to learn history well whether or not it makes you a better person morally.
-
17 March 2023
The Mind of a Gentleman
This essay explores St. John Henry Newman's conception of a gentleman's education; it was originally published in the Classical Teacher.
-
10 March 2023
The Comforts of Misanthropy
My pessimism makes me hopeful. Human beings---myself very much among them---cause me so much dismay, with their perpetual stupidity, immorality, incompetence, incivility, and philistinism, that I am inclined to judge the present shambles of our society to be rather good in the grand scheme of things.
-
3 March 2023
Asceticisms
The whole ethos of asceticism, with its valorization of difficulty, can obscure the radically different motives for which ascetic practices might be adopted, and in the literature of these religious orders, one sometimes meets with a rhetorical excess, which, if we are not careful, threatens to undermine the philosophical foundations of our most basic thinking about goodness.
-
24 February 2023
Wrong-Headed Charity
Christians sometimes think—or talk as though—any glorification of excellence signals a hostility toward everyone who has failed to achieve it, that genuine love for the least of these requires the denigration of excellence. The only issue with this line of thinking is its utter incoherence. The very idea of charity presupposes the goodness of that which is given and the badness of the recipient's condition.
-
17 February 2023
False Humility
A man who looks for excellence, it is thought, must surely be both proud and judgmental. In some circles, one gets the impression that the good news of the Gospel is that human beings will always and forever be terrible at everything they do, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief and stop trying. If some trouble-maker comes in and suggests that we can do better at this or that, such exhortation is interpreted as a case of 'human striving.'
-
10 February 2023
Self-Acceptance
It is no surprise that a whole self-help industry has sprung up centered around the notion that we have no real inadequacies or failures: You are perfect and beautiful just the way you are. After all, there is a large, highly-motivated, paying audience who desperately wants just this message.
-
3 February 2023
Inclusivity
No one likes to be left out of the club, but every club can only exist by making a distinction between those who are members and those who are not. If everyone is part of the club, then there is no club.
-
27 January 2023
Egalitarianism
All discussion of excellence rests on a rejection of universal unqualified egalitarianism. Excellence in any field requires a scale of better and worse, and this scale of better and worse rests on the inequality of whatever things are on that scale.
-
20 January 2023
Individual Relativism
Individual relativism can often come from both conflict avoidance and antipathy toward authority. We should acknowledge that both of these emotional reactions do give us some insights into the truth, but they do not give us any reason to think that excellence is not objective.
-
13 January 2023
Cultural Relativism
Apart from the cheap points we can score by pointing out the internal contradictions of cultural relativism, a much deeper critique can be leveled against the assumption that there is widespread cultural disagreement about core values.
-
6 January 2023
Luxury Beliefs
Enemies of Excellence Part 2. Luxury beliefs are those beliefs that one can only afford to hold once sufficient material and cultural wealth guarantees that the implications of those beliefs need never be faced.
2022
-
30 December 2022
Enemies of Excellence - Intro
Introduction to the Enemies of Excellence series of posts. What are the mindsets that hold us back from excellence or from valuing a philosophy of excellence? Where do they come from and why do they sometimes have such a visceral force behind them?
-
16 December 2022
Receptivity to Beauty
In order for experience to happen, there must be a certain receptivity in the soul. This receptivity requires stillness and silence, watching and waiting. We cannot hear a friend while we are talking. Nor can we hear a friend when we are are silent but only in the manner of those impatiently waiting their chance to speak. We must first undergo a basic conversion of soul.
-
9 December 2022
Cynicism
Why the spirit of cynicism haunts the internet and how to exorcise it.
-
2 December 2022
In Praise of Pretension
We should not use 'pretentious' as a sneering word. One must, after all, pretend to be something before becoming it. That's how aspiration works.
-
18 November 2022
Horace Ode I-11
My translation of Horace's Ode I-11, which is the origin of the famous phrase, carpe diem.
-
11 November 2022
The Varieties of Excellence
We can observe the profound inseparability of moral and non-moral excellence. In the sweetest times, I cannot disentangle the aesthetic from the virtuous, the contemplative from the useful, and I would not wish to do so if I could. Doing so would be like disentangling a tapestry or dissecting a living thing.
-
4 November 2022
Survivor's Guilt
Many in our contemporary anti-culture are tempted to think that they should not enjoy the wealth of past culture because it comes with dirty hands. The best way to help those left out in the cold when we are enjoying a family dinner, however, is not to cancel the dinner, but to invite them in.
-
28 October 2022
Generational Wealth
We are born into a particular time and place and many of our parents bought into the post-war American culture of the 60s and 70s—some more than others. Many of us did not grow up learning to read Latin or play Bach because we went through childhood as the unwitting subjects of a school system more concerned with denigrating and supplanting a tradition than passing one on. This means that we must be modest in what we can hope to cultivate and leave to our own children. But there is substantial hope for progress: stone upon stone, generation upon generation.
-
21 October 2022
Onion and Crouton Soup
Like a perfectly crafted onion and crouton soup, culture is a constantly refined tradition. Culture is natural to man because human nature *is to cultivate*, in all the senses of that word's root, the Latin word *colo*: to till the soil, to reap the fruits, to inhabit the same estate generation after generation, to devote oneself to the perfecting of something beautiful, to worship. Man is the cultural animal. We are *Homo Colens*.
-
14 October 2022
In Defense of Loveliness
The partisans of lost culture are quick to praise the big ideals: Beauty, Goodness, Nobility, Virtue. Such ideals win wars, and rightly so. But loveliness deserves its own praise.
-
7 October 2022
I Loved You Because
Are there any crueler words than "I loved you because"? How ominous that conjunction---how devastating that tense. The first sin of Dorian Gray turned on just these words.
-
30 September 2022
The Unread Library
The only thing preventing me from reading every volume in my library is my death. It may come soon, in which case the number of unread volumes will be quite large. It may come many decades from now, in which case the number will be many times larger.
-
27 September 2022
Dust Jacket 3: Towles
In Session 3 of the Dust Jacket podcast, Martin Cothran and I discuss Amor Towles' marvelous book *A Gentleman in Moscow*
-
1 September 2022
Scientism and Ancient Philosophy
Ancient philosophical approaches have an advantage over modern, reductive approaches, because the ancient approach can absorb whatever insights are true in modern mechanistic explanations, while dogmatic reductionism cannot absorb the spiritual insights of ancient thought.
-
30 August 2022
Science and Scientism
Scientism is not science. Scientism is a questionable philosophy that misunderstands the methodological bracketing of science.
-
24 August 2022
Bayesian Reasoning
Bayesian reasoning often shows us that the likelihood of something being true given our evidence is lower than we think. In this post, however, I examine what happens when we have multiple lines of converging evidence, which often turns out to raise the probability higher than we might guess.
-
11 March 2022
Leisure
I appear on the Classical Etc. podcast to discuss the concept of leisure.
-
28 February 2022
Dust Jacket 2: Nagel
In Session 2 of the Dust Jacket podcast, Martin Cothran and I discuss Thomas Nagel's *Mind and Cosmos*.
-
17 January 2022
Dust Jacket 1: Newman
In Session 1 of the Dust Jacket podcast, Martin Cothran and I discuss St. John Henry Newman's *Idea of the University*
2021
-
20 December 2021
Modernism
I do not want to disown all the good things that come with the modern world, and I don't think that we can turn back the clock. What I want to resist is not modernity but modernism.
-
11 December 2021
A Dialogue on Platonic Realism
I had an interesting conversation with a friend on Discord about Platonic realism. So we decided to dress it up as a Platonic dialogue.
-
9 June 2021
Gravitas, Dignitas, Pietas
Despite their faults, the Romans demonstrate certain virtues of seriousness that we should recover today.
2020
-
14 October 2020
Waugh's Helena
A favorite passage from near the end of Evelyn Waugh's wonderful novel, Helena.
-
14 October 2020
Logos as Intelligibility and Intelligence Video
New video based on the previous blog post discussing the objective side of logos, intelligibility, and the subjective side, intelligence.
-
26 September 2020
Virtue and Martial Nobility
Thinking about the link between Arete and Ares, Virtue and Vir.
-
10 July 2020
Logos as Intelligibility and Intelligence
We continue to explore the meaning of the word Logos by distinguishing the objective side, intelligibility, from the subjective side, intelligence. The latter is a faculty receptive to the former.
-
5 July 2020
Cosmos and Logos Video
Here is the video based on the last blog post.
-
2 July 2020
Cosmos and Logos
In this post I explore the interesting interplay between the concepts of Logos and Cosmos. A Cosmos is an ordered arrangement of elements, which requires a source or cause for this order. Hence, Logos can be understood as the principle of organization for any Cosmos.
-
8 April 2020
Different Meanings of Substance
We should hold carefully apart two meanings of the philosophical term substance. (i) the essence or whatness of a thing and (ii) the real distinct subsistence of a thing.
-
23 January 2020
Jordan Peterson and Platonic Realism
Jordan Peterson's use of Jungian archetypes brings him close to the kind of metaphysical realism we see in Christian Platonism---close, but not quite there.
-
11 January 2020
The Kingdom of the Heavens
The last two weekends, I preached for both Lexington Christian Fellowship and Jessamine Christian Fellowship on the Kingdom of the Heavens in the Gospel of Matthew.
2019
-
10 December 2019
Religious Experience and Brain Activity
Even if we could establish a tight connection between religious experience and activity in a certain region of the brain, this would not prove religious experience to be illusory.
-
3 December 2019
Guilt by Association
We should not judge philosophical ideas or practices based on a surface similarity to unchristian systems of thought. Rather we should look out for substantive corruptions to the truth.
-
16 November 2019
Hildebrand on Sin and Sanctity
The opposite of the self-righteous man is not the sinner but the saint. The saint can be humble in his righteousness only because he walks in a deep awareness of grace.
-
9 October 2019
Traditionalism
Traditionalism is best understood as an orientation toward the timeless truth rather than an attachment to old ideas simply because they are old.
-
4 September 2019
Two Personalisms
We must distinguish the "Christian personalist" movement from what some philosophers call "theistic personalism" in contrast to "classical theism."
-
24 July 2019
What are the Forms?
Following the last post on the meaning of Platonism, I here flesh out the idea of transcendent Forms as intelligible structures that keep showing up again and again in the world of our experience.
-
27 June 2019
What I Mean by Platonism
Platonism has come to mean different things to different scholars. When I call myself a Platonist, I mean that I believe in the Forms, that I believe in real, eternal, immaterial, intelligible structures beyond the world of sense.
-
20 June 2019
Enjoying God
Gloomy Christianity develops because people learn to associate enjoyment with sin. The solution is not more games in church, but rather a revelation of God's beauty.
-
10 June 2019
Conservatism and Ideology
Ideologies are overly simplistic views of the world, which support themselves through slogans. While slogans may be practically indispensable in a democracy, conservatism is something more.
-
4 June 2019
Know Thyself
The Christian notion of self-knowledge is a long way off from New Age self-realization and not quite the same as the pagan Greek original either.
-
30 May 2019
Eros Comes from Beauty Beheld
I often encounter Christians who feel guilty because they seem to lack a certain fire or zeal in their pursuit of what they know to be true. I argue they can remedy this by recognizing a link between the psychology of eros and the time they spend imaginatively beholding the beauty of God.
-
28 May 2019
Apparently Anselm is Convincing
Teaching Anselm recently, I discovered that many of my students found the ontological argument very convincing. I think this has to do with the way older authors are presented.
2018
-
11 June 2018
No Such Thing As Subjective Truth
Just some casual reflections that I had after a friendly discussion resulted in my arguing that "subjective truth" was an oxymoron.
-
9 May 2018
Justin Martyr on the Trinity
Justin Martyr has a surprisingly developed understanding of Trinitarian doctrine for someone writing in the first half of the second century.
-
11 April 2018
Mission, Power, Authority, and the Holy Spirit
Here is the text of the sermon I preached at LCF and JCF this weekend on four themes in the book of Acts.
-
5 April 2018
Athens and Jerusalem Talk
I'm giving a talk at the Athens and Jerusalem Conference in Lawrenceburg KY on Saturday, April 7, 2018. The talk will be on the Platonic conception of the self as the soul, especially in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, and how this is different from the Christian conception. Anyone interested is invited.
-
5 February 2018
Job Teaching
Sermon delivered giving an overview of the book of Job at LCF on 2017-12-30.
2017
-
26 November 2017
Screwtape the Christian Personalist
Uncle Screwtape reveals a deeply personalistic understanding of good and evil.
-
23 November 2017
The Logos and Jordan Peterson
Reflection on the difference between my own understanding of the logos and Jordan Petersons.
-
30 September 2017
Narnian Platonism
I just finished reading all the Narnia books to my kids and ran across this wonderful bit about Plato...
-
16 September 2017
A Strong Claim from Zizioulas
Metropolitan John Zizioulas puts in a particularly striking way the historical claim that I am working on in my current book project.
-
14 September 2017
Culture of Repudiation
Roger Scruton identifies a feature of academic life that has become singularly disagreeable to me.
-
20 July 2017
Description of Early Christians to Diognetus
I ran across this beautiful description of the early Christians in the Letter to Diognetus while reading the first volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. If only we could be true to this description, how much better salted would the world be by our presence?
-
16 July 2017
Sincerity Formulated into Dogma
James Russell Lowell explains that passion and sincerity are not enough.
-
28 May 2017
Simplicity Leads to Despotism
Russell Kirk explains the connection between ideological simplicity and despotism.
-
27 May 2017
Spirit vs. Flesh in Romans 8
Here is the presentation for the sermon at the CF churches this weekend.
-
20 May 2017
Gratitude
My address at the 2017 Mars Hill graduation.
-
18 May 2017
Whittaker Chambers on Writing and Inertia
By simply picking up a pen, things can be done, if we have the will to overcome inertia.
-
18 May 2017
Burke on Moral Order
The awful Author of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence...
-
17 May 2017
Touchstone Review
My review of Dietrich von Hildebrand's Liturgy and Personality appeared in Touchstone.
-
16 May 2017
Christopher Graney on Galileo
Christopher Graney talk about Galileo.
2016
-
6 August 2016
Sublime Plugins for Pandoc
My recommendations for Sublime slugins for writers who use Pandoc.
-
11 July 2016
Pandoc
Intro to Pandoc, and why it is useful for writers.
2015
-
7 October 2015
Electric Archeology Open Notebook
Link to Shawn Graham at Electric Archeology.
-
17 September 2015
The Why and the Wherefore
Chronological association of notes by using Git.
-
12 September 2015
Definition Lists
Using markdown's definition lists in LaTeX output.
-
12 September 2015
Chicago CSL
How to get nicely styled Chicago footnotes in your LaTeX output with Pandoc.
-
10 September 2015
Git for Zettelkasten
Using Git with my zettlekasten
-
7 September 2015
Class Info in Pandoc and LaTeX
How to get typical student info into your LaTeX output using Pandoc's metadata.
-
13 August 2015
Review from Taking Note Blog
A link to some comments on the Taking Note blog regarding my setup.
-
12 August 2015
Review from Christian Tietze
A link to Christian Tietze's helpful blog about Zettlekasten.
-
11 August 2015
Going From Reading To Notes
My process of taking reading notes and getting them into my zettlekasten.
-
10 August 2015
Sertillanges - What I Think
'I read, and I write while reading; but...'
-
10 August 2015
Reading Notes
-
10 August 2015
Jekyll Post Plugin
A little plugin I wrote for using Jekyll with Sublime.
-
5 August 2015
One Thought Per Note
The advantages of making many small notes with one thought in each.
-
3 August 2015
Sublime Syntax Definition
My own Sublime syntax definition that includes zettlekasten linmks.
-
1 July 2015
Zettelkasten Goes to Use
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my zettlekasten set up.
-
1 July 2015
Electric Archaeology
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my Skim to Markdown scripts.
-
13 May 2015
My Footnote Plugin
A plugin I wrote for Sublime that makes unique footnote references across multiple files.
-
11 May 2015
My Zettelkasten in Sublime
The way that I have my Zettlekasten set up in Sublime.
-
5 May 2015
The Zettelkasten Method
-
14 January 2015
A Weird "You" in Aristotle
An odd switch to the second person in a juicy Aristotle quote.
2014
-
29 December 2014
Von Hildebrand on Machine Culture
Dietrich von Hildebrand objects to the mechanization of the person.
-
7 November 2014
Merton on Theology
Thomas Merton claims that theology must be based in personal relationship.
-
2 August 2014
The Notebook
Pictures and description of the notebook and manual system I use.
-
28 July 2014
Chronological Association
The use of being able to place your notes within the chronological stream of your thoughts.
-
26 July 2014
Notebook Annotation
A description of the way that I go back and annotate my notebooks.
-
21 July 2014
Two Goals of Note-taking
I argue that we should separate out what I call engagement notes from memory notes.
-
13 July 2014
Skim and BibDesk Wrap-up
All my posts on Skim and BibDesk organized in one place.
-
12 July 2014
Search BibDesk
A script I wrote to seach BibDesk with a hotkey from anywhere.
-
9 July 2014
BibDesk and LaTeX Citations
Using BibDesk to keep all your bibliographic info for automatically generated footnotes in LaTeX.
-
8 July 2014
Intro to BibDesk
An introductory description of BibDesk, a program that allows you to store all your bibliographic info.
-
7 July 2014
Exporting Skim Notes
A little script I wrote for getting all your Skim notes into a single nicely formated markdown file.
-
6 July 2014
Levels of Reading
Thoughts on distinguishing different depths of reading and adjusting your habits accordingly.
-
5 July 2014
Why I Use Skim
The advantages of this wonderful PDF reader form OSX.
-
4 July 2014
Marginal Note Properties in Skim
A script I wrote for adjusting the width of marginal text notes in Skim.
-
3 July 2014
Skim Links
A script I wrote that for generating a Pandoc-style citation with an automatically generated link to the right page in Skim.
-
2 July 2014
Custom Skim URLs
Describes how to set up system-wide OSX urls for each PDF based on bibliographic info.
-
28 June 2014
Academic Plain Text
A link to a very good introduction for getting up and running with using markdown for academic writing.
-
26 June 2014
Unbelief is Disobedience
Leslie Newbigin explains the connection between faith and obedience.
-
26 June 2014
Risky Love
Vladimir Lossky describes the risk involved in God's love.
-
26 June 2014
Gilson on Deism
Gilson describes the 'ghost of the Christian God' found in Deism.
Sometimes we cherish things that we would not wish upon our own children. Isn't this a puzzle? If such things are so good, why would we strive to eliminate the conditions that make them possible? I propose a basic distinction between constrained goods and liberal goods that will help to solve the puzzle.
Science fiction has made popular a certain trope concerning us logicians. The thought is that logic is somehow cold and calculating, the activity of a merely robotic kind of intelligence. Students sometimes assume that this is the point of logic class. Emotions get you into trouble, so your parents want you to be more like Spock. The unfortunate side-effect of the treatment is that you will be less fun at parties. In defense of logicians everywhere, especially those passionate, very-fun-at-parties, Platonic logicians, I submit that this stereotype misses a deep truth about the nature of the human soul.
A curious thing happens when a young man meets Socrates for the first time. To a young man, the humiliation of successful men in the previous generation holds a perennial fascination. They gathered around. They enjoyed the spectacle. They imitated the method. A few of them listened and understood.
I hereby declare war on all polemics. The kind of person who writes aggressive, sarcastic, negative pieces about other people is so odious to me that I find their presence nauseating. Hit pieces, exposés, hell-fire preaching, complaining blog posts, most existentialism, songs of the rebellious youth, letters sent by Susan to the HOA, all reveal a wicked character. We must vilify such people and all their works in no uncertain terms lest their moral contagion spread to the beautiful and the good (you and me, my dear reader).
I am often required to give students "helpful feedback" on their writing. I mark missing commas or misspelled words in red ink. I circle the occasional awkward phrase. I fear, however, that these marks are really doing the students a disservice. They give the illusion that their bad writing would become good writing if they were to insert the missing commas and fix the spelling mistakes. To become good the whole thing would need to change, and this means a change to the student's deeper habits of life. So here are my four recommendations.
Self-help literature has come to fill the void left in contemporary ethics by the abdication of wisdom. Ancient ethics concerned itself with providing real guidance toward living a good life. Modern ethics concerns itself with large-scale social questions or abstract thought-experiments. The result is that people turn to self-improvement literature for concrete guidance, a genre that studiously avoids broaching the hard questions.
The study of logic is the study of that which makes sense, the study of those structures that necessarily must be for things to hang together without contradiction. The Greeks called the intelligible structure of something its "logos," and this is where we get our word. These necessary structures, these "logoi," are not things that we make up in our heads or record in our books. They are all around us, everywhere, the basic fabric of the world we inhabit.
With an excess of wealth, one can afford the uselessness of finer things. It helps that this uselessness signals to everyone else just how much you can afford. Rich or poor, however, there is one splendid reality that confronts us all every single day and gives the lie to the idea that beautiful things must be expensive. Every morning the sky shows its face, smiling simply in bright blues or flirting coyly in wisps of white. Sometimes it downright sulks in gloomy greys, or blasts its anger in overwhelming tempest blacks.
Every morning, I write my gratitude. Lest I offend my disgruntled waking eyes, only one small desk lamp illumines the leather chair in my office. I begin by writing the date in Shaeffer red with a fountain pen that I have dedicated to this color. Then I write at least one paragraph in sepia, beginning with the words "I am grateful for..."
Of course we aim at virtue, and of course the pursuit of virtue should take pride of place in everything we do. But the truth is that we should also educate our children in non-moral excellencies that are intrinsically valuable and choiceworthy for their own sake. It is simply a beautiful thing to learn history well whether or not it makes you a better person morally.
This essay explores St. John Henry Newman's conception of a gentleman's education; it was originally published in the Classical Teacher.
My pessimism makes me hopeful. Human beings---myself very much among them---cause me so much dismay, with their perpetual stupidity, immorality, incompetence, incivility, and philistinism, that I am inclined to judge the present shambles of our society to be rather good in the grand scheme of things.
The whole ethos of asceticism, with its valorization of difficulty, can obscure the radically different motives for which ascetic practices might be adopted, and in the literature of these religious orders, one sometimes meets with a rhetorical excess, which, if we are not careful, threatens to undermine the philosophical foundations of our most basic thinking about goodness.
Christians sometimes think—or talk as though—any glorification of excellence signals a hostility toward everyone who has failed to achieve it, that genuine love for the least of these requires the denigration of excellence. The only issue with this line of thinking is its utter incoherence. The very idea of charity presupposes the goodness of that which is given and the badness of the recipient's condition.
A man who looks for excellence, it is thought, must surely be both proud and judgmental. In some circles, one gets the impression that the good news of the Gospel is that human beings will always and forever be terrible at everything they do, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief and stop trying. If some trouble-maker comes in and suggests that we can do better at this or that, such exhortation is interpreted as a case of 'human striving.'
It is no surprise that a whole self-help industry has sprung up centered around the notion that we have no real inadequacies or failures: You are perfect and beautiful just the way you are. After all, there is a large, highly-motivated, paying audience who desperately wants just this message.
No one likes to be left out of the club, but every club can only exist by making a distinction between those who are members and those who are not. If everyone is part of the club, then there is no club.
All discussion of excellence rests on a rejection of universal unqualified egalitarianism. Excellence in any field requires a scale of better and worse, and this scale of better and worse rests on the inequality of whatever things are on that scale.
Individual relativism can often come from both conflict avoidance and antipathy toward authority. We should acknowledge that both of these emotional reactions do give us some insights into the truth, but they do not give us any reason to think that excellence is not objective.
Apart from the cheap points we can score by pointing out the internal contradictions of cultural relativism, a much deeper critique can be leveled against the assumption that there is widespread cultural disagreement about core values.
Enemies of Excellence Part 2. Luxury beliefs are those beliefs that one can only afford to hold once sufficient material and cultural wealth guarantees that the implications of those beliefs need never be faced.
-
30 December 2022
Enemies of Excellence - Intro
Introduction to the Enemies of Excellence series of posts. What are the mindsets that hold us back from excellence or from valuing a philosophy of excellence? Where do they come from and why do they sometimes have such a visceral force behind them?
-
16 December 2022
Receptivity to Beauty
In order for experience to happen, there must be a certain receptivity in the soul. This receptivity requires stillness and silence, watching and waiting. We cannot hear a friend while we are talking. Nor can we hear a friend when we are are silent but only in the manner of those impatiently waiting their chance to speak. We must first undergo a basic conversion of soul.
-
9 December 2022
Cynicism
Why the spirit of cynicism haunts the internet and how to exorcise it.
-
2 December 2022
In Praise of Pretension
We should not use 'pretentious' as a sneering word. One must, after all, pretend to be something before becoming it. That's how aspiration works.
-
18 November 2022
Horace Ode I-11
My translation of Horace's Ode I-11, which is the origin of the famous phrase, carpe diem.
-
11 November 2022
The Varieties of Excellence
We can observe the profound inseparability of moral and non-moral excellence. In the sweetest times, I cannot disentangle the aesthetic from the virtuous, the contemplative from the useful, and I would not wish to do so if I could. Doing so would be like disentangling a tapestry or dissecting a living thing.
-
4 November 2022
Survivor's Guilt
Many in our contemporary anti-culture are tempted to think that they should not enjoy the wealth of past culture because it comes with dirty hands. The best way to help those left out in the cold when we are enjoying a family dinner, however, is not to cancel the dinner, but to invite them in.
-
28 October 2022
Generational Wealth
We are born into a particular time and place and many of our parents bought into the post-war American culture of the 60s and 70s—some more than others. Many of us did not grow up learning to read Latin or play Bach because we went through childhood as the unwitting subjects of a school system more concerned with denigrating and supplanting a tradition than passing one on. This means that we must be modest in what we can hope to cultivate and leave to our own children. But there is substantial hope for progress: stone upon stone, generation upon generation.
-
21 October 2022
Onion and Crouton Soup
Like a perfectly crafted onion and crouton soup, culture is a constantly refined tradition. Culture is natural to man because human nature *is to cultivate*, in all the senses of that word's root, the Latin word *colo*: to till the soil, to reap the fruits, to inhabit the same estate generation after generation, to devote oneself to the perfecting of something beautiful, to worship. Man is the cultural animal. We are *Homo Colens*.
-
14 October 2022
In Defense of Loveliness
The partisans of lost culture are quick to praise the big ideals: Beauty, Goodness, Nobility, Virtue. Such ideals win wars, and rightly so. But loveliness deserves its own praise.
-
7 October 2022
I Loved You Because
Are there any crueler words than "I loved you because"? How ominous that conjunction---how devastating that tense. The first sin of Dorian Gray turned on just these words.
-
30 September 2022
The Unread Library
The only thing preventing me from reading every volume in my library is my death. It may come soon, in which case the number of unread volumes will be quite large. It may come many decades from now, in which case the number will be many times larger.
-
27 September 2022
Dust Jacket 3: Towles
In Session 3 of the Dust Jacket podcast, Martin Cothran and I discuss Amor Towles' marvelous book *A Gentleman in Moscow*
-
1 September 2022
Scientism and Ancient Philosophy
Ancient philosophical approaches have an advantage over modern, reductive approaches, because the ancient approach can absorb whatever insights are true in modern mechanistic explanations, while dogmatic reductionism cannot absorb the spiritual insights of ancient thought.
-
30 August 2022
Science and Scientism
Scientism is not science. Scientism is a questionable philosophy that misunderstands the methodological bracketing of science.
-
24 August 2022
Bayesian Reasoning
Bayesian reasoning often shows us that the likelihood of something being true given our evidence is lower than we think. In this post, however, I examine what happens when we have multiple lines of converging evidence, which often turns out to raise the probability higher than we might guess.
-
11 March 2022
Leisure
I appear on the Classical Etc. podcast to discuss the concept of leisure.
-
28 February 2022
Dust Jacket 2: Nagel
In Session 2 of the Dust Jacket podcast, Martin Cothran and I discuss Thomas Nagel's *Mind and Cosmos*.
-
17 January 2022
Dust Jacket 1: Newman
In Session 1 of the Dust Jacket podcast, Martin Cothran and I discuss St. John Henry Newman's *Idea of the University*
2021
-
20 December 2021
Modernism
I do not want to disown all the good things that come with the modern world, and I don't think that we can turn back the clock. What I want to resist is not modernity but modernism.
-
11 December 2021
A Dialogue on Platonic Realism
I had an interesting conversation with a friend on Discord about Platonic realism. So we decided to dress it up as a Platonic dialogue.
-
9 June 2021
Gravitas, Dignitas, Pietas
Despite their faults, the Romans demonstrate certain virtues of seriousness that we should recover today.
2020
-
14 October 2020
Waugh's Helena
A favorite passage from near the end of Evelyn Waugh's wonderful novel, Helena.
-
14 October 2020
Logos as Intelligibility and Intelligence Video
New video based on the previous blog post discussing the objective side of logos, intelligibility, and the subjective side, intelligence.
-
26 September 2020
Virtue and Martial Nobility
Thinking about the link between Arete and Ares, Virtue and Vir.
-
10 July 2020
Logos as Intelligibility and Intelligence
We continue to explore the meaning of the word Logos by distinguishing the objective side, intelligibility, from the subjective side, intelligence. The latter is a faculty receptive to the former.
-
5 July 2020
Cosmos and Logos Video
Here is the video based on the last blog post.
-
2 July 2020
Cosmos and Logos
In this post I explore the interesting interplay between the concepts of Logos and Cosmos. A Cosmos is an ordered arrangement of elements, which requires a source or cause for this order. Hence, Logos can be understood as the principle of organization for any Cosmos.
-
8 April 2020
Different Meanings of Substance
We should hold carefully apart two meanings of the philosophical term substance. (i) the essence or whatness of a thing and (ii) the real distinct subsistence of a thing.
-
23 January 2020
Jordan Peterson and Platonic Realism
Jordan Peterson's use of Jungian archetypes brings him close to the kind of metaphysical realism we see in Christian Platonism---close, but not quite there.
-
11 January 2020
The Kingdom of the Heavens
The last two weekends, I preached for both Lexington Christian Fellowship and Jessamine Christian Fellowship on the Kingdom of the Heavens in the Gospel of Matthew.
2019
-
10 December 2019
Religious Experience and Brain Activity
Even if we could establish a tight connection between religious experience and activity in a certain region of the brain, this would not prove religious experience to be illusory.
-
3 December 2019
Guilt by Association
We should not judge philosophical ideas or practices based on a surface similarity to unchristian systems of thought. Rather we should look out for substantive corruptions to the truth.
-
16 November 2019
Hildebrand on Sin and Sanctity
The opposite of the self-righteous man is not the sinner but the saint. The saint can be humble in his righteousness only because he walks in a deep awareness of grace.
-
9 October 2019
Traditionalism
Traditionalism is best understood as an orientation toward the timeless truth rather than an attachment to old ideas simply because they are old.
-
4 September 2019
Two Personalisms
We must distinguish the "Christian personalist" movement from what some philosophers call "theistic personalism" in contrast to "classical theism."
-
24 July 2019
What are the Forms?
Following the last post on the meaning of Platonism, I here flesh out the idea of transcendent Forms as intelligible structures that keep showing up again and again in the world of our experience.
-
27 June 2019
What I Mean by Platonism
Platonism has come to mean different things to different scholars. When I call myself a Platonist, I mean that I believe in the Forms, that I believe in real, eternal, immaterial, intelligible structures beyond the world of sense.
-
20 June 2019
Enjoying God
Gloomy Christianity develops because people learn to associate enjoyment with sin. The solution is not more games in church, but rather a revelation of God's beauty.
-
10 June 2019
Conservatism and Ideology
Ideologies are overly simplistic views of the world, which support themselves through slogans. While slogans may be practically indispensable in a democracy, conservatism is something more.
-
4 June 2019
Know Thyself
The Christian notion of self-knowledge is a long way off from New Age self-realization and not quite the same as the pagan Greek original either.
-
30 May 2019
Eros Comes from Beauty Beheld
I often encounter Christians who feel guilty because they seem to lack a certain fire or zeal in their pursuit of what they know to be true. I argue they can remedy this by recognizing a link between the psychology of eros and the time they spend imaginatively beholding the beauty of God.
-
28 May 2019
Apparently Anselm is Convincing
Teaching Anselm recently, I discovered that many of my students found the ontological argument very convincing. I think this has to do with the way older authors are presented.
2018
-
11 June 2018
No Such Thing As Subjective Truth
Just some casual reflections that I had after a friendly discussion resulted in my arguing that "subjective truth" was an oxymoron.
-
9 May 2018
Justin Martyr on the Trinity
Justin Martyr has a surprisingly developed understanding of Trinitarian doctrine for someone writing in the first half of the second century.
-
11 April 2018
Mission, Power, Authority, and the Holy Spirit
Here is the text of the sermon I preached at LCF and JCF this weekend on four themes in the book of Acts.
-
5 April 2018
Athens and Jerusalem Talk
I'm giving a talk at the Athens and Jerusalem Conference in Lawrenceburg KY on Saturday, April 7, 2018. The talk will be on the Platonic conception of the self as the soul, especially in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, and how this is different from the Christian conception. Anyone interested is invited.
-
5 February 2018
Job Teaching
Sermon delivered giving an overview of the book of Job at LCF on 2017-12-30.
2017
-
26 November 2017
Screwtape the Christian Personalist
Uncle Screwtape reveals a deeply personalistic understanding of good and evil.
-
23 November 2017
The Logos and Jordan Peterson
Reflection on the difference between my own understanding of the logos and Jordan Petersons.
-
30 September 2017
Narnian Platonism
I just finished reading all the Narnia books to my kids and ran across this wonderful bit about Plato...
-
16 September 2017
A Strong Claim from Zizioulas
Metropolitan John Zizioulas puts in a particularly striking way the historical claim that I am working on in my current book project.
-
14 September 2017
Culture of Repudiation
Roger Scruton identifies a feature of academic life that has become singularly disagreeable to me.
-
20 July 2017
Description of Early Christians to Diognetus
I ran across this beautiful description of the early Christians in the Letter to Diognetus while reading the first volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. If only we could be true to this description, how much better salted would the world be by our presence?
-
16 July 2017
Sincerity Formulated into Dogma
James Russell Lowell explains that passion and sincerity are not enough.
-
28 May 2017
Simplicity Leads to Despotism
Russell Kirk explains the connection between ideological simplicity and despotism.
-
27 May 2017
Spirit vs. Flesh in Romans 8
Here is the presentation for the sermon at the CF churches this weekend.
-
20 May 2017
Gratitude
My address at the 2017 Mars Hill graduation.
-
18 May 2017
Whittaker Chambers on Writing and Inertia
By simply picking up a pen, things can be done, if we have the will to overcome inertia.
-
18 May 2017
Burke on Moral Order
The awful Author of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence...
-
17 May 2017
Touchstone Review
My review of Dietrich von Hildebrand's Liturgy and Personality appeared in Touchstone.
-
16 May 2017
Christopher Graney on Galileo
Christopher Graney talk about Galileo.
2016
-
6 August 2016
Sublime Plugins for Pandoc
My recommendations for Sublime slugins for writers who use Pandoc.
-
11 July 2016
Pandoc
Intro to Pandoc, and why it is useful for writers.
2015
-
7 October 2015
Electric Archeology Open Notebook
Link to Shawn Graham at Electric Archeology.
-
17 September 2015
The Why and the Wherefore
Chronological association of notes by using Git.
-
12 September 2015
Definition Lists
Using markdown's definition lists in LaTeX output.
-
12 September 2015
Chicago CSL
How to get nicely styled Chicago footnotes in your LaTeX output with Pandoc.
-
10 September 2015
Git for Zettelkasten
Using Git with my zettlekasten
-
7 September 2015
Class Info in Pandoc and LaTeX
How to get typical student info into your LaTeX output using Pandoc's metadata.
-
13 August 2015
Review from Taking Note Blog
A link to some comments on the Taking Note blog regarding my setup.
-
12 August 2015
Review from Christian Tietze
A link to Christian Tietze's helpful blog about Zettlekasten.
-
11 August 2015
Going From Reading To Notes
My process of taking reading notes and getting them into my zettlekasten.
-
10 August 2015
Sertillanges - What I Think
'I read, and I write while reading; but...'
-
10 August 2015
Reading Notes
-
10 August 2015
Jekyll Post Plugin
A little plugin I wrote for using Jekyll with Sublime.
-
5 August 2015
One Thought Per Note
The advantages of making many small notes with one thought in each.
-
3 August 2015
Sublime Syntax Definition
My own Sublime syntax definition that includes zettlekasten linmks.
-
1 July 2015
Zettelkasten Goes to Use
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my zettlekasten set up.
-
1 July 2015
Electric Archaeology
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my Skim to Markdown scripts.
-
13 May 2015
My Footnote Plugin
A plugin I wrote for Sublime that makes unique footnote references across multiple files.
-
11 May 2015
My Zettelkasten in Sublime
The way that I have my Zettlekasten set up in Sublime.
-
5 May 2015
The Zettelkasten Method
-
14 January 2015
A Weird "You" in Aristotle
An odd switch to the second person in a juicy Aristotle quote.
2014
-
29 December 2014
Von Hildebrand on Machine Culture
Dietrich von Hildebrand objects to the mechanization of the person.
-
7 November 2014
Merton on Theology
Thomas Merton claims that theology must be based in personal relationship.
-
2 August 2014
The Notebook
Pictures and description of the notebook and manual system I use.
-
28 July 2014
Chronological Association
The use of being able to place your notes within the chronological stream of your thoughts.
-
26 July 2014
Notebook Annotation
A description of the way that I go back and annotate my notebooks.
-
21 July 2014
Two Goals of Note-taking
I argue that we should separate out what I call engagement notes from memory notes.
-
13 July 2014
Skim and BibDesk Wrap-up
All my posts on Skim and BibDesk organized in one place.
-
12 July 2014
Search BibDesk
A script I wrote to seach BibDesk with a hotkey from anywhere.
-
9 July 2014
BibDesk and LaTeX Citations
Using BibDesk to keep all your bibliographic info for automatically generated footnotes in LaTeX.
-
8 July 2014
Intro to BibDesk
An introductory description of BibDesk, a program that allows you to store all your bibliographic info.
-
7 July 2014
Exporting Skim Notes
A little script I wrote for getting all your Skim notes into a single nicely formated markdown file.
-
6 July 2014
Levels of Reading
Thoughts on distinguishing different depths of reading and adjusting your habits accordingly.
-
5 July 2014
Why I Use Skim
The advantages of this wonderful PDF reader form OSX.
-
4 July 2014
Marginal Note Properties in Skim
A script I wrote for adjusting the width of marginal text notes in Skim.
-
3 July 2014
Skim Links
A script I wrote that for generating a Pandoc-style citation with an automatically generated link to the right page in Skim.
-
2 July 2014
Custom Skim URLs
Describes how to set up system-wide OSX urls for each PDF based on bibliographic info.
-
28 June 2014
Academic Plain Text
A link to a very good introduction for getting up and running with using markdown for academic writing.
-
26 June 2014
Unbelief is Disobedience
Leslie Newbigin explains the connection between faith and obedience.
-
26 June 2014
Risky Love
Vladimir Lossky describes the risk involved in God's love.
-
26 June 2014
Gilson on Deism
Gilson describes the 'ghost of the Christian God' found in Deism.
I do not want to disown all the good things that come with the modern world, and I don't think that we can turn back the clock. What I want to resist is not modernity but modernism.
I had an interesting conversation with a friend on Discord about Platonic realism. So we decided to dress it up as a Platonic dialogue.
Despite their faults, the Romans demonstrate certain virtues of seriousness that we should recover today.
-
14 October 2020
Waugh's Helena
A favorite passage from near the end of Evelyn Waugh's wonderful novel, Helena.
-
14 October 2020
Logos as Intelligibility and Intelligence Video
New video based on the previous blog post discussing the objective side of logos, intelligibility, and the subjective side, intelligence.
-
26 September 2020
Virtue and Martial Nobility
Thinking about the link between Arete and Ares, Virtue and Vir.
-
10 July 2020
Logos as Intelligibility and Intelligence
We continue to explore the meaning of the word Logos by distinguishing the objective side, intelligibility, from the subjective side, intelligence. The latter is a faculty receptive to the former.
-
5 July 2020
Cosmos and Logos Video
Here is the video based on the last blog post.
-
2 July 2020
Cosmos and Logos
In this post I explore the interesting interplay between the concepts of Logos and Cosmos. A Cosmos is an ordered arrangement of elements, which requires a source or cause for this order. Hence, Logos can be understood as the principle of organization for any Cosmos.
-
8 April 2020
Different Meanings of Substance
We should hold carefully apart two meanings of the philosophical term substance. (i) the essence or whatness of a thing and (ii) the real distinct subsistence of a thing.
-
23 January 2020
Jordan Peterson and Platonic Realism
Jordan Peterson's use of Jungian archetypes brings him close to the kind of metaphysical realism we see in Christian Platonism---close, but not quite there.
-
11 January 2020
The Kingdom of the Heavens
The last two weekends, I preached for both Lexington Christian Fellowship and Jessamine Christian Fellowship on the Kingdom of the Heavens in the Gospel of Matthew.
2019
-
10 December 2019
Religious Experience and Brain Activity
Even if we could establish a tight connection between religious experience and activity in a certain region of the brain, this would not prove religious experience to be illusory.
-
3 December 2019
Guilt by Association
We should not judge philosophical ideas or practices based on a surface similarity to unchristian systems of thought. Rather we should look out for substantive corruptions to the truth.
-
16 November 2019
Hildebrand on Sin and Sanctity
The opposite of the self-righteous man is not the sinner but the saint. The saint can be humble in his righteousness only because he walks in a deep awareness of grace.
-
9 October 2019
Traditionalism
Traditionalism is best understood as an orientation toward the timeless truth rather than an attachment to old ideas simply because they are old.
-
4 September 2019
Two Personalisms
We must distinguish the "Christian personalist" movement from what some philosophers call "theistic personalism" in contrast to "classical theism."
-
24 July 2019
What are the Forms?
Following the last post on the meaning of Platonism, I here flesh out the idea of transcendent Forms as intelligible structures that keep showing up again and again in the world of our experience.
-
27 June 2019
What I Mean by Platonism
Platonism has come to mean different things to different scholars. When I call myself a Platonist, I mean that I believe in the Forms, that I believe in real, eternal, immaterial, intelligible structures beyond the world of sense.
-
20 June 2019
Enjoying God
Gloomy Christianity develops because people learn to associate enjoyment with sin. The solution is not more games in church, but rather a revelation of God's beauty.
-
10 June 2019
Conservatism and Ideology
Ideologies are overly simplistic views of the world, which support themselves through slogans. While slogans may be practically indispensable in a democracy, conservatism is something more.
-
4 June 2019
Know Thyself
The Christian notion of self-knowledge is a long way off from New Age self-realization and not quite the same as the pagan Greek original either.
-
30 May 2019
Eros Comes from Beauty Beheld
I often encounter Christians who feel guilty because they seem to lack a certain fire or zeal in their pursuit of what they know to be true. I argue they can remedy this by recognizing a link between the psychology of eros and the time they spend imaginatively beholding the beauty of God.
-
28 May 2019
Apparently Anselm is Convincing
Teaching Anselm recently, I discovered that many of my students found the ontological argument very convincing. I think this has to do with the way older authors are presented.
2018
-
11 June 2018
No Such Thing As Subjective Truth
Just some casual reflections that I had after a friendly discussion resulted in my arguing that "subjective truth" was an oxymoron.
-
9 May 2018
Justin Martyr on the Trinity
Justin Martyr has a surprisingly developed understanding of Trinitarian doctrine for someone writing in the first half of the second century.
-
11 April 2018
Mission, Power, Authority, and the Holy Spirit
Here is the text of the sermon I preached at LCF and JCF this weekend on four themes in the book of Acts.
-
5 April 2018
Athens and Jerusalem Talk
I'm giving a talk at the Athens and Jerusalem Conference in Lawrenceburg KY on Saturday, April 7, 2018. The talk will be on the Platonic conception of the self as the soul, especially in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, and how this is different from the Christian conception. Anyone interested is invited.
-
5 February 2018
Job Teaching
Sermon delivered giving an overview of the book of Job at LCF on 2017-12-30.
2017
-
26 November 2017
Screwtape the Christian Personalist
Uncle Screwtape reveals a deeply personalistic understanding of good and evil.
-
23 November 2017
The Logos and Jordan Peterson
Reflection on the difference between my own understanding of the logos and Jordan Petersons.
-
30 September 2017
Narnian Platonism
I just finished reading all the Narnia books to my kids and ran across this wonderful bit about Plato...
-
16 September 2017
A Strong Claim from Zizioulas
Metropolitan John Zizioulas puts in a particularly striking way the historical claim that I am working on in my current book project.
-
14 September 2017
Culture of Repudiation
Roger Scruton identifies a feature of academic life that has become singularly disagreeable to me.
-
20 July 2017
Description of Early Christians to Diognetus
I ran across this beautiful description of the early Christians in the Letter to Diognetus while reading the first volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. If only we could be true to this description, how much better salted would the world be by our presence?
-
16 July 2017
Sincerity Formulated into Dogma
James Russell Lowell explains that passion and sincerity are not enough.
-
28 May 2017
Simplicity Leads to Despotism
Russell Kirk explains the connection between ideological simplicity and despotism.
-
27 May 2017
Spirit vs. Flesh in Romans 8
Here is the presentation for the sermon at the CF churches this weekend.
-
20 May 2017
Gratitude
My address at the 2017 Mars Hill graduation.
-
18 May 2017
Whittaker Chambers on Writing and Inertia
By simply picking up a pen, things can be done, if we have the will to overcome inertia.
-
18 May 2017
Burke on Moral Order
The awful Author of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence...
-
17 May 2017
Touchstone Review
My review of Dietrich von Hildebrand's Liturgy and Personality appeared in Touchstone.
-
16 May 2017
Christopher Graney on Galileo
Christopher Graney talk about Galileo.
2016
-
6 August 2016
Sublime Plugins for Pandoc
My recommendations for Sublime slugins for writers who use Pandoc.
-
11 July 2016
Pandoc
Intro to Pandoc, and why it is useful for writers.
2015
-
7 October 2015
Electric Archeology Open Notebook
Link to Shawn Graham at Electric Archeology.
-
17 September 2015
The Why and the Wherefore
Chronological association of notes by using Git.
-
12 September 2015
Definition Lists
Using markdown's definition lists in LaTeX output.
-
12 September 2015
Chicago CSL
How to get nicely styled Chicago footnotes in your LaTeX output with Pandoc.
-
10 September 2015
Git for Zettelkasten
Using Git with my zettlekasten
-
7 September 2015
Class Info in Pandoc and LaTeX
How to get typical student info into your LaTeX output using Pandoc's metadata.
-
13 August 2015
Review from Taking Note Blog
A link to some comments on the Taking Note blog regarding my setup.
-
12 August 2015
Review from Christian Tietze
A link to Christian Tietze's helpful blog about Zettlekasten.
-
11 August 2015
Going From Reading To Notes
My process of taking reading notes and getting them into my zettlekasten.
-
10 August 2015
Sertillanges - What I Think
'I read, and I write while reading; but...'
-
10 August 2015
Reading Notes
-
10 August 2015
Jekyll Post Plugin
A little plugin I wrote for using Jekyll with Sublime.
-
5 August 2015
One Thought Per Note
The advantages of making many small notes with one thought in each.
-
3 August 2015
Sublime Syntax Definition
My own Sublime syntax definition that includes zettlekasten linmks.
-
1 July 2015
Zettelkasten Goes to Use
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my zettlekasten set up.
-
1 July 2015
Electric Archaeology
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my Skim to Markdown scripts.
-
13 May 2015
My Footnote Plugin
A plugin I wrote for Sublime that makes unique footnote references across multiple files.
-
11 May 2015
My Zettelkasten in Sublime
The way that I have my Zettlekasten set up in Sublime.
-
5 May 2015
The Zettelkasten Method
-
14 January 2015
A Weird "You" in Aristotle
An odd switch to the second person in a juicy Aristotle quote.
2014
-
29 December 2014
Von Hildebrand on Machine Culture
Dietrich von Hildebrand objects to the mechanization of the person.
-
7 November 2014
Merton on Theology
Thomas Merton claims that theology must be based in personal relationship.
-
2 August 2014
The Notebook
Pictures and description of the notebook and manual system I use.
-
28 July 2014
Chronological Association
The use of being able to place your notes within the chronological stream of your thoughts.
-
26 July 2014
Notebook Annotation
A description of the way that I go back and annotate my notebooks.
-
21 July 2014
Two Goals of Note-taking
I argue that we should separate out what I call engagement notes from memory notes.
-
13 July 2014
Skim and BibDesk Wrap-up
All my posts on Skim and BibDesk organized in one place.
-
12 July 2014
Search BibDesk
A script I wrote to seach BibDesk with a hotkey from anywhere.
-
9 July 2014
BibDesk and LaTeX Citations
Using BibDesk to keep all your bibliographic info for automatically generated footnotes in LaTeX.
-
8 July 2014
Intro to BibDesk
An introductory description of BibDesk, a program that allows you to store all your bibliographic info.
-
7 July 2014
Exporting Skim Notes
A little script I wrote for getting all your Skim notes into a single nicely formated markdown file.
-
6 July 2014
Levels of Reading
Thoughts on distinguishing different depths of reading and adjusting your habits accordingly.
-
5 July 2014
Why I Use Skim
The advantages of this wonderful PDF reader form OSX.
-
4 July 2014
Marginal Note Properties in Skim
A script I wrote for adjusting the width of marginal text notes in Skim.
-
3 July 2014
Skim Links
A script I wrote that for generating a Pandoc-style citation with an automatically generated link to the right page in Skim.
-
2 July 2014
Custom Skim URLs
Describes how to set up system-wide OSX urls for each PDF based on bibliographic info.
-
28 June 2014
Academic Plain Text
A link to a very good introduction for getting up and running with using markdown for academic writing.
-
26 June 2014
Unbelief is Disobedience
Leslie Newbigin explains the connection between faith and obedience.
-
26 June 2014
Risky Love
Vladimir Lossky describes the risk involved in God's love.
-
26 June 2014
Gilson on Deism
Gilson describes the 'ghost of the Christian God' found in Deism.
Even if we could establish a tight connection between religious experience and activity in a certain region of the brain, this would not prove religious experience to be illusory.
We should not judge philosophical ideas or practices based on a surface similarity to unchristian systems of thought. Rather we should look out for substantive corruptions to the truth.
The opposite of the self-righteous man is not the sinner but the saint. The saint can be humble in his righteousness only because he walks in a deep awareness of grace.
Traditionalism is best understood as an orientation toward the timeless truth rather than an attachment to old ideas simply because they are old.
We must distinguish the "Christian personalist" movement from what some philosophers call "theistic personalism" in contrast to "classical theism."
Following the last post on the meaning of Platonism, I here flesh out the idea of transcendent Forms as intelligible structures that keep showing up again and again in the world of our experience.
Platonism has come to mean different things to different scholars. When I call myself a Platonist, I mean that I believe in the Forms, that I believe in real, eternal, immaterial, intelligible structures beyond the world of sense.
Gloomy Christianity develops because people learn to associate enjoyment with sin. The solution is not more games in church, but rather a revelation of God's beauty.
Ideologies are overly simplistic views of the world, which support themselves through slogans. While slogans may be practically indispensable in a democracy, conservatism is something more.
The Christian notion of self-knowledge is a long way off from New Age self-realization and not quite the same as the pagan Greek original either.
I often encounter Christians who feel guilty because they seem to lack a certain fire or zeal in their pursuit of what they know to be true. I argue they can remedy this by recognizing a link between the psychology of eros and the time they spend imaginatively beholding the beauty of God.
Teaching Anselm recently, I discovered that many of my students found the ontological argument very convincing. I think this has to do with the way older authors are presented.
-
11 June 2018
No Such Thing As Subjective Truth
Just some casual reflections that I had after a friendly discussion resulted in my arguing that "subjective truth" was an oxymoron.
-
9 May 2018
Justin Martyr on the Trinity
Justin Martyr has a surprisingly developed understanding of Trinitarian doctrine for someone writing in the first half of the second century.
-
11 April 2018
Mission, Power, Authority, and the Holy Spirit
Here is the text of the sermon I preached at LCF and JCF this weekend on four themes in the book of Acts.
-
5 April 2018
Athens and Jerusalem Talk
I'm giving a talk at the Athens and Jerusalem Conference in Lawrenceburg KY on Saturday, April 7, 2018. The talk will be on the Platonic conception of the self as the soul, especially in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, and how this is different from the Christian conception. Anyone interested is invited.
-
5 February 2018
Job Teaching
Sermon delivered giving an overview of the book of Job at LCF on 2017-12-30.
2017
-
26 November 2017
Screwtape the Christian Personalist
Uncle Screwtape reveals a deeply personalistic understanding of good and evil.
-
23 November 2017
The Logos and Jordan Peterson
Reflection on the difference between my own understanding of the logos and Jordan Petersons.
-
30 September 2017
Narnian Platonism
I just finished reading all the Narnia books to my kids and ran across this wonderful bit about Plato...
-
16 September 2017
A Strong Claim from Zizioulas
Metropolitan John Zizioulas puts in a particularly striking way the historical claim that I am working on in my current book project.
-
14 September 2017
Culture of Repudiation
Roger Scruton identifies a feature of academic life that has become singularly disagreeable to me.
-
20 July 2017
Description of Early Christians to Diognetus
I ran across this beautiful description of the early Christians in the Letter to Diognetus while reading the first volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. If only we could be true to this description, how much better salted would the world be by our presence?
-
16 July 2017
Sincerity Formulated into Dogma
James Russell Lowell explains that passion and sincerity are not enough.
-
28 May 2017
Simplicity Leads to Despotism
Russell Kirk explains the connection between ideological simplicity and despotism.
-
27 May 2017
Spirit vs. Flesh in Romans 8
Here is the presentation for the sermon at the CF churches this weekend.
-
20 May 2017
Gratitude
My address at the 2017 Mars Hill graduation.
-
18 May 2017
Whittaker Chambers on Writing and Inertia
By simply picking up a pen, things can be done, if we have the will to overcome inertia.
-
18 May 2017
Burke on Moral Order
The awful Author of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence...
-
17 May 2017
Touchstone Review
My review of Dietrich von Hildebrand's Liturgy and Personality appeared in Touchstone.
-
16 May 2017
Christopher Graney on Galileo
Christopher Graney talk about Galileo.
2016
-
6 August 2016
Sublime Plugins for Pandoc
My recommendations for Sublime slugins for writers who use Pandoc.
-
11 July 2016
Pandoc
Intro to Pandoc, and why it is useful for writers.
2015
-
7 October 2015
Electric Archeology Open Notebook
Link to Shawn Graham at Electric Archeology.
-
17 September 2015
The Why and the Wherefore
Chronological association of notes by using Git.
-
12 September 2015
Definition Lists
Using markdown's definition lists in LaTeX output.
-
12 September 2015
Chicago CSL
How to get nicely styled Chicago footnotes in your LaTeX output with Pandoc.
-
10 September 2015
Git for Zettelkasten
Using Git with my zettlekasten
-
7 September 2015
Class Info in Pandoc and LaTeX
How to get typical student info into your LaTeX output using Pandoc's metadata.
-
13 August 2015
Review from Taking Note Blog
A link to some comments on the Taking Note blog regarding my setup.
-
12 August 2015
Review from Christian Tietze
A link to Christian Tietze's helpful blog about Zettlekasten.
-
11 August 2015
Going From Reading To Notes
My process of taking reading notes and getting them into my zettlekasten.
-
10 August 2015
Sertillanges - What I Think
'I read, and I write while reading; but...'
-
10 August 2015
Reading Notes
-
10 August 2015
Jekyll Post Plugin
A little plugin I wrote for using Jekyll with Sublime.
-
5 August 2015
One Thought Per Note
The advantages of making many small notes with one thought in each.
-
3 August 2015
Sublime Syntax Definition
My own Sublime syntax definition that includes zettlekasten linmks.
-
1 July 2015
Zettelkasten Goes to Use
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my zettlekasten set up.
-
1 July 2015
Electric Archaeology
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my Skim to Markdown scripts.
-
13 May 2015
My Footnote Plugin
A plugin I wrote for Sublime that makes unique footnote references across multiple files.
-
11 May 2015
My Zettelkasten in Sublime
The way that I have my Zettlekasten set up in Sublime.
-
5 May 2015
The Zettelkasten Method
-
14 January 2015
A Weird "You" in Aristotle
An odd switch to the second person in a juicy Aristotle quote.
2014
-
29 December 2014
Von Hildebrand on Machine Culture
Dietrich von Hildebrand objects to the mechanization of the person.
-
7 November 2014
Merton on Theology
Thomas Merton claims that theology must be based in personal relationship.
-
2 August 2014
The Notebook
Pictures and description of the notebook and manual system I use.
-
28 July 2014
Chronological Association
The use of being able to place your notes within the chronological stream of your thoughts.
-
26 July 2014
Notebook Annotation
A description of the way that I go back and annotate my notebooks.
-
21 July 2014
Two Goals of Note-taking
I argue that we should separate out what I call engagement notes from memory notes.
-
13 July 2014
Skim and BibDesk Wrap-up
All my posts on Skim and BibDesk organized in one place.
-
12 July 2014
Search BibDesk
A script I wrote to seach BibDesk with a hotkey from anywhere.
-
9 July 2014
BibDesk and LaTeX Citations
Using BibDesk to keep all your bibliographic info for automatically generated footnotes in LaTeX.
-
8 July 2014
Intro to BibDesk
An introductory description of BibDesk, a program that allows you to store all your bibliographic info.
-
7 July 2014
Exporting Skim Notes
A little script I wrote for getting all your Skim notes into a single nicely formated markdown file.
-
6 July 2014
Levels of Reading
Thoughts on distinguishing different depths of reading and adjusting your habits accordingly.
-
5 July 2014
Why I Use Skim
The advantages of this wonderful PDF reader form OSX.
-
4 July 2014
Marginal Note Properties in Skim
A script I wrote for adjusting the width of marginal text notes in Skim.
-
3 July 2014
Skim Links
A script I wrote that for generating a Pandoc-style citation with an automatically generated link to the right page in Skim.
-
2 July 2014
Custom Skim URLs
Describes how to set up system-wide OSX urls for each PDF based on bibliographic info.
-
28 June 2014
Academic Plain Text
A link to a very good introduction for getting up and running with using markdown for academic writing.
-
26 June 2014
Unbelief is Disobedience
Leslie Newbigin explains the connection between faith and obedience.
-
26 June 2014
Risky Love
Vladimir Lossky describes the risk involved in God's love.
-
26 June 2014
Gilson on Deism
Gilson describes the 'ghost of the Christian God' found in Deism.
Uncle Screwtape reveals a deeply personalistic understanding of good and evil.
Reflection on the difference between my own understanding of the logos and Jordan Petersons.
I just finished reading all the Narnia books to my kids and ran across this wonderful bit about Plato...
Metropolitan John Zizioulas puts in a particularly striking way the historical claim that I am working on in my current book project.
Roger Scruton identifies a feature of academic life that has become singularly disagreeable to me.
I ran across this beautiful description of the early Christians in the Letter to Diognetus while reading the first volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. If only we could be true to this description, how much better salted would the world be by our presence?
James Russell Lowell explains that passion and sincerity are not enough.
Russell Kirk explains the connection between ideological simplicity and despotism.
Here is the presentation for the sermon at the CF churches this weekend.
My address at the 2017 Mars Hill graduation.
By simply picking up a pen, things can be done, if we have the will to overcome inertia.
The awful Author of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence...
My review of Dietrich von Hildebrand's Liturgy and Personality appeared in Touchstone.
Christopher Graney talk about Galileo.
-
6 August 2016
Sublime Plugins for Pandoc
My recommendations for Sublime slugins for writers who use Pandoc.
-
11 July 2016
Pandoc
Intro to Pandoc, and why it is useful for writers.
2015
-
7 October 2015
Electric Archeology Open Notebook
Link to Shawn Graham at Electric Archeology.
-
17 September 2015
The Why and the Wherefore
Chronological association of notes by using Git.
-
12 September 2015
Definition Lists
Using markdown's definition lists in LaTeX output.
-
12 September 2015
Chicago CSL
How to get nicely styled Chicago footnotes in your LaTeX output with Pandoc.
-
10 September 2015
Git for Zettelkasten
Using Git with my zettlekasten
-
7 September 2015
Class Info in Pandoc and LaTeX
How to get typical student info into your LaTeX output using Pandoc's metadata.
-
13 August 2015
Review from Taking Note Blog
A link to some comments on the Taking Note blog regarding my setup.
-
12 August 2015
Review from Christian Tietze
A link to Christian Tietze's helpful blog about Zettlekasten.
-
11 August 2015
Going From Reading To Notes
My process of taking reading notes and getting them into my zettlekasten.
-
10 August 2015
Sertillanges - What I Think
'I read, and I write while reading; but...'
-
10 August 2015
Reading Notes
-
10 August 2015
Jekyll Post Plugin
A little plugin I wrote for using Jekyll with Sublime.
-
5 August 2015
One Thought Per Note
The advantages of making many small notes with one thought in each.
-
3 August 2015
Sublime Syntax Definition
My own Sublime syntax definition that includes zettlekasten linmks.
-
1 July 2015
Zettelkasten Goes to Use
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my zettlekasten set up.
-
1 July 2015
Electric Archaeology
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my Skim to Markdown scripts.
-
13 May 2015
My Footnote Plugin
A plugin I wrote for Sublime that makes unique footnote references across multiple files.
-
11 May 2015
My Zettelkasten in Sublime
The way that I have my Zettlekasten set up in Sublime.
-
5 May 2015
The Zettelkasten Method
-
14 January 2015
A Weird "You" in Aristotle
An odd switch to the second person in a juicy Aristotle quote.
2014
-
29 December 2014
Von Hildebrand on Machine Culture
Dietrich von Hildebrand objects to the mechanization of the person.
-
7 November 2014
Merton on Theology
Thomas Merton claims that theology must be based in personal relationship.
-
2 August 2014
The Notebook
Pictures and description of the notebook and manual system I use.
-
28 July 2014
Chronological Association
The use of being able to place your notes within the chronological stream of your thoughts.
-
26 July 2014
Notebook Annotation
A description of the way that I go back and annotate my notebooks.
-
21 July 2014
Two Goals of Note-taking
I argue that we should separate out what I call engagement notes from memory notes.
-
13 July 2014
Skim and BibDesk Wrap-up
All my posts on Skim and BibDesk organized in one place.
-
12 July 2014
Search BibDesk
A script I wrote to seach BibDesk with a hotkey from anywhere.
-
9 July 2014
BibDesk and LaTeX Citations
Using BibDesk to keep all your bibliographic info for automatically generated footnotes in LaTeX.
-
8 July 2014
Intro to BibDesk
An introductory description of BibDesk, a program that allows you to store all your bibliographic info.
-
7 July 2014
Exporting Skim Notes
A little script I wrote for getting all your Skim notes into a single nicely formated markdown file.
-
6 July 2014
Levels of Reading
Thoughts on distinguishing different depths of reading and adjusting your habits accordingly.
-
5 July 2014
Why I Use Skim
The advantages of this wonderful PDF reader form OSX.
-
4 July 2014
Marginal Note Properties in Skim
A script I wrote for adjusting the width of marginal text notes in Skim.
-
3 July 2014
Skim Links
A script I wrote that for generating a Pandoc-style citation with an automatically generated link to the right page in Skim.
-
2 July 2014
Custom Skim URLs
Describes how to set up system-wide OSX urls for each PDF based on bibliographic info.
-
28 June 2014
Academic Plain Text
A link to a very good introduction for getting up and running with using markdown for academic writing.
-
26 June 2014
Unbelief is Disobedience
Leslie Newbigin explains the connection between faith and obedience.
-
26 June 2014
Risky Love
Vladimir Lossky describes the risk involved in God's love.
-
26 June 2014
Gilson on Deism
Gilson describes the 'ghost of the Christian God' found in Deism.
Link to Shawn Graham at Electric Archeology.
Chronological association of notes by using Git.
Using markdown's definition lists in LaTeX output.
How to get nicely styled Chicago footnotes in your LaTeX output with Pandoc.
Using Git with my zettlekasten
How to get typical student info into your LaTeX output using Pandoc's metadata.
A link to some comments on the Taking Note blog regarding my setup.
A link to Christian Tietze's helpful blog about Zettlekasten.
My process of taking reading notes and getting them into my zettlekasten.
'I read, and I write while reading; but...'
A little plugin I wrote for using Jekyll with Sublime.
The advantages of making many small notes with one thought in each.
My own Sublime syntax definition that includes zettlekasten linmks.
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my zettlekasten set up.
A link to Shawn Graham who is using my Skim to Markdown scripts.
A plugin I wrote for Sublime that makes unique footnote references across multiple files.
The way that I have my Zettlekasten set up in Sublime.
An odd switch to the second person in a juicy Aristotle quote.
-
29 December 2014
Von Hildebrand on Machine Culture
Dietrich von Hildebrand objects to the mechanization of the person.
-
7 November 2014
Merton on Theology
Thomas Merton claims that theology must be based in personal relationship.
-
2 August 2014
The Notebook
Pictures and description of the notebook and manual system I use.
-
28 July 2014
Chronological Association
The use of being able to place your notes within the chronological stream of your thoughts.
-
26 July 2014
Notebook Annotation
A description of the way that I go back and annotate my notebooks.
-
21 July 2014
Two Goals of Note-taking
I argue that we should separate out what I call engagement notes from memory notes.
-
13 July 2014
Skim and BibDesk Wrap-up
All my posts on Skim and BibDesk organized in one place.
-
12 July 2014
Search BibDesk
A script I wrote to seach BibDesk with a hotkey from anywhere.
-
9 July 2014
BibDesk and LaTeX Citations
Using BibDesk to keep all your bibliographic info for automatically generated footnotes in LaTeX.
-
8 July 2014
Intro to BibDesk
An introductory description of BibDesk, a program that allows you to store all your bibliographic info.
-
7 July 2014
Exporting Skim Notes
A little script I wrote for getting all your Skim notes into a single nicely formated markdown file.
-
6 July 2014
Levels of Reading
Thoughts on distinguishing different depths of reading and adjusting your habits accordingly.
-
5 July 2014
Why I Use Skim
The advantages of this wonderful PDF reader form OSX.
-
4 July 2014
Marginal Note Properties in Skim
A script I wrote for adjusting the width of marginal text notes in Skim.
-
3 July 2014
Skim Links
A script I wrote that for generating a Pandoc-style citation with an automatically generated link to the right page in Skim.
-
2 July 2014
Custom Skim URLs
Describes how to set up system-wide OSX urls for each PDF based on bibliographic info.
-
28 June 2014
Academic Plain Text
A link to a very good introduction for getting up and running with using markdown for academic writing.
-
26 June 2014
Unbelief is Disobedience
Leslie Newbigin explains the connection between faith and obedience.
-
26 June 2014
Risky Love
Vladimir Lossky describes the risk involved in God's love.
-
26 June 2014
Gilson on Deism
Gilson describes the 'ghost of the Christian God' found in Deism.