By Gerald Therrien Refer here for Part 1 and Part 2 to this series. Now, we must leave the second scene, and move towards the third and last scene in the painting, and look at those persons who are found in the right foreground, at the bottom of the stairs. But, we had seen,…
Tag: Philosophy
A Look at C.S. Lewis’ Sci-fi Trilogy: A Journey Out of H.G. Wells’ Deep Black Void
The following is the transcript of Part 1 of a three part lecture series Cynthia Chung delivered to the Rising Tide Foundation on the sci-fi trilogy by C.S. Lewis. In this first installment, I focus on a comparison between C.S. Lewis’ “Out of the Silent Planet” and H.G. Wells’ “The First Men in the Moon” sci-fi novels. For those…
Francisco de Goya: Master Critic of the Human Condition
By Adam Sedia Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) is one of Spain’s best known painters. Heir to the tradition of El Greco, Velázquez, Murillo, and Zurbarán, textbooks consider him the last of the Old Masters and simultaneously first of the moderns. But Goya’s importance derives from a deeply individual approach to his subject matter,…
C.S. Lewis’ “Weight of Glory”: Longing in the Poets, Composers & Theologians
By David Gosselin C.S. Lewis famously discussed the role of an eternal “longing” found in each mortal human being. Lewis referred to this longing using a specific German word, “Sehnsucht.” For Lewis, the longing for a something in the distance and an awareness of its unattainability within this world lay at the heart of man’s…
All Possibilities Actualized, or The Dimensions of Time
By Dr. Michael Clarage Time has different dimensions, just like space. Words like “now”, “eternity”, “possibilities” refer to dimensions of time, just as “length”, “area”, and “volume” refer to dimensions of space. With this essay I hope to show how on the topic of TIME, Physics can re-join its historical siblings after too many years…
What is and to what end do we study Universal History?
In 1789, the world was electrified with an idea that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. If this proposition be true, then the entire paradigm of government practiced since ancient times had to be completely transformed from systems of hereditary power enforcing the rule of might makes…
Plato’s Fight Against Apollo’s Temple of Delphi and the Cult of Democracy
By Cynthia Chung Homer’s great poems that are left to us today, The Iliad and The Odyssey, describe the events of the Trojan War and its immediate aftermath, events which marked the descent of Greece into a Dark Age. Following the Trojan War, c.1190 BCE, the civilization of mainland Greece collapsed, written language was lost, and cities disappeared….
The Poetic Principle in the World of the I Ching: Mankind’s Long Journey to Reason and Beauty
In this lecture Dr. Quan Le focuses on the I Ching, the first Confucian Classic (of five: Yi Jing, Shu Jing, Shi Jing, Chun Qiu and Zhou Li) which magnificently embodies the poetic principle famously outlined by Shelley, centuries later, in his Defense of Poetry which re-asserted that Poets are the true legislators of the world….
The Epistemological Lessons of Frank Herbert’s Dune and Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy
Many have read Frank Herbert’s famous series of science fiction books titled ‘Dune’ (or at least watched the film versions of the story) and many have read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. Few have come to recognize the layers of geopolitical and epistemological insights bubbling under the surface of these works. On Wednesday February 1st 2023,…
How to Conquer Tyranny: A Lesson from Plato
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Plato’s Letter VII Plato to Dion’s associates and friends wishes well-doing. You write to me that I must consider your views the same as those of Dion, and you urge me to aid your cause so far as I can…