My Boethius Publication Schedule can be found here.

My Boethius Publication Schedule can be found here. If you'd like to get these podcasts in first-release, please visit my Locals Community page, and subscribe! Your subscription will also entitle you to participate in the curated discussion. Sign up now, to join in the discussion.

Librivox version of The Gorgias can be found here.

My Boethius Publication Schedule can be found here.

I couldn't think of a good way to work in the famous passage from Acts 17, but that's hovering in the background of this, as well...

Also, a segment from a lecture by Dominican Father Dominic Legge, on the question of intellectual pleasure. You can find the original lecture here.

Also, a segment from a Paula Gooder lecture, on the question of glory. You can find the original lecture here. 

For all the snide dismissals of Plato's theory, nobody has ever bothered to explain to me why the Forms are no longer taken seriously, or how they’ve been shown to be disreputable. The point of the podcast is to answer for myself those 'why' and 'how' questions. In order to be confident of why I ought to either accept or reject this theory, I need to understand the theory, and to understand it, I need to portray it to myself, as closely as possible as Plato would have portrayed it to himself. Along the way, I hope you find this useful as well.

NOTE: I did not do these interviews. They were done by Cambridge University, in an effort to promote the album created by the project discussed in the interviews. If you'd like to know more about the project, please visit their website: https://boethius.mus.cam.ac.uk/. If you'd like to purchase the album they created, you can find it on Amazon (link provided here).

The first episode covers both chapters one and two, of Book one. I am making this episode available to all comers to the Exiting the Cave community page, to provide a taste of what awaits those who are generous enough to support what I do

The Categories is Aristotle’s first attempt to outline a theory of being, in addition to the work’s central focus, which is to provide an account of the ways in which we think about being, and beings. In total, there are ten categories of thought about being, but the core of his theory of being begins with the first category. This is what he called “substance”. This essay will summarize Aristotle’s conception of substance as he presents it in The Categories, briefly explain what distinguishes substance from the other categories, and offer some additional thoughts about the metaphysics of being, in relation to Aristotle’s mentor, Plato.

In the Physics, Aristotle says that we aim at understanding, which he says is to be able to give a full account of “the how and the why of things coming into existence and going out of it”. In other words, to understand something is to be able to give an explanation of how and why a thing changes. That explanation is what Aristotle means by ‘cause’. Today, thinking of explanation in terms of causes is not an alien notion. But, when we do this, we are typically only thinking in one narrow scientific sense of the term. Aristotle, however, describes a theory of causal explanation in both the Physics and the Metaphysics that includes four separate categorical senses of the term. Aristotle insists that a complete explanation will appeal to all four of these kinds of cause. In this answer, I will briefly describe the four causes, and attempt to explain why the fourth, ‘final’ cause is primary in Aristotle’s theory.

This post is my first foray into the question of whether or not there is a God. Before I can begin to attempt an answer, I need to explore a deeper question. Namely, what is the nature of this question? What exactly are we asking, when we ask this question? I want to suggest that this question is best understood as a fundamental choice, and that the choice is not simply one of satisfying an ontological preference, but one of universal significance. The way one answers this question will define one’s entire life, indeed all life. It will condition the content of all of one’s relationships, and predispose the outcome of every subsequent choice. It will frame every subsequent question you will ask yourself, from the nature of morality and history, to the kinds of activities you engage in, day to day. This choice lies at the center of everything it means to exist, and to be human. Which fork of the dilemma you choose, is therefore, the most important choice you will ever make.

For all the controversy involved with such debate, this book invites the reader to engage with an ethical appraisal of religion(s) as they are practised today. It is written in the belief that this is an important dialogue for our time. It claims, despite the emotive character of the subject, that the free exchange of ideas and experience between people of differing views and commitments can with practice generate more light than heat.

Particular effort is made to answer the question: how can we fairly evaluate the ethical character of religion(s)? It focuses especially but not at all exclusively on the religions of Christianity and Islam, being critical of them in many respects; but it also offers sharp rebuke to some of the perspectives of Richard Dawkins and others among the new atheists.

John Holroyd's Blog

Amazon Book Page

London School Of Philosophy

https://gmgauthier.com/post/a-conversation-with-artur-schopenhauer-on-his-conception-of-freedom/

The following is a dialogue between myself and Artur Schopenhauer, in which I basically try to interrogate the text as if I were talking directly to Schopenhauer, in an interview or discussion. All of Dr. Schopenhauer’s responses below come from the text of his essay, either as direct quotes or as slight rephrasing, in order to fit them into the flow of a conversation. It should be noted that I have not read World As Will And Representation (written before this essay), and that I have only a cursory knowledge of Schopenhauer’s biography. So, it is likely that additional context might have made this more insightful. In any case, this is meant only to offer an engaging way to consider the basic ideas contained within this essay, not as a serious critique of Schopenhauer, as such. I hope you enjoy it…