John Sexton— Over twenty-five years ago, in a speech at Saint Louis University, I focused on a too-little-noticed day in 1957, a turning point in American history: October 8, 1957. The day’s edition of New York’s major tabloid the Daily News bore two screaming headlines. The first announced the demise of
Bill Vitek— As a philosopher and educator, and currently without students or courses to teach, I ponder and write about this moment with my stock-and-trade academic training, but also as a parent, spouse, brother, friend, and neighbor. I can report that currently all in my immediate orbit are reasonably safe
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg— The tendency of meaning to burn out of language is a constant theme in Nietzsche’s writings. Here lies the paradox of the stammer: May your virtue be too exalted for the familiarity of names: and if you must speak of her, then do not be ashamed to
Kathryn Sikkink— Sometimes we get so enamored with our rights that we forget about our corresponding responsibilities. In order to fully realize our own rights and the rights of others, we also need to embrace and practice responsibilities. For example, people in the United States like to think they have
Stephen Batchelor— Even on long summer days in rural England when it would not get dark until 10 pm, my mother insisted on sending her two sons to bed early, which I thought both unfair and pointless. Unable to sleep, I would close my eyes and imagine my prone body
Laszlo F. Foldenyi— In Venice, in an of the out-of-the-way corner of the Piazzetta located at the corner of the basilica of Saint Mark, there is a statuary group depicting the Four Tetrarchs. Carved out of the hardest granite, the sculpture, dating from the beginning of the fourth century, depicts
John Hainze— The Endangered Species Act is one of the premier environmental laws in the United States. It offers protection for endangered and threatened organisms both large and small—from orchids to insects to bears. That the Act does not differentiate between charismatic animals and those of a lesser pedigree is
Giambattista Vico— Wisdom is the faculty that commands all the disciplines; by these, all the sciences and arts that complete our humanity are apprehended. Plato defines wisdom as that which is the perfecter of man. Man, in the being proper to him as a man, is nothing other than mind and
Musonius Rufus— In order to support more easily and more cheerfully those hardships which we may expect to suffer in behalf of virtue and goodness, it is useful to recall what hardships people will endure for unworthy ends. Thus for example consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of
James Livesey— The history of the self is vitally important, and the contrast between the French and British histories is highly instructive. The self, or at least the version of the self as self-determining individual, is the postulate of every variety of liberalism and its institutions, and it is clear