Books to Read

I’ve been reading in snatches of a page or two at a time a book that fell out of heaven into my lap at the conference this summer. If you are interested in a theological and philosophical understanding of the place of rhetoric in the Christian classical tradition, I don’t think you’ll find a book more [...]

Training the Inward Eye

Bryan Smith presented some ideas on the importance of memory at the conference last summer. His talk was called Training the Inward Eye, and in it he showed how important memorizing good literature and rich texts is. Dr. Smith is one of those people with a deep learning that he politely veils for us so [...]

The Place of Technology

A little over a month ago, my back went out on me. For four days I lay in bed with a continual supply of ice and Advil, virtually unable to move. Finally, after no improvement, I went to my doctor, a kinesiologist. He told me that I did something to my disk while swimming the butterfly [...]

Authority and memorizing

Modern thought resides in the realm of fantasy, perhaps nowhere moreso than on the question of authority. The Middle Ages are mocked for their constant appeal to authority, an appeal that Francis Bacon is supposed to have freed the human race from with his Novum Organon, an appeal to use the nascent scientific method of [...]