As an academic philosopher, what’s your elevator pitch to incoming college students about why they should study philosophy, a discipline that seems to draw fewer majors every year?

There are powers and principalities in this world that want to harm you, lie to you, addict you and corrupt your soul. Philosophy gives you a really great lie detector. It also gives you a great set of tools for knowing the truth, loving the truth and doing the truth.

Read the essay at America Magazine.

What if you had the cure for a terrible disease—what would be your obligation to make that cure known?

What if the terrible disease for which you had the cure were alienation from God? Then what would your obligation be to make that cure known?

Read this essay at Catholic World Report.

Who said this? And when?

The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what’s been taught and what’s been left out. But these young people today have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into the depths of confusion you didn’t know existed.

Continue reading this essay at The Classical Difference.