Poets & Philosophers

Sam wrote a paper on Kierkegaard... of course he did. We discuss how the therapist Carl Rogers misreads Kierkegaard's phrase "becoming who you are." Rogers strips out the theological context of Kierkegaard's phrase to use it for his own ends.

PDF of The Great Conversation We're talking about the Great Books of the Western World. It's a 50+ volume set created by Mortimer Adler and many other academics. In particular we're talking about the first volume, titled "The Great Conversation" It was written by Robert Hutchins, the President of the University of Chicago.

Dr. Hamilton is a professor in the Biblical Studies Department at Florida College. He has developed at habit of reading the Lord of the Rings every year. In this episode we discuss the timelessness of Tolkien's work including how Christians can read this work.

We discuss the medieval form of education called disputation where two students will argue over a point in the lesson to understand it better.

Dr. Woods is the Headmaster at Veritas Christian Academy. He also founded the Great Books program at Faulkner University. We interview him about his book Mortimer Adler: The Paideia Way of Classical Education Mortimer Adler was the "every-man's philosopher" as well as an educational reformer. In Dr. Woods' book he brings us to Mortimer Adler and the goals he sought to reform education to be focused around the Great Books. Books Mentioned Adler, Reforming Education: Opening of the American Mind           The Difference of Man and the Difference if Makes           The Paideia Program           The Paideia Proposal Comeius, The Great Didactic Veith, Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping American --- Collections The Great Books of the Western World Gateway to the Great Books Great Ideas Program

The book on Amazon. Beowulf is a wonderful ancient story of a larger-than-life man named Beowulf. In the podcast we discuss our thoughts after reading the book and how Beowulf is a timeless story. Features of this Episode We discuss Tolkien's seminal lecture, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics Ted Sherman's Lecture on Tolkien's Lecture The Writer and Audience of Beowulf The need for Stories

You know of C.S. Lewis. You know of J.R.R. Tolkien. But do you know Owen Barfield? You may after this episode. Barfield was one of Lewis' key interlocutors on his journey from Materialism to Christianity. How to persuade such a mind as C.S. Lewis, listen to find out. In this episode, we discuss, Owens' writings How the imagination is the organ of meaning Why using a story to propagate a message is not something that Barfield, Lewis, or Tolkien would agree with the audio is this is a bit rougher than normal

Politics. Everyone has an opinion on politics, even Socrates. In this episode we cover the Republic's Book 8. We discuss: 3 Ordered and 3 disordered regimes Socrates' solution to politics - The Philosopher-King How Christians can think about politics

In this episode, we discuss Irving Babbit’s Essay Two Types of Humanitarians Bacon and Rousseau. We discuss Our understanding of human nature reflects our education philosophy The classical, Baconian, and Rousseauian view of Human Nature The Scriptures insight into human nature

The basis of the poets is story. A story is an imitation of life. Why do we love stories? Why is there Hollywood and Bollywood? What should Christian make of these stories? In this episode we will discuss the purpose of stories according to Aristotle, the genres of stories, and how Christian should engage them.