February | 2019 | Discourses on Minerva | Page 2
This essay is abstracted from my lectures on the Epic of Gilgamesh, an audio recording is available below through the YT video: The most memorable character of the Epic of Gilgamesh is probably Enkidu, the wild-man created by the god Aruru to rival and challenge Gilgamesh but who befriends Gilgamesh and whose death causes … Continue reading The Philosophy of the Epic of Gilgamesh, 2: Enkidu and the Cult of Sex and Civilization
This essay is abstracted from my lectures on the Epic of Gilgamesh, an audio recording is available below through the YT video: The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest work of extant literature in the world as of 2018. The text was discovered in the nineteenth century and patched together into a working piece … Continue reading The Philosophy of the Epic of Gilgamesh, 1: Gilgamesh and the Hegelian “Hero”
Cicero is the most important of the Roman philosophers; a Roman Platonist and Stoic, he is responsible for attempting to synthesize strands of Platonic and Stoic thought into a coherent body of mostly political philosophy. It may not be farfetched to assert that Cicero is the first synthetic political philosopher and the second systematic political … Continue reading Cicero and the Foundations of Natural Law
Socialism, especially “democratic socialism,” is all the rage. It was all the rage in the 1800s. It was all the rage in the 1900s. And it is all the rage in the 2000s, especially since 2008. To paraphrase Aristotle, to speak falsely of something is to speak falsely of it; to speak truthfully of something … Continue reading Marx Against the “Socialists”
The decline of cultural Christianity, along with intellectual Christianity, has brought with it a debased Atheism without consciousness, inspiration, or stories. It has also been met by a renewed and vigorous neo-“paganism.” The romantic mind of these new pagans, many associated with the so-called Alt-Right, present the portrait of a redeemed paganism that was—ironically—the product … Continue reading The Spectacular Violence of the Greek Gods: Hesiod, Homer, and Greek Theodic Tradition
Saint Augustine’s Confessions is one of the most famous works of spiritual autobiography and, in the minds of many contemporary psychoanalysts and phenomenologists, the spiritual forerunner to psychological interiority and phenomenology. The book is not excessively long, but it is exceptionally dense; particularly Books X-XIII which shift from spiritual autobiographical confession to psychological, philosophical, and … Continue reading Augustine on Christ, Time, and Eternity in Genesis 1
The Face of God, the book form of Roger Scruton’s Gifford Lectures, is the first of a two-part collection of lectures turned into books that tie together the English philosopher’s assessment and challenge of the modern world (the other being The Soul of the World). “Lord Gifford was not an orthodox adherent of any religion, … Continue reading Recovering Subjectivity: Roger Scruton’s “The Face of God”
How the mighty are fallen! National Review, once a respectable conservative publication which had editors at writers like Joe Sobran, Paul Gottfried, and Mel Bradford, is now a worth-nothing rag. The proud writers at National Review who came out as forceful #NeverTrumpers, backed off to tacit support for the 45th President of the United States, … Continue reading Against National Review