Imagine a friend you have had since childhood has been tried, convicted, and now will be executed for a crime he did not commit. Now imagine that you have the means for him to escape and can provide a safe... Continue Reading →
In the “Symposium,” Diotima, who is described by Socrates as the women who taught him all he knows about love, but also as a sophist, describes a ladder of love. Desirous of beauty, she says that individuals ascend from limited... Continue Reading →
The Divine Comedy, Dante wakes up lost in a dark woods. He has to take a terrifying and arduous journey - first through Inferno, then up Mount Purgatory and finally through the dizzying spheres of Paradise before he can finally... Continue Reading →
In the Confessions, Augustine writes “my heart is restless until it rests in you.” In a book that describes Augustine’s many failures, particularly his failure to sufficiently love others, this phrase explicitly explains Augustine’s incapacity to find peace until he... Continue Reading →
Today all the leaves got undressed in our yard and expected me to pick up after them. And let me tell you, it looked like those trees had invited their friends and relatives to do the same - a variable... Continue Reading →
Running thematically throughout Shakespeare's The Tempest is the desire for freedom and how this desire might be incorporated into a just and stable political community. Ariel, Caliban, and even Miranda, for instance, all seek in their own ways to be... Continue Reading →
I am not a patient person. I hate waiting. I hate the wasted time involved in running errands. Relaxing is not a skill I desire nor one which I posses. Patience is no virtue. And whoever said that was a... Continue Reading →