Ideas in the public sphere
Philosophical engagement with culture, through writing and speaking, on topics including technology, education, spirituality, ethics, and social policy.
Ideas developed with and by scholars are not only for scholars. Sharing ideas with a wider public, through writing and speaking, reminds me that my commitment to the relevance of philosophy and the Catholic intellectual tradition must be continually proven and renewed. And the challenges of modern society are an important spur to revisit and revise our interpretation and application of past ideas.
I’ve been blessed speak with audiences at Cornell, Edinburgh, Emory, Georgetown, M.I.T., Ohio State, Oxford, Princeton, Rutgers, UC Berkely, University of Georgia, University of Toronto, West Point, Yale, and many other campuses, and to publish in Commonweal, First Things, The National Post, Public Discourse, The Wall Street Journal and other venues. Whether in co-authoring a book of practical spirituality, reviewing fiction or non-fiction, lecturing or writing for new audiences, sitting for a podcast or interview, or contributing to contemporary discussions and debates (yes, even on Twitter!), my activity as a scholar and teacher has benefited from speaking into venues outside of academia.
BOOK
A Mind at Peace:
Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction
Co-authored with Christopher O. Blum
Sophia Institute Press, 2017
A practical guide to spiritual discipline, applying Thomistic faculty psychology to the moral challenges of the modern technological environment.
NEW: Spanish translation…
Una Mente en Paz
Rialp, 2023
ESSAYS
“Is the line blurring between human and machine?,” two essays in an exchange with Jon Stokes, Pairagraph.com, November 3, 2022 and January 4, 2023.
“An American Augustine,” review essay of Wendell Berry, The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice, in Front Porch Republic, November 18, 2022.
“The Spiritual Dilemma: The Technology of Stealing Souls,” RETURN, Issue 1 (Summer 2022) 15-17.
“Technology and the Soul: The Spiritual Lessons of Digital Distraction,” The Public Discourse, March 17, 2022. [German translation by Jeppe Rasmussen, OJC, Technologie und die Seele: Die geistig-geistlichen Lehren aus der digitalen Ablenkung.]
“In Defense of Critical Race Theory,” The Public Discourse, August 1, 2021.
“A Mystic for Moderns,” review essay of Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God, in Commonweal, June 2021, 28-32.
“A Treatise on Two Cities,” review of David Novak, Athens and Jerusalem: God, Humans, and Nature (University of Toronto Press, 2019), in First Things, May 2021, 55-57.
“Once Upon a Presidency: From Populist to Dissident,” The American Mind, February 19, 2021.
“Poor Little Lamb,” review of Trevor Cribben Merrill, Minor Indignities: A Novel (Wiseblood Books, 2020), in Front Porch Republic, January 2021.
“Publisher’s Bind,” First Things, November 2020, 10-12.
“The State of the Modern American University,” two essays in an exchange with Laurence Krause, Pairagraph.com, September 21 and 23, 2020.
“Race & Anti-fragility: Wendell Berry’s ‘The Hidden Wound’ at Fifty,” Commonweal, web essay, August 5, 2020.
“The Intellectual Vocation,” review essay of How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, by Scott Newstok (Princeton University Press, 2020), Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life, by Zena Hitz (Princeton University Press, 2020), and Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader’s Guide to a More Tranquil Mind, by Alan Jacobs (Penguin Press, 2020), First Things Web Exclusive, June 12, 2019. [Spanish translation by Aurora Pimentel, “La vocación intelectual,” El Debate de Hoy, August 9, 2020.]
“Taleb’s Call to Duel,” First Things Web Exclusive, August 5, 2019.
“The Therapy of Symbols,” review of Walker Percy, Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning: Explorations in Human Nature (Mercer University Press, 2019), in Humanum: Issues in Family, Culture and Science, 2020, Issue 1 (“Quintessentially Human”: Language), pp. 45-49.
“Adventures in Learning,” review essay of Luigi Giussani, The Risk of Education (McGill-Queens University Press, 2019), Commonweal, November 2019, 69-73.
“Optionality and the Intellectual Life: In Gratitude for the Real World Risk Institute,” Front Porch Republic, November 13, 2019.
“Tracking Father Rosica’s (very) long history of plagiarism” (co-authored with Michael V. Dougherty), National Post, April 15, 2019.
“Fr. Rosica, Fraud,” First Things Web Exclusive, February 26, 2019.
“Taleb the Philosopher,” review essay of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Incerto collection, First Things, February 2019, 49-52.
“Germain Grisez: A Tribute from a Fellow Mount Professor,” guest post, CatholicMoralTheology.com, February 2, 2018.
“Don’t Ask about the Meaning of Life (an Argument in Five Blog Posts),” invited blog series, TheVirtueBlog.com, December 13-21, 2017.
“How to Look at a Tree,” feature essay in First Things, June/July 2017, 39-44.
“The Catholic Vision: Hiring for Mission More than ‘Counting Catholics,’” Commonweal, May 19, 2017, 8-10.
“Out of Their League: Two Books on Liberal Education,” review essay of In Defense of a Liberal Education, by Fareed Zakaria (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) and of Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, by Frank Bruni (Grand Central Publishing, 2015), in Commonweal, September 11, 2015, 32-34.
“Welcome to Ginger and Pickles University,” Op-ed, Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2015.
“Supporting Mission through a Speakers Policy,” A Mission Officer Handbook: Advancing Catholic Identity and University Mission, volume 2, Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, June 2014.
“The Life of the Summa,” review of Bernard McGinn, Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae: A Biography (Princeton, 2014), in Books and Culture, March/April 2015, pp. 35-36.
“How Technology Obscures Moral Agency,” blog post, CatholicMoralTheology.com, February 6, 2015.
“What’s Wrong With Ockham? Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West,” Anamnesis, Web Essay, December, 2014.
“Scholasticism,” in New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, ed. Gavin McGrath, W. C. Cambell-Jack, and C. Stephen Evans (InterVarsity Press, 2006), pp. 639-642.
“Globalization: Ancient and Modern,” in Intercollegiate Review 41 (Spring 2006): 40-48. Subsequently produced as an MP3 “audio reprint” read by Ken Myers, Mars Hill Audio (marshillaudio.org, catalog #: ARP-3-D).
“‘Questions of Truth and Falsehood Never Entered His Imagination!’ The Double Irony of Frank Turner’s John Henry Newman,” The New Pantagruel, vol. 1, no. 1 (2004).
“The Virgin and the Dynamo,” review of The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness, by Virginia Postrel, and of The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, by Virginia Postrel, in The University Bookman 43 (2003): 33-38.
“Building Community,” review of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, in The Intercollegiate Review 37 (Spring 2002): 58-62.
LECTURES
Many of these lectures can be accessed via SoundCloud
“Recovering the Substance of Eucharistic Doctrine: Logic, Metaphysics, and the Conceptual Framework of ‘Transubstantiation,’” Saint Thomas Day Lecture, Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, California, March 7, 2024.
“The Fellowship of Happiness: Classical and Christian Perspectives on Love and Friendship,” Catholic Studies Lecture, University of Scranton, February 23, 2024.
“Technology, Neuroscience and Thomistic Psychology: Learning from Metaphors for Mind,” Thomistic Institute, University of Pittsburg / Carnegie Mellon University, December 5, 2023.
“Natural Law and the U.S. Constitution: A Thomistic Introduction,” Thomistic Institute, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, MI, November 10, 2023.
“Plato’s (Philosophical) Theology of the Body,” Thomistic Institute, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH, November 3, 2023.
“Neuroscience and the Soul: What We Can Learn from Metaphors for Mind,” Thomistic Institute, Miami University, Miami, FL, September 29, 2023.
“‘Social Evil’? Aquinas on Social Structures and Social Justice,” 12th Annual Summer Philosophy Workshop of the Thomistic Institute, Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, NY, May 31-June 4, 2023.
“Is Integrated Learning Still Possible? The Role of Philosophy in Liberal Education,” Thomistic Institute, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, April 27, 2023.
“How Is My iPhone Changing Me? Neuroscience and Thomistic Psychology,” Thomistic Institute — D.C. chapter, St. Mary’s Lyceum, Alexandria, Virginia, April 25, 2023.
“Mental Peace: Is It Possible, and How Can Philosophy Help?” Thomistic Institute, Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia, April 10, 2023.
“What is Love? Plato’s (Philosophical) Theology of the Body,” Thomistic Institute, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, March 30, 2023.
“Philosophy as the Handmaid of Spirituality: Thomistic Psychology and Mental Peace,” Aquinas Institute for Catholic Life, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, February 24, 2023.
“The Fellowship of Happiness: Classical and Christian Perspectives on Love and Friendship,” Thomistic Institute, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, New York City, October 28, 2022.
“What Does it Mean to Think? What We Can Learn from Metaphors for Mind,” Thomistic Institute, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, October 25, 2022.
“Aquinas’s Fourth Way: Humility vs. Skepticism in Theological Reasoning,” Thomistic Institute, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, October 13, 2022.
“Is Virtue Enough? The Contortions of Ethics Without God,” Thomistic Institute, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, April 22, 2022.
“Is Belief in God Rational? Aquinas on Living with the Limits of Reason,” Thomistic Institute, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, April 7, 2022.
“Why You Can’t Reverse-Engineer Human Beings: The Metaphysics of the Soul,” Thomistic Institute, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, March 3, 2022.
“Faith, Reason, and Reasonable Belief,” Thomistic Institute, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, February 24, 2022.
“How Are Smartphones Changing Us? Neuroscience and Thomistic Psychology,” Thomistic Institute, University of Dallas (via Zoom), February 4, 2022.
“Is Free Will an Illusion?” Thomistic Institute, North Carolina State University, January 27, 2022.
“Activity and Purpose: Aristotle’s Four Causes and the Possibility of Science,” The Newman Center, Ohio Youngstown University, Youngstown, Ohio, Dececember 3, 2021.
“Does Nature Make Laws? An Introduction to the Natural Law Tradition,” Thomistic Institute, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., December 2, 2021.
“How Is My iPhone Changing Me? Neuroscience and Thomistic Psychology,” West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, November 5, 2021.
“A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Engineered Distraction,” Faith and Reason Lecture, Newman Centre, University of Toronto, November 11, 2021. (Via Zoom)
“Activity and Purpose: Aristotle’s Four Causes and the Possibility of Science,” Thomistic Institute, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, September 9, 2021.
“Proofs for God’s Existence: Aquinas on Reason, Uncertainty, and Faith,” Thomistic Institute, University of Texas at El Paso, March 10, 2021.
“Is Free Will an Illusion?” Thomistic Institute, Auburn University, February 24, 2021.
“Does Nature Make Laws? An Introduction to the Natural Law Tradition,” Thomistic Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, November 2, 2020.
“Does God Exist? And How Could We Know?” Thomistic Institute, West Virginia University, October 16, 2020.
“Brownson’s Critique of Slavery at the Mount” (Mount St. Mary’s University social justice teach-in presentation on Orestes Brownson’s 1853 “Oration on Liberal Studies”), February 25, 2020.
“The Lost Social Teaching on Racism” (Mount St. Mary’s University social justice teach-in presentation on Fr. John La Farge’s draft encyclical Humani Generis Unitas, “On the Unity of the Human Race”), February 25, 2020.
“True Friendship: Lessons from the Classical and Christian Traditions,” Thomistic Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 4, 2020.
“Why Go Back to Aristotle? How Classical Philosophy Makes You Antifragile,” lecture for Great Hearts Academies, Phoenix, Arizona, December 5, 2019.
“Is Belief in God Rational? Thomas Aquinas on Skepticism and Theological Knowledge,” Thomistic Institute, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, December 3, 2019
“Wendell Berry, Political Philosophy, and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition,” Thomistic Institute, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, October 24, 2019.
“Saint John Henry Newman on the Complexity of Knowledge,” Thomistic Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, October 22, 2019.
“John Henry Newman’s Critique of Liberalism: Lessons from the Aristotelian Tradition,” Thomistic Institute, University of California, Berkeley, November 15, 2017.
“How Not to Ask about the Meaning of Life,” Thomistic Institute, University of Maryland, October 12, 2017.
“Autonomy, Meaning, and Existential Purpose: Sartre and Aquinas on Freedom and Human Nature,” Thomistic Institute, Yale University, March 6, 2017.
“What’s Wrong With Ockham? Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West,” Opening Address for the 4th Annual Ciceronian Society Conference, Mount St. Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, MD, March 27, 2014.
“Orestes Brownson, American Cicero,” Opening Address for the 3rd Annual Ciceronian Society Conference, Mount St. Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, MD, February 28, 2013.
“Subsidiarity, Community, and Personhood,” Human Scale and the Human Good, conference sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and the Front Porch Republic, Mount St. Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, MD, September 24, 2011.
“Virtue Ethics in an Age of Relativism,” Thomas Aquinas & Contemporary Philosophy, Workshop sponsored by the Catholic Dominican Institute and the Thomistic Institute, Newburgh, NY, June 23-26, 2011.
“The Problem of ‘Liberalism’: Lessons from John Henry Newman,” invited lecture at Christendom College, October 6, 2010.
“Place and the Virtues of Acknowledged Dependence: Reflections from Eliot and MacIntyre,” conference on “Liberty, Community and Place in the American Tradition,” Charlottesville, Virginia, March 23-24, 2007.
“Human Dignity and Practical Reason,” response to Patrick Lee and Robert George, “Human Dignity,” conference on “The Philosophical Foundations of Human Dignity,” Thomas International, Washington, DC, March 8-10, 2007.
“Whose Ownership? Which Society? Three Cultural Advantages of Real over Abstract Property,” conference on “The Ownership Society: Principles and Prospects,” Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 7-8, 2005.
VIDEOS
A few examples here. Other lectures, podcasts, and interviews are collected on these playlists on YouTube.
Saint Thomas Day Lecture, “Recovering the Substance of Eucharistic Doctrine” (2024)
Informational video, “Are Vaccine Mandates Ethical?” (2021)
Presentation to Great Hearts schools (Arizona) about “How Classical Philosophy Makes You Antifragile” (2019)
Conversation with Marcus Grodi, on the Journey Home, about my conversion to Catholicism (2018)