Lyceum Institute

Fall 2026 (Discussions start September 12).

Lyceum Institute Endowment Fund Contribute today to the Endowment and support the future of education!

Our Endowment Fund secures the future for a new kind of school—an educational institution not concerned with credentials but wisdom, not “preparing” students for life but building lifelong habits of love for the truth.

Learn more and donate at the link below.

Reading Circle: Pierre Manent [2026-27] Description We are all prey to competing narratives about “modernity,” its political form, and its overall intellectual and spiritual character. In particular, the growing post-liberal movement has begun to craft accounts of modernity and modern politics that can feel overly simplistic. In reaction, defenders of the liberal order often seem animated chiefly by direct opposition to the concerns that nationalist movements in America and abroad have brought to the fore.

Beginning soon: a year-long reading circle on the thinking of Pierre Manent—a critical voice on the confrontation with liberalism and the future of political philosophy.

Support - Lyceum Institute Support the Lyceum Institute, a 501c3 non-profit organization, with a variety of financial donations that enable our mission.

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The Lyceum Institute’s Operational Fund is used to provide stipends for our Faculty Fellows, cover our technology costs, expand our programs, and hold in-person events.

Learn more and donate today at the link below!
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Fall 2026 (Discussions start September 12).

Summer 2026 (discussions start June 6).

ABSTRACT: I propose a refutation of the two major arguments that support the concept of “brain death” as an ontological equivalent to death of the human organism. I begin with a critique of the notion that a body part, such as the brain, could act as “integrator” of a whole body. I then proceed with Wholes and Parts: A Thomistic Refutation of Brain Death

Brain “death” is not human death.

Controversies: Faith and Reason [Spring 2026] Description Few intellectual tensions have shaped civilization as deeply as the relation between faith and reason. From the medieval universities to the modern academy, from Islamic philosophy to Christian theology, from the synagogue to the secular state, this question persists: are revelation and philosophy fundamentally opposed—must they be?—or may they illuminate one another? In the Spring of 2026 (March-May), the Lyceum Institute will host an advanced eight-week seminar titled Controversies: Faith and Reason.

Announcing our spring 2026 seminar on the controversies of faith and reason, of revelation and philosophy: can they be reconciled? Or are they irresoluble?

Dr. Daniel De Haan (Oxford University) presents an insightful lecture on the Thomistic interpretation of “noble goods”. ABSTRACT: In this talk I present an account of noble goods (bona honesta) which situates them within a broadly Thomistic account of the natural law, human flourishing, and the v Centrality of Noble Goods (Bona Honesta) to Human Flourishing

Pursue the noble goods.

Rhetorica ad Herennium [English] Among the tasks of the Lyceum Institute is a restoration of forgotten traditions and texts. Newly produced within this initiative is our republication of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, a classic work in Roman oratory, in the English translation by Harry Caplan. This text, from roughly 80BC, informed the study of rhetoric in the days of Cicero, Quintilian, and was used to educate Scholastic and Renaissance thinkers as well.

Now available: the English translation of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, a classic text of rhetoric! Free in PDF, inexpensive in paperback.

Spring 2026 (Discussions start March 21).

Semiotics: Thought and Contributions of John Deely [Spring 2026] Description Semiotics—toward which human beings took their first explicit steps in the beginning of the Latin Age of philosophy, in the work of St. Augustine of Hippo (350–430AD), an age that culminated in the thinking of John Poinsot (1589–1644)—is that by which we begin in a true postmodernism. This is one of the key and perhaps surprising claims of John Deely…

Discover the thought of John Deely, the most important American philosopher and semiotician of the 20th/21st centuries.

Spring 2026 (discussions begin March 21).

Linguistic Signification: A Classical and Semiotic Course in Grammar & Composition Linguistic Signification: A Classical and Semiotic Course in Grammar & Composition: second, expanded edition—understanding beyond correctness.

This text (692pp) is available for purchase in both PDF ($5.75) and softcover ($30). All PDF purchases support the Lyceum Institute's Operational Fund.

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Linguistic Signification: A Classical and Semiotic Course in Grammar & Composition presents both a deeply-philosophical look at our use of language and a means to gain mastery over its use. Learn more at the link below.
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Reframing Our Understanding of Technology Technology is often discussed and conceived in extreme terms: triumphant progress, mastering nature; or self-inflicted catastrophic destruction. But rarely is the question asked—and even more rarely answered well—what is technology? How are we affected in ourselves by our technologies? The 2024 Difficulties of Technology seminar, conducted within the multiyear Humanitas Technica project, asked these and related questions across eight weeks of intense reading and conversation.

Can we solve our problems with technology if we lack an understanding of it? Now: a challenge and reframing of the technological.

Testimonials - Lyceum Institute Read and listen to testimonials from Lyceum Institute community members that explain what makes our approach beneficial to their lives.

(See if you can guess which one is a graduate student!)
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We learn little by the witness of an individual: the singular mind often is given to bias, prejudice, an idealization unmerited by the facts.

But when many persons, diverse in character and background, say the same thing, we pay more attention.

Listen to the testimonials of Lyceum members!
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Today we take up the question of metaphysical principles, and attempt to discern—in nuce—how they guide our understanding of it as a science. Contrary to the thinking of the modern mind, this requires us to grasp how “being” is predicated analogically.

Today we take up the ever-thorny question—one which vexes interpretation of the tradition and which causes every serious student of philosophy some trouble—namely, the question of translation.

Must we suffer Babel—or may we experience Pentecost?

Digital Life Improving our way of life through the internet requires carefully understanding the technology involved and building better habits of its use.

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The Lyceum Institute is restoring our use of technology to the flourishing of humanity rather than to the dehumanization today so prevalent. Learn more about how at the link below.
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What Classical Education Needs In this conversation, Geoffrey Meadows (Head of Upper School, Tulsa Classical Academy) discusses being a “hunter of causes” and the need to translate enthusiasm into hard work in classical education. Together with Dr. Kemple, he discusses the importance of philosophy, the impact of technology on education, and the necessity of moral formation in students. Geoffrey emphasizes the need for educators to be well-versed in philosophy and the liberal arts to effectively teach students.

Geoffrey Meadows joins Brian Kemple to discuss the needs of classical education, the liberal arts, philosophy, and more.

John Poinsot - Cursus Theologicus - Lyceum Institute Discover a masterwork of philosophical theology in the Thomistic tradition: an affordable publication of John Poinsot's Cursus Theologicus!

We have made the Latin Vives edition of this text available in convenient PDFs and in an affordable set of 15 paperback volumes:
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The Cursus Theologicus of John Poinsot (Joannes a Sancto Thoma) is a masterwork in theology—structured primarily as a commentary on Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, it offers not only helpful exposition of St. Thomas, but original insight as well.

Learn more at the link below.
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Fellows - Lyceum Institute The intellectual life consists in the development of the natural reasoning powers of the human soul—the growth of habits in thinking—but, although one may discover many truths by himself, the path can be greatly facilitated by the guidance of an experienced teacher. Thus, the Lyceum Institute employs Fellows to demonstrate for us the ways towards […]

Our Faculty Fellows bring experience, wisdom, and insight to their teaching—learn more about those bringing us into the light of truth:

Join us this evening for an open-topic philosophical discussion! It’s free, open to the public (anons can listen), and attended by some very smart people—including our very astute and insightful faculty!

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We have some brilliant lectures available, free to the public—some thirteen hours’ worth—now neatly organized for navigating.

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The Lyceum Institute community demonstrates an approach to education unconstrained by the limits and outmoded approach to learning which has become the norm. We believe ourselves establishing a new paradigm for education, beyond the university. Support our cause: https://bit.ly/4e0270g