A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke 6 Mondays, July 27 to August 31, 2010 Ever since its first appearance in 1859, Mill’s book has been generally considered the single most powerful and persuasive statement of the moral grounds for true or “classical” liberalism, the philosophy of the free society …(Read More)
A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke 2011-2012 The intellectual crisis of the modern world is the conflict between the physical sciences and the basic human values. Physics and chemistry, together with much of biology, have been immensely successful in giving us knowledge of the world we live in. Yet …(Read More)
A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke Six Mondays, November 16 to December 21, 2009 The ethical foundation of the market system lies in the principle of mutual benefit. Any market transaction takes place only because both parties consider they will benefit. If only one party expects to benefit, no …(Read More)
A Course with Patrick Barron October 1 through October 22, 2009 This course will review the tenets of classical, nineteenth-century, free market liberalism. Starting with universally accepted laws of human action, such as that man acts purposefully, an elegant structure of economic theory emerged based upon the sanctity of the …(Read More)
A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke Six Tuesdays, September 29 to November 3, 2009 After a general introduction to Aquinas, highlighting especially his relationship to Aristotle, this course will focus where he focuses at the beginning of the Summa Theologica, on the concept of God. This is relevant to …(Read More)
A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke Six Mondays, September 28 to November 2, 2009 Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was the first systematic treatise on morality. It has been the foundation of two thousand years of Western ethical philosophy. If Western civilization has been different from other civilizations, a good part …(Read More)
A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke Six Wednesdays, Sept. 23 to Oct. 28, 2009 True or “classical” liberalism is the philosophy of the free society with free markets. This is what the word “liberalism” originally meant in the nineteenth century when it was coined, and what it still means …(Read More)
A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke Six Sessions, July 8 through August 11, 2009 Unlike many thinkers of the Enlightenment, a movement that exalted scientific rationality, Edmund Burke saw that the roots of man’s social existence lie in deeper soil, in concrete attachments, history, custom, lived experience and nature, …(Read More)
A Course with Professor Thomas Patrick Burke Tuesdays, June 2 to July 7 The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles published in 1787 and 1788, mainly in two New York newspapers, arguing that the Constitution which had emerged from the Philadelphia Convention should be ratified by the states. …(Read More)
A Course with Thomas Patrick Burke Thursdays, April 30 to June 4, Six Sessions, 2009 Does the free society, of which we are rightly so proud, rest ultimately only on its utility, its practical usefulness and effectiveness in satisfying human needs, or is it based on deeper foundations in ethical …(Read More)