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Wisdom involves two elements: (i) gaining insight into the way of things, that is, the objective structure of reality or what the Greeks would call the Logos, and (ii) learning to shape our lives in conformity with this objective order.

students gathered outdoors

During the Medieval period in which they were first organized, the universities such as Oxford operated as kingdoms unto themselves, the intellectual work associated with the vita contemplativa occurring in isolation behind cloistered walls that exempted the monkish scholars from the practical exigencies of the town’s daily life.

  Much of Boethius' work The Consolation of Philosophy speaks of luck, or Fortuna.  However, as The Consolation of Philosophy continues, the reader is brought to Boethius' inevitable conclusion.  That it is self-examination that provides humans with lasting happiness.  The Consolation of Philosophy is not necessarily a Christian work or just about suffering but, instead, the power …

A man under a tree reading a book.

The Outsider and The Enemy: Colin Wilson on Wyndham Lewis This paper was presented at the “Filibusters in Birmingham” conference on Wyndham Lewis, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, on 22nd June 2023.     In 1956, Colin Wilson published The Outsider, an overnight literary sensation that saw the 24-year-old autodidact hailed as a prodigy and …