




Category: Philosophy
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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Thanks to Aaron Ducksworth, a 2023 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post. November 10, 2023 Many movies of various genres have been made about the relationship between humans and anthropomorphic technology and the complicated relationship between them – think The Terminator franchise (1984-2019), I, Robot (2004), Virtuosity (1995), and The Matrix franchise (1999-2021). M3GAN is …

October 27, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Viola Cordova was one of the first Native American women to earn a degree in philosophy. Born in 1937, she grew up in Taos, New Mexico. Embracing both her own past and her curiosity of the world, she discarded notions that philosophy should …

October 6, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. I recently attended a conference in which the speaker mentioned that, despite all of humanity’s vast resources, there has been no visible or recognizable increase in human wisdom. The speaker desired proof of some growth in wisdom which would demonstrate that, over time, …

September 8, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. If it’s been awhile since you have read Machiavelli’s The Prince, you might consider reading an excerpt with us this fall. We will examine two chapters of it in the October Quarterly Discussion. (Reach out to Alissa at as****@hm*.edu for more information). I …

September 1, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. The following poem is constructed entirely from Sections VI-XI from Chapter III (“The Order of Nature”) in Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality. To create the poem, I simply chose sections of text from Whitehead’s own words. Therefore, none of the remaining words …
August 25, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s blog. Don’t forget the sensations, Whitehead reminds us. Near the end of “Part II: Discussions and Applications” in Whitehead’s book Process and Reality, he mentions his frustration at the fact that philosophers (logicians, really) have discarded emotion as largely unworthy of discussion. He notes …
August 18, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Harrison Middleton University hosts regularly scheduled discussions for the public as well as students. Open to anyone interested in intellectual discussion, short, easily digestible readings are provided electronically. If you’re interested in more information, reach me at as****@hm*.edu. Our most recent Quarterly Discussion …
May 12, 2023 Thanks to Ally Zlatar, a 2023 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post. Emil Cioran’s The Trouble with Being Born is a collection of philosophical essays that takes the reader on a journey into the darkest depths of human existence. The book is a masterpiece of alternative writing style, which is a refreshing …
February 17, 2023 Thanks to James Robertson, HMU student, for today’s blog. In a poem, Whitman writes “This is no book; who touches this touches a man” (Leaves of Grass). In contrast, Plato has Socrates observe that “writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet …
January 27, 2023 Thanks to James Robertson, HMU student, for today’s post. Learning with Harrison Middleton involves immersion in a world of books and of reading, and is often an experience of enchantment, as now this author and now that nearly captures the heart. There is power in these books, ancient though they may be, …