Tag: Social Science
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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November 3, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. The October Quarterly Discussion merged two chapters from The Prince by Machiavelli with a chapter from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Of prime interest was the focus on the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Machiavelli presents him as a champion of …
October 20, 2023 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. George Bull translated the Penguin Classics version of Machiavelli’s The Prince (1999). In the introductory materials, Bull notes some of the difficulties of translating Machiavelli’s language. I find his comments particularly enlightening since they also address the problematic nature of virtue. Machiavelli clearly …
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 …
November 11, 2022 Thanks to 2022 HMU Fellow in Ideas David Kirichenko for today’s review. The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene There are defined patterns to how humans behave. Being social creatures, it is important to understand our own behaviors and motivations to grasp the reality of the world around us. In his …
November 4, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. For the October Quarterly Discussion, we read Plutarch’s “Coriolanus” and a speech by David McCullough titled “Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are.” I was not really sure if this combination would work because of the great differences between the two pieces. Plutarch’s …
September 2, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Years ago, under the pressures of student life, I read the full volume of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (often referred to as Parallel Lives). Honestly, I was dreading it because I harbored assumptions about some of these ancient texts. …
July 8, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. Happiness is of such importance that the Declaration of Independence uses it as a foundational principle. Considering its importance in my own society, one would think that I thoroughly understand the term. However, it is as slippery today as it has always been. …
June 10, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. “The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.” – John Baker, The Peregrine ”Learning is a profession….” – Zena Hitz 2022 Fellow in Ideas David Yamada recently wrote a book review that inspired me. Per his suggestion, I quickly …
Friday, May 6, 2022 Thanks to David Kirichenko, a 2022 Fellow in Ideas recipient, for today’s post. Understanding your place in the universe is difficult. It requires facing, and then transcending, your deepest concerns, with death as one of our core fears. One day you will die. Everyone you know and love will die. All …
April 15, 2022 Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post. A few random discussions inspired these thoughts about the way that scholarship has changed throughout the years. Additionally, I have been reading three very different books, which brings up questions of classification. I do not really care to categorize them. They simply demonstrate …
