Telos Academy

The Odyssey recently surged into the news with Christopher Nolan's adaptation. That book represents both the pinnacle and foundation of epic poetry, Greek or otherwise. This semester will be devoted to a careful study of The Odyssey as political philosophy and poetry. The course will bring out insights into war, honor, truth, nature, religion, love, civilization, and so much more. Join us as we return to the beginning of Greek thought.

Technology is coexistent with humanity. The concept of technology and the problem it poses emerged prominently among the Greeks and remains with us. This summer we will offer three short courses on science and technology as understood in political philosophy, with an eye toward the contemporary political questions surrounding AI, both conceptually and practically. The courses will cover great thinkers including Plato, Descartes, Bacon, and Heidegger.

Introduction to Politics, Science, and Technology (Taught by Jason Lund):

Who deserves to rule, the scientist or the statesman? In this course, we will sound out Plato's and Francis Bacon's competing visions of the proper place of science and technology in political life.

The Modern Scientific Project (Taught by Ralph Hancock):

"When they [the champions of modern civilization] think they have shown that they are no more than beasts, they act as proud as if they had demonstrated they were gods.” With these words Tocqueville captured the awesome and inhuman power of the modern idea of science: promising limitless improvement in the human condition, the new rationalism advances only by suppressing the very question of the meaning of humanity. We are now both reaping the benefits of this project and peering into the abyss we have dug by embracing it.

Heidegger’s Critique (Taught by Glenn Ellmers):

Martin Heidegger contended that western philosophy had culminated in Nietzsche, and was now at a dead-end. Man was faced with the withdrawal of Being. Yet Heidegger thought that thinking was still possible. This short course will investigate these portentous claims.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau asserted that “men at first had no other kings than the gods, nor any other government than a theocratic one.” This ancient arrangement was not without controversy, as it brought about a competition of authority between the gods of the city, human lawmakers, and the claims of philosophy—what was later termed the theological-political problem. In the height of the “Christian era” during the Middle Ages, the official marriage between church and state allowed some of the problems of the ancients to persist in a new form as those institutions struggled for precedence in sovereignty. In response to the often violent difficulties medieval political-religious arrangements gave rise to, enlightenment thinkers proposed the concept of religious freedom.

Toleration created conditions in modernity not matching those seen in the ancient or medieval world, yet the theological-political question remained, again, in new form. The question then became not only “how, if at all, shall the citizens serve the gods?” but also “which gods, if any, should the citizens serve?” and “can a regime survive if it permits or even welcomes the worship of many competing gods?” The religious toleration opening that final question—codified in the American Constitution’s First Amendment and altered by its application through time—holds that all may worship as they please, but the public square will remain neutral on religious questions. While this liberal disposition does not truly solve the theological-political problem but defers it, kicking the can down the road, nevertheless, no institutional answer to this perennial question not ending in a single-denomination state has ever held up so well for so long. Yet the unanswered questions of our modern theological-political situation remain with us, reasserting themselves potently amidst the conflicts attendant to religious diversity proliferating across the West.

This fall we approach this question through the study of great thinkers and texts including The Bible, Sophocles, Thucydides, Plato, Shakespeare, Spinoza, and Strauss.

This course compares historical treatments of tyranny in political philosophy, with the rise of Julius Caesar. Might a Caesar legitimately arise from any republic? Is an American Caesar a real possibility? Would he be legitimate if he did arise? Taking cues from ancient history and philosophy, this course has clear relevance for America today.

Many have heard of these virtues, but few understand their importance in individual lives and their relevance in world politics. Anyone wanting to accomplish great things in politics should learn from Aristotle how to approach any situation by the application of these universal principles. This course will be taught by Senior Fellows and other excellent scholars from then Claremont network.

There will be four, two-week courses over the summer, each addressing one of the cardinal virtues: Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Temperance.

This phrase evokes for many an image of Bill Kristol, the second Bush Administration, and the “spreading of democracy.” These ideas are relevant and will be addressed, but to understand this impulse we will return to Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius to understand the fundamental nature of regimes, why they change, and what they change into. Additionally, the questions will be raised, “has America’s regime changed? Will it change again? What sorts of changes can we expect in this most peculiar regime?