Despite the fact that universities grew out of religious institutions in the Middle Ages and the first colleges in America were founded as religiously oriented institutions, it seems out of bounds these days to raise a question about the relation of the university and piety. In an ordinary undergraduate course in Philosophy of Religion the first…

Nothing is more likely to distort one's understanding of reality than the notion of relativism. It was for good reason that Thomas Aquinas began his treatise "On Truth" by repudiating the "error of the ancient philosophers [Democritus and Protagoras] who said that any opinion a person has in his intellect is true and that two contradictories can…

This "crucible moment" in which democratic capitalism finds itself does not call for more government mandates to dictate progressive activism in higher education. Rather, this crucible moment calls higher education on its own initiative to focus on the moral foundation that both democracy and capitalism require. The foundation of democratic…

Hard science is properly value neutral. But when that ideological neutrality extends to the whole university, the traditional foundation crumbles. Steve Balch laments the moral vacuum that now substitutes for fundamental principles, because it is impossible to frame a program of education--especially in the humanities and social sciences--without…

Be it metaphysics, theology, or some other unifying framework, humans have long sought to determine "first principles" underlying knowledge. Larry Arnhart continues in this vein, positing a Darwinian web of genetic, cultural, and cognitive evolution to explain our social behavior in terms of human nature as governed by biology. He leaves it to us…

Liberal education and liberal society are both being transformed into their opposites as the utopian project of diversity, multiculturalism, and group equality continues apace. Taking Allan Bloom as a guide, Carol Iannone explains the way in which American democracy was meant to work and how education was meant to function within it. Iannone…

This article explores whether it is possible to compare civilizations one with another; that is, whether one can construct some neutral and objective framework in terms of which we could establish in what respects one civilization might deserve to be ranked more highly than its competitors. The author states that, in addressing the idea of an…