The New Thinkery

This week the guys visit one of America's greatest poets: Edgar Allen Poe. With Halloween right around the corner, what better time to dig into some of Poe's greatest hits, from The Tell-Tale Heart t…

This week, the guys are on their own as they tackle one of Rousseau's shorter discourses focusing on the most essential characteristic for a hero to have. Plus: Rousseau was a bit of an oddball. Alex…

This week, the guys are joined by Devin Stauffer, Professor and Associate Chair at UT Austin. The group take a look at several of Hobbes' most pivotal works to get at Hobbes' true arguments about hum…

This week, the guys are back to the three man band format. They discuss the opening of Strauss' most read work and highlight patterns of thought that continue throughout Natural Right and History. 

n this edition of The New Thinkery, Alex and Greg are joined for a second time by Dr. Thomas Cleveland, Academics Program Officer for the Jack Miller Center. The group take a look at a very short tex…

This week, the guys are joined by Assumption University's own BJ Dobski. The group discuss Thucydides as a source of ancient history, the extent to which he is reliable, and the archaeology surroundi…

In this episode of The New Thinkery, David and Alex have temporarily replaced Greg with Alex's mother, Fereshteh, who is an expert on Marcel Proust's mammoth 4,000+ page text, In Search of Lost Time…

This week, the guys are joined by Damian Jungerman, a former US serviceman turned intellectual with a seriously impressive résumé. Jungerman details how great books saved him and how those great book…

As school kicks into gear as summer is winding down, the guys take the opportunity to talk about the extent to which the common man can be benefitted or harmed by liberal education, using Herbert Sto…

In this week's installment of The New Thinkery, the guys are joined by Michigan State's distinguished professor emeritus Jerry Weinberger. The group discuss Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, its imp…

This week, the guys return to the meat and potatoes of philosophy: Plato and Socrates. They discuss the first half of Plato's Republic Book IV, the logic of continuing an empire in decay, and the Mac…

This week, the guys analyze the film classic Ford Apache. They're joined by Hillsdale College's Professor Adam Carrington, who has written about the film. The group talk about the portrayal of Native…

This week, the guys return to Strauss to look at a pair of his lesser known, but still important essays touching on historicism, science, and the trajectory of the West. The two provide an excellent …

This week, the guys are joined by Eric Adler, Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of Maryland. Together, the group discuss Plutarch's Life of Romulus and the history of Roman historians…

After last week's discussion of Hiero, the guys are back this week with fare that is lighter in some ways, and heavy in others: Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. From light analysis of the boxing…

This week, the guys reconvene to discuss Xenophon's Hiero. Greg has published translations of Xenophon, and is especially in his element. The core question the guys focus on is the same as that of th…

This week, the guys re joined by Hillsdale professor and David's colleague, Michael Anton. The group discuss Montesquieu's philosophy and the ways in which it proves correct, and some ways it comes u…

As we leave the Televisual Age behind and enter into the Digital Age, it might seem like a paper proposing the banning or severe limiting of TV hasn't aged all too well. But Anastaplo's paper proposi…

This week, the guys are joined by one of Alex's colleagues: Dr. Paul Diduch. The group discuss whether unfettered technological progress is in fact "progress" and what we, especially in the modern ag…

This week The New Thinkery celebrates its 100th episode! To mark the occasion, the guys invite on Producer Jake to chime in for an analysis of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Books 8 and 9, which foc…