How should we think about the Caliphate?

Owen Bennett-Jones with a surprisingly Adleresque-titled essay in the London Review of Books on recent developments in Iraq and Syria.

Elevated discourse

Carrie Golus in the University of Chicago Magazine on

How the University of Chicago, the great books craze, and a love of Goethe helped create the Aspen Institute.

And put Mortimer Adler into a toga.

Mortimer J. Adler and Lifelong Learning, by Ken Dzugan

The first presentation at the Inaugural International Congress on Renewing the West by Renewing Common Sense is by the Center's own Ken Dzugan who provided this abstract.

"Mortimer Adler lived from 1902-2001 and was professionally active during 8 decades in the last century. In his many different endeavors in education, philosophy, writing, lecturing, editing, and conducting discussions, certain themes were constantly at the forefront of his thought. One of these themes was basic education and lifelong learning. Learn about Dr. Adler’s long and productive life and the many tools he created to aid in both basic education and lifelong learning."

Social Media for Common Sense in the West Conference, 2014

The Conference on 'Renewing the West by Renewing Common Sense' is July 17th-20th in Huntington, New York (see our earlier post). Here is its social media information.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CommonSenseConf

Twitter: Use @CommonSenseConf to follow us or use this link: https://twitter.com/CommonSenseConf. Use hashtag #CommonSense on your tweets.

YouTube: Subscribe to the Conference channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGo4f17fyS28_jbOfKjdHwg. Live streaming of some Conference speeches is scheduled (Eastern Time; start times approximate) as follows:

Thursday 17 July

3:30pm

Mortimer J. Adler and Lifelong Learning, by Ken Dzugan [Center for the Study of The Great Ideas]

7:30pm

The Nature of Common Sense and How We can use Common Sense to Renew the West, by Peter A. Redpath

Friday 18 July

4:00pm

Management and the Humanist Ideal, by Jim Maroosis

7:00 pm

Recollections of St. Michael’s College (Gilson and Maritain) and of Mortimer J. Adler and Work on the Idea of Freedom in San Francisco, by Desmond FitzGerald

Saturday 19 July

9:00am

The Relationship between Natural and Divine Law in Dante’s Divine Comedy, by Sebastian Mahfood

7:00pm

The Common Sense Wisdom of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Chuck Chalberg

Selected papers will be available at the Dead Philosophers Society.

On Cruelty

Judith Butler reviews The Death Penalty: Vol. I, by Jacques Derrida, translated by Peggy Kamuf, at the London Review of Books.

"Those who oppose the death penalty, such as Beccaria and sometimes Bentham, seem to prefer a long, drawn-out form of cruel imprisonment, which raises the question: which camp in this debate stands for the more humane form of punishment? Wary of forms of aggression disguised as benevolence, Derrida asks whether some abolitionists are committed to other forms of cruelty that are masked by elegant moral formulations, ones that rationalise prolonging the time of cruelty and the tenure of sadistic delight."

The thirty-seventh to last day of peace

From The Economist's report of the assassination on June 28, 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

"We live in an age when the very foundations of society are threatened in almost all countries by a secret conspiracy of crime, when arson and murder are employed as political weapons by the miserable and half-witted instruments of organisations which arrogate to themselves high-sounding names, and persuade youthful enthusiasts that the end justifies the means, and that the most cowardly and bloodthirsty murders are heroic exploits, worthy to be sung with the deeds of Harmodius or Brutus."

Of Rights and Witches: Bentham’s Critique of the Declaration of Independence

At Persistent Enlightenment, James Schmidt transcribes An Answer to the American Declaration (1776), by Jeremy Bentham. (via Josiah Neeley)

'What do Velcro, Tang, penicillin, the structure of DNA and the World Wide Web have in common?'

Greg Borzo reports how Scholars and scientists explore factors underlying serendipitous discoveries, at UChicago News.

Why the Supreme Court Should Stop Fetishizing Dictionaries and Start Caring About Words

Alison L. LaCroix and Jason Merchant of the University of Chicago posted at Balkinization.