New Manent Seminar: Beyond Radical Secularism
Message from David Alexander: I would like to propose that we read Beyond Radical Secularism by Pierre Manent and do so on the following schedule:
26OCT- parts 1-5, to pg. 28
16NOV- parts 6-10, to pg. 49
30NOV- parts 11-15, to pg. 16
14DEC- parts 16-20, to the end
I am open to accelerating this even more because the book is shorter and less dense than The City of Man, but perhaps like this we will allow for more discussion. If we hold to this schedule, we could then break for the holidays and resume with a new book after the New Year.
After the Beyond Radical Secularism, I would like to take a break from Manent and read some on the philosophy and theology of education. I’d like to read either Beauty for Truth’s Sake: The Re-Enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott or Beauty in the World: Re-Thinking the Foundations of Education by Stratford Caldecott, probably the former because I think it is the first in his trilogy of works on the topic. After that we can decide together whether we would like to study this subject further with Caldecott, or turn again to Manent.
If we return to Manent, I am most interested in Manent’s insights into modern democracy and spirituality and I would like to approach him again from this angle, topically. I would like to propose if we return first reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and then Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy by Pierre Manent, and then Democracy without Nations?: The Fate of Self-Government in Europe by Pierre Manent. But that is projecting a long way into the future.
Please invite anyone you think might be interested in participating.
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For more details on books I would like to study on the two different topics of democracy and the philosophy and theology of education:
Other books I would like to eventually read by Manent:
An Intellectual History of Liberalism
Metamorphoses of the City
Other Lines of Study:
Reading specifically on democracy and spirituality:
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy by Pierre Manent
Also:
Democratic Faith by Patrick Deneen
Christianity and Freedom, Volume 1: Historical Perspectives (edited by Timothy Samuel Shah)
Reading on Education
Beauty for Truth’s Sake: The Re-Enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott
Beauty in the World: Re-Thinking the Foundations of Education by Stratford Caldecott
The Radiance of Being: Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity by Stratford Caldecott
The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman
The Idea of the University: A Rexamination by Jaroslav Pelikan
C.S. Lewis: A Philosophy of Education by Steven R. Loomis
A Primer for Philosophy and Education by Samuel D. Rocha
Education for Human Flourishing: A Christian Perspective by Paul D. Spears
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