Have you ever heard the idiom, “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”? It means that we should first imagine what it is like to be someone else, to experience life from their perspective, before we pass judgment. It is...
You’ve probably heard people talk about the importance of teaching “critical thinking” in schools. They’re not entirely wrong. But critical thinking is often presented as an advance or improvement over “rote memorization”—and its why so few of your peers in...
The great physicist, Albert Einstein, is credited with having said: “Never memorize something that you can look up.” Today, with all manner of information at our fingertips, it is unclear whether there is anything worth memorizing at all—everything, it seems,...
Our final thought experiment this week is no thought experiment at all – it is the true story of Rahab, from the Book of Joshua. After God had promised the Israelites the land of Jericho, Joshua sent spies to check it out:...
Today’s thought experiment comes from Marcus Tullius Cicero, who considers in his book On Duties, circumstances “when utility seems to conflict with honorableness.” From our very own Dr. Newton’s translation, Cicero writes: “[I]f a good man sets out from Alexandria to...
Peter Singer, the atheist, moral philosopher, poses the following thought experiment about the moral obligation to save another human being: A man wearing a thousand dollar suit sees a child drowning in the ocean and being pulled away by the...
Yesterday’s thought experiment was about identity—once all of its parts were replaced, was the Ship of Theseus still the same ship? Today, we consider value theory and whether happiness or pleasure is really the highest good. In his book Anarchy, State,...
One afternoon, a couple of months ago I came across an advertisement for a new school concept that uses AI-based education paired with practical life skills workshops – and have been thinking about it ever since. At the AI-based school...
This week, we’ll be considering some of the great thought experiments of philosophy. We begin with the Ship of Theseus. Plutarch, in his work The Life of Theseus, recounts a debate among the philosophers over whether or not a ship that has...
At the beginning of this week, I asked why we start each day honoring our country. We considered that America is only great if she is good, that our happiness depends on humility and our liberty upon personal virtue, and...
Welcome to Veritas et Virtus, the official blog of Columbus Classical Academy. Here we will share news and reflections on classical education.
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Welcome to Veritas et Virtus, the official blog of Columbus Classical Academy. Here we will share news and reflections on classical education.
CATEGORIES
AUTHORS
ARCHIVES
NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATORY POLICY AS TO STUDENTS: The Columbus Classical Academy admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.
