Classical Stuff You Should Know

The Trivium--grammar, logic, and rhetoric--provides the three grand divisions upon which classical education is based. Sounds boring, I know, but it ain't so bad.

In this episode, Bees walks us through Josef Pieper's book, "Leisure the Basis of Culture." A.J. takes issue with those uppity philosophers.

In this episode, we discuss the classical understanding of the seven deadly sins and their import today.

In this episode, we cover the fallacies of ambiguity and the fallacies of form.

The logical fallacies can be bunched into a few headings. There are quite a few of them, and this episode isn't exhaustive, but we hit the biggies. In this episode, we focus primarily on the fallacies of distraction.

Thomas leads us through the criteria for calling a work classical.

This episode is a little different since I included an extra bit of conversation that we had been having with the audio off. It concerns economy and man. After that, we move on to the actual episode. It concerns the three modes of persuasion. If you ever hope to convince someone to do something, and do it with commitment, you're going to have to use these. Ethos concerns the trustworthiness of the speaker. Logos concerns the use of logic and avoidance of fallacy, and pathos concerns the emotions.

The House of Atreus is central to both the Iliad and the plays of Aeschylus. The story is a little crazy, so be warned: it's not really appropriate for kids.

Medieval man is much maligned for his cosmology. This episode describes this cosmology, helping the modern reader to understand references to the spheres in Milton and others, while at the same time defending medieval man.

In this episode, Graeme discusses the different parts of a metaphor.

The twenty-second book of the Iliad is a microcosm of the whole. The symbolism in this chapter captures all the major themes of the book.

In this podcast, we discuss the ancient division between the two types of reason. Put simply, Intellectus refers to natural understanding or meditation, and Ratio refers to the working faculty of reason.

The Common Topics is the toolkit you use when you want to think of something to say. Got a speech to write? The common topics can help you out.

The notion of the Christian knight is central to several texts, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight among them. There were several moral expectations placed on knighthood in the middle ages, including that of charity and fidelity.

The Odyssey, Iliad, and Aeneid all concern a single great story. This podcast covers the mythological background necessary to understanding these epics.