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Intellectual Foundations

Reflections on moral philosophy, intellectual history, interpretation, and the traditions that shape institutional and public life.

Intellectual Foundations

Reflections on moral philosophy, intellectual history, interpretation, and the traditions that shape institutional and public life.

Intellectual Foundations   -   Sep 07, 2025 Ancient Voices in a Secular Age: Classical Authors and the Studia Humanitatis
Ancient Voices in a Secular Age: Classical Authors and the Studia Humanitatis

Submitted on August 25, 2015, to Professor Ben Lockerd as part of the doctoral course, LIT 7324 Literary Analysis: Great Ideas, Authors, and Writings. Studies in classical literature, such as Plato's Republic (Book X), Ion, and Phaedrus, Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's The Art of Poetry,

Intellectual Foundations   -   Sep 05, 2025 Grammar, Reason, and Eloquence: The Trivium in John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon
Grammar, Reason, and Eloquence: The Trivium in John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon

In the opening lines of his preface to The Metalogicon, translator Daniel D. McGarry invokes Horace’s enduring admonition to writers:  If ever you write anything, keep it to yourself for nine years, for what has never been divulged can be destroyed, but once published it is beyond recall. McGarry,

Alexander Campbell: Reason, Scripture, and the Intellectual Integrity of New Testament Christianity
Intellectual Foundations   -   Mar 19, 2026 Alexander Campbell: Reason, Scripture, and the Intellectual Integrity of New Testament Christianity

Author's Note: As I revisited Campbell's writings, one feature became increasingly difficult to ignore. Beneath the debates over doctrine and church reform lies a sustained concern with authority, interpretation, and knowledge itself. Campbell was asking how ordinary people could read, understand, and act upon what they

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
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Intellectual Foundations   -   Mar 19, 2026 Alexander Campbell: Reason, Scripture, and the Intellectual Integrity of New Testament Christianity
Alexander Campbell: Reason, Scripture, and the Intellectual Integrity of New Testament Christianity

Author's Note: As I revisited Campbell's writings, one feature became increasingly difficult to ignore. Beneath the debates over doctrine and church reform lies a sustained concern with authority, interpretation, and knowledge itself. Campbell was asking how ordinary people could read, understand, and act upon what they

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
Intellectual Foundations   -   Sep 07, 2025 Ancient Voices in a Secular Age: Classical Authors and the Studia Humanitatis
Ancient Voices in a Secular Age: Classical Authors and the Studia Humanitatis

Submitted on August 25, 2015, to Professor Ben Lockerd as part of the doctoral course, LIT 7324 Literary Analysis: Great Ideas, Authors, and Writings. Studies in classical literature, such as Plato's Republic (Book X), Ion, and Phaedrus, Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's The Art of Poetry,

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
Intellectual Foundations   -   Sep 05, 2025 Grammar, Reason, and Eloquence: The Trivium in John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon
Grammar, Reason, and Eloquence: The Trivium in John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon

In the opening lines of his preface to The Metalogicon, translator Daniel D. McGarry invokes Horace’s enduring admonition to writers:  If ever you write anything, keep it to yourself for nine years, for what has never been divulged can be destroyed, but once published it is beyond recall. McGarry,

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
Intellectual Foundations   -   Sep 04, 2025 The Great Debate: From the Water Meadows of Isis to the Boardroom of Ideas
The Great Debate: From the Water Meadows of Isis to the Boardroom of Ideas

There is a woman in the water meadows of Oxford. Draped in Oxford blue, she sits in quiet majesty, her lap sheltering a small, idealized city. Its dreaming spires rise like prayers from her womb. She is Isis, Queen and Mother, as imagined by Evelyn Dunbar in her painting Oxford.

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
Intellectual Foundations   -   Sep 03, 2025 Fated Shores, Forbidden Burials: Divine Will vs. Choice in Vergil and Sophocles
Fated Shores, Forbidden Burials: Divine Will vs. Choice in Vergil and Sophocles

These key lines raise the following considerations: 1. (1) the presence of a question of choice in the equation ("what...we can possibly do, you and I, to untie the difficult knot"),[12] 2. (2) the necessity of making a decision to alter the status quo ("to

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
Intellectual Foundations   -   Sep 03, 2025 Social Construct of Teams: Knowledge and Adaptive Learning Solutions
Social Construct of Teams: Knowledge and Adaptive Learning Solutions

Editorial Note: This article was originally written in 2016. The Tower of Babel rises, not as ruin, but as ambition carved in stone. Pieter Bruegel the Elder captured more than mortar and men. He gave us a vision of collective striving, a skyward hunger to reach the divine through human

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
Intellectual Foundations   -   Aug 28, 2025 Digital Heralds and Dead Souls: Media, Thought, and Freedom
Digital Heralds and Dead Souls: Media, Thought, and Freedom

Bradbury, the prophet of a future age, warns that the great peril is not merely the loss of books. Rather, tragically, the peril is the slow erosion of the mind’s capacity to think freely. The danger begins not with fire and censorship. Gradually, with habit and the quiet surrender

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
Intellectual Foundations   -   Aug 28, 2025 Richard Wilbur: The Extraordinary Through the Actual
Richard Wilbur: The Extraordinary Through the Actual

Reflective Commentary (2025) At the time of composing this essay in 2014, Richard Wilbur stood in his ninety-fourth year. I had mistakenly thought that he had already passed, but he was very much alive, a fact Professor Robert Woods gently noted with the hopeful remark, “He is still alive

by Shawn D. Mathis, PhD, MSc (Oxon), MA
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