College Seminar Spring 2008
Topic: Essays on the Intellectual and Spritual Life from The Tower of Babel by Dietrich von Hildebrand

In order to clarify basic intellectual and spiritual attitudes and conditions important for a good life which are obscured or negated by contemporary culture, we will consider and discuss essays on the intellectual and the spiritual life from Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The New Tower of Babel. The topics range from the importance of truth, the challenge of functionalism, religion and unprejudiced knowledge to the role of reverence in education, the high value of beauty and the tension between efficiency and holiness.

Each evening we will discuss one or two essays, depending on their length, with two or three students leading the analysis of each essay. They may do this in various ways: by raising a number of questions concerning the essay; by disputing its reasoning or assumptions; by bringing other evidence and reasoning to bear on the topics. We will also view two films relevant to these themes.

January 28 - Sophie Scholl: The Final Days [Film]
February 11 - Introduction & the New Tower of Babel
February 25 - The Dethronement of Truth
March 10 - The New Functionalism in the Light of Christ; Catholicism and Unprejudiced Knowledge
March 17 - The Role of Reverence in Education; Beauty in the Light of the Redemption
April 7 - Efficiency and Holiness
April 21 - Man for All Seasons [Film]