The Western Tradition and Our Intellectual Inheritance

Speech given at Thales College, for the Conference of Miletus, 2024

For almost my whole career as a professor, going back to 1988, it’s been my privilege to introduce students to works of great wisdom, art, and beauty, coming to us from a good two dozen cultures and spanning more than 3,000 years. I had to do this often against opposition from within Providence College, where I taught for 27 years, opposition by people who envied what they did not know and could not give. But that is emphatically not the case at Thales College (in the town of Wake Forest, NC, fifteen miles from Raleigh), for which I am delighted to be spending the latter years of my career, with the full encouragement of wonderful colleagues and students. In this address, given at Thales in 2024, I speak about that heritage. I hope you will enjoy it. The teacher in me is like a little boy who finds something marvelous and says, “Come and look at what I’ve found!” Imagine that what you “find” has been lying neglected in the attic — and it’s your privilege to bring it to people who will appreciate it.

So, we hope you will enjoy this talk. It isn’t about money — but it sure is about wealth, of a sort I’ve devoted my professional life to sharing.

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