A few episodes ago we put out a show titled, "What Aquinas Said". In that episode we laid out Thomas Aquinas' understanding of beauty. Aquinas was the greatest Medieval philosopher. In today's episode we contemplate what the greatest Modern philosopher, Immanuel Kant, said about beauty. With Kant we may have a change of approach. From Plato to Aquinas we talk about beauty, but in Kant we talk about aesthetics - or taste.

In this episode we finish pondering an insight of Gene Simmons', namely, that there is a difference between what tastes good and good taste. What does it say about our world that there is a difference between good and bad taste? What does it say about us? Come with us as we enter the realm of the objective but immaterial.

Welcome to our second annual Mother's Day episode. Join us as we meditate on the meaning of motherhood through poetry and prose. To quote G.K. Chesterton: "How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe?" How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."

Discussions of beauty, especially in our day, are often discussed in terms of taste. Taste, it is assumed, is a purely subjective thing. However, in this episode we contemplate a proposition proffered by Gene Simmons, namely, that there is a difference between what tastes good and good taste. Dig it.

The title of this week's episode comes from the title of a book by Bishop Robert Barron. C. S. Lewis wrote, "This is our dilemma - either to taste and not to know of to know and not to taste." In this episode we seek to bridge knowledge and taste by contemplating the architecture of the great Gothic cathedrals. In this contemplation we come to understand Thomas Aquinas, whom we met in the previous episode, more clearly.

"Then a shriek went up like the world's last cry

From all nations under heaven,

And a master fell before a slave

And begged to be forgiven."

So wrote G. K. Chesterton. A poetic reflection upon the meaning of Easter, on this episode of Red Letter Philosophy. Happy Easter.

In this episode we ask an empirical question: as we encounter beauty in this world, do we notice any patterns? Are there characteristics that all, or most, beautiful things posses? We take up this question with the greatest of Medieval philosophers, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Integrity, harmony, and clarity: this week on Red Letter Philosophy.

Escaping enslavement by the Irish, Patrick returns to his former captors, not for revenge; but liberation. Some reflections on St. Patrick on today's special episode of Red Letter Philosophy.

Beauty, we have learned, cannot be completely subjective. She resists attempts to reduce her to material phenomena and scientific analysis. In today's episode we make explicit what has been implicit in our previous episodes, namely, the argument from beauty.

In this episode we continue our elucidation of beauty. We discuss Plato's view that love then is a ladder between the ideal and the material, between God and man; evidence of another world, a higher reality.