The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025.

To learn more about us, our events, this Podcast, our journal, Pietas, to sign up for our newsletter, and to make your tax deductible gift, please go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/

Josh Bowman talks with his longtime friend and former professor, Paul R. Dehart on his new book, The Social Contract in the Ruins: Natural Law and Government by Consent (Univ. of Missouri, 2024). DeHart is Professor of Political Science at Texas State University.

DeHart argues that modern attempts to root political obligation and morality in contractarian thought on voluntarist terms are self-referentially incoherent as well as a normative failure. What implications might this have for the American Founding and Constitutional thought? Can the classical natural law tradition get along with social contract theory? Is social contract theory worth saving? Does the “consent of the governed” even matter? 

We discuss this and much more, giving attention to thinkers such as Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Althuisus, Richard Hooker, and many others. 

Dr. DeHart’s profile at Texas State University https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/1922208

His Books:

The Social Contract in the Ruins: Natural Law and Government by Consent (Univ. of Missouri, 2024) https://upress.missouri.edu/9780826223050/the-social-contract-in-the-ruins/

Uncovering the Constitution's Moral Design (Univ. of Missouri, 2017) https://upress.missouri.edu/9780826221308/uncovering-the-constitutions-moral-design/

Also mentioned:

The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 2: The Age of Reformation, by Quentin Skinner

And works by Francis Oakeley, J. Budziszewski, A. John Simmons, Brian Tierney, and others. 

The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025.

To learn more about us, our events, this Podcast, our journal, Pietas, to sign up for our newsletter, and to make your tax deductible gift, please go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/

0:00 Introduction
3:38 Social Contract Theory
14:30 SCT vs Natural Law Tradition
24:23 Why It Fails
38:01 American Founding
52:24 Covenantal Realism
1:12:19 How to Handle Disagreements
1:23:18 First Principles
1:26:57 Paucity of Consent

Josh Bowman leads a discussion of Aristocratic Voices: Forgotten Arguments about Virtue, Authority, and Inequality (Lexington Books, 2025) co-edited by Richard Avramenko and Ethan Alexander-Davey. Ethan joins us for the talk along with two chapter authors, Luke Sheahan and Michael Harding. 

Our conversation covers a lot of ground, considering the thought of W.H. Riehl, Robert Nisbet, and Nietzsche, as well as some discussion of Hegel, Cicero, Tocqueville, Burke, Philip Rieff, the French Revolution and much more. 

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/aristocratic-voices-9781666933147/

The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025.

To learn more about us, our events, this Podcast, our journal, Pietas, to sign up for our newsletter, and to make your tax deductible gift, please go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/

0:00 Introduction
3:37 Three Implications of Inequality
13:41 Nisbet's Diagnosis
19:42 Bureaucracy as New Elite?
23:07 Nietzsche
36:37 Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl
47:27 Lack of Courage
53:22 Tarantulas, Eternal Recurrence
59:52 Nisbet & Civic Associations
1:08:08 Next Research Steps

This special episode is a recording from our 2025 Conference in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The round table title is "Building Places of Intellectual Community," and the speakers are:

Paul Mueller (American Institute for Economic Research)

Jeff Nelson (The Russell Kirk Center)

Zach Howard (Bethlehem College)

After Q&A, there are remarks by Josh Bowman, Bill Batchelder, and James Patterson (Ciceronian Society).

If you like this panel, please consider attending our next conference, March 12-14, 2026, in Omaha, Nebraska. For details, go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/conference/2026-conference-registration/

0:00 Episode Introduction

2:30 Panel Introduction

7:06 Mueller

17:30 Nelson

35:48 Howard

53:35 Q & A

1:22:41 Bowman

1:32:07 Batchelder

1:41:05 Patterson

1:53:07 Song

Links: 

https://aier.org/

https://aier.org/people/paul-mueller/

https://bcsmn.edu/

https://bcsmn.edu/profile/zach-howard/

https://kirkcenter.org/

https://ciceroniansociety.org/conference/batchelder-award/

https://ciceroniansociety.org/conference/lawler/

Josh Bowman shares some information on the upcoming 2026 conference in Omaha, NE before turning to the Menard Family Center for Economic Inquiry at Creighton University. He’s joined by economic scholars Dr. Colin O’Reilly and Dr. Michael D. Thomas.

The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025. Click here to propose a paper and learn more: https://ciceroniansociety.org/conference/2026-conference-cfp/

Nominate a book for the Herbert J. Storing Prize by September 1, 2025: https://ciceroniansociety.org/conference/storing-award/

Menard Family Center for Economic Inquiry: https://www.creighton.edu/menard-center-for-economic-inquiry

To learn more about us, our events, this Podcast, our journal, Pietas, to sign up for our newsletter, and to make your tax deductible gift, please go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/

0:00 About the Ciceronian Society
8:00 The Menard Family Center
11:21 Vocation of a Catholic Economist
15:10 Different Views of Poverty
20:49 Omaha
30:15 Economists at CS
36:11 How to Learn More about MFC & Creighton University

Josh Bowman chats with Winston Brady of Thales Press and Thales Academy, along with Josh Herring of Thales College in North Carolina. We discuss the definition, style, future, purpose, and beauty of classical education, along with its relationship to place and the Ciceronian Society generally.

Thales Academy: https://www.thalesacademy.org/
Thales Press: https://www.thalespress.org/
Thales College: https://www.thalescollege.org/

The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025.

To learn more about us, our events, this Podcast, our journal, Pietas, to sign up for our newsletter, and to make your tax deductible gift, please go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/

0:00 Introduction
1:59 Why Thales
7:27 Founding
10:35 What is Classical Education
18:01 Curriculum & Press
26:22 College & Certificate
33:34 Out of Higher Ed
44:43 Place
55:56 Looking Ahead
1:09:24 Ciceronian Crossover
1:16:59 To Learn More about Thales 

Josh Bowman talks with David Michael Phelps, president of Harmel Academy. (This 2025 episode combines 2 episodes previously published in 2023.)

Harmel Academy is a post-secondary Catholic trade school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, pioneering an exciting new strategy for the formation and education of men. To learn more, go to https://www.harmelacademy.org/

Select books mentioned:

A. G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life https://www.cuapress.org/9780813206462/the-intellectual-life/

Matthew Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/301618/shop-class-as-soulcraft-by-matthew-b-crawford/

Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html

Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World https://svspress.com/for-the-life-of-the-world-new-edition/

To learn more about the Ciceronian Society, visit https://ciceroniansociety.org/

Josh Bowman talks with Dr. Carl Richard, Professor of History at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. Dr. Richard has spent decades recovering the impact of the ancient Greeks and Romans on the American Founders and on American history generally. He has also turned to the influence of the Bible and Christianity on America’s founding, and now to the history of the Presidency.

We begin by talking about the classics, including Cicero, before turning to his more recent books on the Bible’s impact, including his newest volume, So Help Us God: American Presidents and the Bible (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025). https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/so-help-us-god-9798881806330/

Carl’s Books:

The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Harvard, 1994)
Twelve Greeks and Romans Who Changed the World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)
The Battle for the American Mind: A Brief History of a Nation's Thought (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)
Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts: How the Ancients Inspired the Founding Fathers (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008)
The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and the Antebellum United States (Harvard, 2009)
Why We're All Romans: The Roman Contribution to the Western World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
When the United States Invaded Russia: Woodrow Wilson's Siberian Disaster (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013)
The Founders and the Bible (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016)

He has also contributed a host of essays to edited volumes, including two books published by Oxford University Press.

The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025.

To learn more about us, our events, this Podcast, our journal, Pietas, to sign up for our newsletter, and to make your tax deductible gift, please go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/

0:00 Introduction
2:30 Inspiration
4:13 Golden Age
7:47 Arguments For and Against the Classics
20:04 Familiarity and Peculiarity
25:53 Cicero
32:06 The Founders and the Bible
44:11 Prayer
49:59 The Future
56:26 Opportunities

Josh Bowman talks with legal scholar Jack Ferguson about his recent article exploring Cicero’s impact on the American Founders. We discuss natural law, republicanism, executive power, and more.

Jack’s article is “The Ciceronian Origins of American Law and Constitutionalism” from The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, which can be found here: https://journals.law.harvard.edu/jlpp/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2025/03/Ferguson-Ciceronian-Origins.pdf 

The 2026 Ciceronian Society Conference will be held March 12-14 at Creighton University in Omaha, NE. Panel and paper proposals are due September 1, 2025. 

To learn more about us, our events, this Podcast, our journal, Pietas, to sign up for our newsletter, and to make your tax deductible gift, please go to https://ciceroniansociety.org/

0:00 Why Care About Cicero?
10:00 Part 1 - Cicero's Influence
16:21 Part 2 - Law of Nature & Law of Nations
19:47 Common Law
23:09 Judicial Review
27:45 Part 3 - Republicanism
32:58 Personal Character
36:42 Part 4- Executive Authority
42:57 Cicero's Authority with the Founders