Fall 2023 Lectio Humana: Happiness in the Shadow of Death: Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy

Can you be happy amidst misery? If your possessions, your pleasures, your reputation, your friends, and your family all fail you, if they are all taken from you, what do you have left? For Boethius, these questions were not merely theoretical, but a dreadful reality. Stripped of power, pleasure, fame, riches, friends, and family, with a death sentence hanging over his head, Boethius sought refuge in the embrace of Lady Philosophy as recounted in a dazzling work of poetry and prose called the Consolation of Philosophy. But why seek consolation for concrete woes in the airy abstractions of philosophy? Boethius' answers to this pressing question deeply influenced the likes of Alfred the Great, Chaucer, Elizabeth I, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Dante.

Join us as we read through arguably the single most important work of philosophy from the Fall of Rome to the rise of Scholasticism, and as we confront the classic question of philosophy's purpose in our lives. 

Books will be provided for all participants.