1) Course Title: The Attack on Faith, Reason, and Common Sense: Historical Roots of the ModernAssault on Catholic Christianity
Course Number: MHis 101 A
Course Description: Part 1 (15 Lessons) of a two-part (30 Lessons) online course tracing development of the modern naturalist assault on Catholic Christianity intellectually, culturally, and politically. Beginning with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the Tridentine Reform, it deals with internal battles, such as those over the relationship of free will and grace, and external pressures coming from the Enlightenment and the State, all of which worked towards undermining the idea of the supernatural and creating modern secular society. Part 1 of this course ends with the assault on the rights of the Roman Church beginning with the secularizing changes already beginning with the end of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748).
Educational Consultant: John C. Rao
2) Course Number: MHis 101 B
Course Description: This second part of the course ends with the assault on the rights of the Roman Church presaged by secularizing changes already beginning with the end of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and becoming more intense from the outbreak of the French Revolution in1789. It ends with the period of violence characterizing the radical stage of that Revolution between 1792 and 1794.
Educational Consultant: John C. Rao obtained his doctorate in Modern European History from Oxford University in 1977. His dissertation concerned nineteenth century Catholic reactions to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. He worked in 1978-1979 as Eastern Director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and is now Associate Professor of History at St. John’s University in New York City, where he has taught since 1979. Dr. Rao is also director of the Roman Forum, a Catholic cultural organization founded by the late Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand in 1968, which works in both New York City and Italy. Many of his writings dealing with the relationship between Church and society throughout history can be found on a website entitled For the Whole Christ--a name taken from the writings of St. Augustine to describe the character of the Mystical Body and its consequences for human life as a whole. Perhaps the most important of his works are Removing the Blindfold (Remnant Press, 1999), which discusses Catholic rediscovery of their own heritage in the post-French revolutionary era, and Americanism and the Collapse of the Church in the United States (Roman Forum Press, 1995). A new book, Black Legends and the Light of the World (Remnant Press) was published in 2012.
Cost for Part 1: $395 for class of 1 to 10 students. Cost reductions considered for classes of more than 10 students. For more information, contact Dr. Rao at the Aquinas School of Leadership at:
See immediately below other courses in uncommon commonsense wisdom being offered by CWLAA starting in September 2021; their educational consultants may be contacted through the Aquinas School of Leadership at:
Syllabi for other courses are presently being prepared. As they start to near completion, their course descriptions will be added to this catalogue.
NOTE: To make more accessible direct contact between talented students and talented educators, as far as possible to remove administrative interference between these individuals, CWELLA/CWECA courses are not designed according to the standard Enlightenment Western college and university 15-week format of semesters and weekly lectures, which include mandatory final exams, term papers, and final grades. They are designed according to an Eastern Martial Arts format of 15 Lessons, which, according to the level of advancement of the student and permission of the instructor, may be done in 15, or more or less, consecutive days or weeks. With the permission of the educational consultant, students in the same class can complete the same course asynchronously. The same class may also have rolling enrollment for the same class, or the educational consultant may continuously open one or more other section(s) throughout the year.
Once a student completes the 15-Lesson course, the educational consultant will meet via email, phone, or in some other online manner, to provide the student with an assessment of the level of development in mastery of the subject the student has achieved. He or she is not required to give the student a final exam, term paper, or a formal grade. He or she may do so if he or she wishes. Instead, if he or she wishes to do so, the consultant will tell the student the grade the consultant would have given had this class been a college or university course. As in Martial Arts, the educational consultant will tell the student whether he or she is ready for advancement to another course within the CWLAA or CWECA curriculum. If a student wants a final exam or to do a term paper and the consultant has not assigned one as a course requirement, the consultant and student may enter into a separate agreement for those activities for which the consultant will be financially remunerated.
Once a student acquires the equivalent of 60 college or university credits (completion of 20 CWLAA courses, including required course Ph 101), the student will be eligible to apply for a Certificate of Completion in the CWLAA part of the CWLAA/CWECA program. At present, no higher level CWECA courses are being offered.
Ph 101 is the orientation course for the CWLAA/CWECA program. Taking it is not required before enrolling in other classes. It explains in detail the nature and rationale for creation of this program. For this reason, only those students who have taken this course will be granted a CWLAA Certificate of Completion, which is required to be admitted to Level 2 (and beyond): Global Leadership and Executive Coaching courses to be taught in CWECA.
Finally, the date of 15 September 2021 does not indicate the start of a new semester. It marks the formal start of the CWLAA/CWECA academies as open to the general public for enrollment in courses, for which they can pre-register. Also, this date does not indicate the first day of classes for any course; although it might be the start date for this or that course, if students have registered for a course before 15 September 2021. Educational consultants decide the start and end dates for their respective courses. These do not necessarily run consecutively with other courses in the program.
The concept for these academies grew out of an idea related to teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, which he inherited from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle: that the intellectual virtue of docilitas (docility/teachability) is a necessary condition for being educated. St. Thomas maintained that the moral virtue of prudence, which, he held, is a species of common sense, causes docilitas.
Before being taught outside the home, children generally learn some docility from parents and from their individual conscience, which, according to Aquinas, is the habit of prudence acting as judge, jury, witness, and prosecution of personal choices. In learning docility, we all acquire some common sense.
Common sense is simply some understanding of first principles that are causing some organizational whole to have the unity it has that causes it to tend to behave the way it does. It is an understanding common to anyone who intellectually grasps the nature of something, the way the parts (causal principles) of a whole incline to organize to generate organizational existence and action. Strictly speaking, common sense is the habit of rightly applying first principles of understanding as measures of truth in immediate and mediated judgment, choice, and reasoning! Considered as such, it is the first measure of right reasoning!
Contemporary Enlightenment colleges and universities are essentially designed to drive out common sense from the psyche of students, convince them that the only species of understanding (common sense) is mathematical physics. In doing this, it causes students to become anarchists, unteachable, people out of touch with reality who cannot tolerate to listen or to speak to or with anyone who disagrees with them.
The only method that can possibly work to correct this problem is the one these academies essentially use. This is not because these academies are proposing them, but because they are evidently true to anyone with common sense about human education: such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas.
Welcome to the educational academies most capable of generating tomorrow's world-class colleges and universities!
Peter A. Redpath
CEO, Aquinas School of Leadership
3) Course Number: CLM (Commonsense Literary Masterpieces) 101
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy
Course Description: Through an original translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy as a narrativization of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, this course articulates the relationship between faith and reason being like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.
Educational Consultants: This course will be co-conducted by Daniel Fitzpatrick and Sebastian Mahfood
Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, is a Lay Dominican of the Chapter of the Holy Rosary in the Province of St. Albert. Dr. Mahfood holds a master’s in comparative literature from the University of Texas at Arlington, a master’s in philosophy from Holy Apostles College & Seminary, a master’s in theology from Holy Apostles College & Seminary, a master’s in educational technology from Webster University and a doctorate in postcolonial literature and theory from Saint Louis University. Among his publications include his book Radical Eschatologies: Embracing the Eschaton in the Works of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Nuruddin Farah, and Ayi Kwei Armah, his book The Narrative Spirituality of Dante’s Divine Comedy, his book Among the Marvelous Things: The Media of Social Communications and the Next Generation of Pastoral Ministers, two books co-authored with Dr. Ronda Chervin entitled Catholic Realism: a Framework for the Refutation of Atheism and the Evangelization of Atheists and Why Be An Atheist If???, a book co-edited with Bishop Richard Henning entitled Missionary Priests in the Homeland: Our Call to Receive, and a book co-edited with Dr. Timothy Westbrook and Dr. Victoria Dunnam entitled Teaching and Learning in the Age of COVID19: Faith-Based, Online and Emergency Remote. Dr. Mahfood lives in St. Louis with his wife, Dr. Stephanie Mahfood, and children, Alexander and Eva Ruth.
Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, is a Lay Dominican of the Chapter of the Holy Rosary in the Province of St. Albert. Dr. Mahfood holds a master’s in comparative literature from the University of Texas at Arlington, a master’s in philosophy from Holy Apostles College & Seminary, a master’s in theology from Holy Apostles College & Seminary, a master’s in educational technology from Webster University and a doctorate in postcolonial literature and theory from Saint Louis University. Among his publications include his book Radical Eschatologies: Embracing the Eschaton in the Works of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Nuruddin Farah, and Ayi Kwei Armah, his book The Narrative Spirituality of Dante’s Divine Comedy, his book Among the Marvelous Things: The Media of Social Communications and the Next Generation of Pastoral Ministers, two books co-authored with Dr. Ronda Chervin entitled Catholic Realism: a Framework for the Refutation of Atheism and the Evangelization of Atheists and Why Be An Atheist If???, a book co-edited with Bishop Richard Henning entitled Missionary Priests in the Homeland: Our Call to Receive, and a book co-edited with Dr. Timothy Westbrook and Dr. Victoria Dunnam entitled Teaching and Learning in the Age of COVID19: Faith-Based, Online and Emergency Remote. Dr. Mahfood lives in St. Louis with his wife, Dr. Stephanie Mahfood, and children, Alexander and Eva Ruth.
Daniel Fitzpatrick is the author of the novel Only the Lover Sings. His new verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, illustrated by sculptor Timothy Schmalz, was produced in honor of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Daniel’s poems and essays have been widely published. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Dallas and an MA in Philosophy from Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He is completing an MPhil in Creative Writing at Trinity College Dublin, and he has begun an MA in St. John Paul II Studies at the University of St. Thomas. He lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife and five children, and he teaches English and Theology at Jesuit High School.
4) CLM (Commonsense Literary Masterpieces) 102
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy
Course Description: Through an original translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy as a narrativization of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, this course articulates the relationship between faith and reason being like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.
Educational Consultants: This course will be co-conducted by Daniel Fitzpatrick and Sebastian Mahfood
5) CLM (Commonsense Literary Masterpieces) 103
Course Title: To Be or Not to Be: Discovering the Uncommon Commonsense Aristotelian-Thomistic Influence in the World of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Course Description: This course takes students into the world of Shakespeare’s Elsinore Castle where they will discover how arguably the most famous play ever written and staged has the power to speak commonsense truths today, deriving from the uncommon commonsense Aristotelian-Thomistic wisdom tradition pervading this great work. Of special emphasis will be Saint Thomas Aquinas’s teaching about the metaphysical problem of the opposition between unity and multiplicity, or between the “One and Many.”
This course will follow Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, in his relations with other characters to chart how his own growing recognition of his place within the real genus, or enterprise, known as Elsinore, hints to a microcosm of a much larger genus he comes to acknowledge as “This godly frame,” or territory. Students will discover anew how this play transcends the ages with timeless teachings Shakespeare drew from the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in particular. The discoveries should be especially enriching for contemporary leaders and managers who often find themselves confronting ever-growing challenges of oppositions in strange surroundings and the need to resolve them.
Educational Consultant: Among his many degrees, Dr. Raymond Watkins holds a B.A. from the University of South Carolina; an M.A. in Philosophy from Holy Apostles College and Seminary; and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of South Carolina. He has taught on the college and university level for close to 40 years. For an extensive summary of his educational background, go to: Raymond Watkins Educational and Teaching Summary
His most well known publication is his 2008 book, From Elsinore to Mexico City: The Persuasiveness of Shakeapeare's Hamlet in Xavier Villaurrutia's Invitación a la Muerte—
Course Number: Ph 101
Course Title: Philosophy/Science as Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom
Course Description: This course is a study of the nature of common sense and how philosophy and science, when properly understood, are identical: are simply a species of common sense—an uncommon commonsense enterprise in the best of individual and transcultural/transgenerational commonsense wisdom.
Educational Consultant: Dr. Peter A. Redpath was Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University from 1970 to 2010. Author/editor of 17 philosophical books and many dozens of articles and book reviews; over 200 invited guest lectures nationally and internationally; Founder and CEO of the Aquinas School of Leadership; co-founder of the Gilson Society (USA) and The International Etienne Gilson Society; former vice-president of the American Maritain Association; Founding Chairman of the Board of the Angelicum Academy; Member of the Board of the Great Books Academy; former member Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Philosophic Research; member of Board and Executive Committee of the Catholic Education Foundation; Academician of The Catholic Academy of Sciences (USA); former executive editor of Value Inquiry Book Series; former editor of the Studies in the History of Western Philosophy (SHWP), editor of the Gilson Studies (GS) special series for Editions Rodopi, B. V.; former associate editor and advisor to the journal Contemporary Philosophy; recipient of the recipient of St. John’s University’s Outstanding Achievement Award, and Socratic Fellowship Award from the Great Books Academy; inaugural inductee as distinguished alumnus of Xaverian High School; former Graduate Fellow of SUNY at Buffalo; and the only non-Polish scholar to be presented with the Laudatio Achievement Award for attainment of intellectual and organizational wisdom, from the Department of Philosophy, Culture, and Art at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland. In 2010, Dr. Redpath moved to Cave Creek, AZ in part to devote his time to teaching for and developing different philosophical projects. For more information about Dr. Redpath visit his website at: http://www.aquinasschoolofleadership.com/
7) Course Number: Ph 102
Course Title: Introduction to the Uncommon Commonsense Liberal Art of Philosophical Reading
Course Description: This course is an introduction to the lost art of uncommon commonsense, or philosophical, reading. Its chief aim is to improve a student’s ability to understand how to read a difficult book of any kind, especially a difficult philosophical, or science, book.
Educational Consultants: This course will be co-conducted by Peter A. Redpath and Kelly Fitzsimmons-Burton
Dr. Fitzsimmons-Burron received a B.A. in Philosophy from Arizona State University (ASU) in 1997, another B.A., in Literature, from ASU in the same year; and an M.A. Philosophy from ASU, in 2000. She received Ph.D. in Humanities with an emphasis in Philosophy from Faulkner University in 2017. She is a co-founder and publisher of Public Philosophy Press (Public Philosophy Press and The Journal of Public Philosophy (Journal of Public Philosophy)
8) Course Number: Ph 103
Course Title: Listening to and Reading Platonic Dialogues: Ion, Euthyphro, and Apology
Course Description: This course is an introduction to application of the lost liberal art of philosophical, or uncommon commonsense, listening and reading for the chief aim of achieving a meeting of understandings between a listener, or reader, and the philosopher Plato related to the meaning of these dialogues considered: 1) as whole conversations, and 2) in their different conversational parts. By a meeting of understandings is meant that the reader’s understanding of what Plato is saying in these dialogues considered as whole conversations, and as conversational parts, will totally, or almost totally, agree with, match, what Plato understood himself to be saying to his listening and reading audience when he composed these works, or talked about them, in Ancient Greece in the 4th century BC.
Educational Consultants: This course will be co-conducted by Peter A. Redpath and Kelly Fitzsimmons-Burton
9) Course Number: Ph 104
Course Title: Introduction to the Uncommon Commonsense Liberal Art of Philosophical Reading
Course Description: This course is an introduction to application of the lost liberal art of philosophical, or uncommon commonsense, listening and reading for the chief aim of achieving a meeting of understandings between a listener or reader and the philosopher Plato related to the meaning of these dialogues considered as a whole conversations, and in their different conversational parts. By a meeting of understandings,we mean that the reader’s understanding of what Plato is saying in these dialogues considered as whole conversations, and as conversational parts, will totally, or almost totally, agree with, match, what Plato understood himself to be saying to his listening and reading audience when he composed these works or talked about them in Ancient Greece in the 4th century BC.
Educational Consultants : This course will be co-conducted by Peter A. Redpath and Kelly Fitzsimmons-Burton
10) Course Number: Ph 105
Course Title: Listening to and Reading Platonic Dialogues: Meno and Gorgias
Course Description: This course is an introduction to application of the lost liberal art of philosophical, or uncommon commonsense, listening and reading for the chief aim of achieving a meeting of understandings between a listener or reader and the philosopher Plato related to the meaning of these dialogues considered as a whole conversations, and in their different conversational parts. By a meeting of understandings, we mean that the reader’s understanding of what Plato is saying in these dialogues considered as whole conversations, and as conversational parts, will totally, or almost totally, agree with, match, what Plato understood himself to be saying to his listening and reading audience when he composed these works or talked about them in Ancient Greece in the 4th century BC.
Educational Consultants: : This course will be co-conducted by Peter A. Redpath and Kelly Fitzsimmons-Burton
11) Course Number: Ph 106
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Metaphysical Wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Age-old Problem of the One and the Many
Course Description: This course is an introductory study of the uncommon commonsense metaphysical teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas concerning the nature of the metaphysical principles of unity and multiplicity and the essential role that these principles play in the existence of things and all other uncommon commonsense principles of being, becoming, and knowing, including those of experience, art, philosophy, science.
Educational Consultants: This course will be co-conducted by Peter A. Redpath and Eduardo Bernot
Professor of Philosophy
Eduardo Bernot, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Christian Wisdom concentration online program at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. His main area of research is metaphysics insofar as it is the science of first principles. He is a member of the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA), a member of the International Étienne Gilson Society, and a Fellow of the Aquinas School of Leadership. He received his doctoral degree "with highest honors" from the Universitat Abat Oliba, CEU for completion of his dissertation entitled, The First Principles of Mathematics in the Light of St. Thomas Aquinas.
12) Course Number: Ph 107
Course Title: The Commonsense Moral Wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas about the Good, the Bad, the Beautiful, and the Ugly
Course Description: This course is a study of the commonsense metaphysical and moral wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas as a commonsense organizational psychology concerning the nature of the moral principles of the good, bad, beautiful, and ugly and how these relate to his uncommon commonsense metaphysical teachings about, being and non-being, truth and falsity, and the one and the many.
Educational Consultants: This course will be co-conducted by Peter A. Redpath and Eduardo Bernot
13) Course Number: Ph 108
Course Title: Aristotle’s Commonsense Politics: Modern Perspectives
Course Description: This course is a study of the Politics of Aristotle both in itself but more importantly with reference to present experience and practice. Aristotle’s approach to political things is very different from ours, but is not thereby worse; indeed it may be better and more perceptive. As an illustration of the fact, the course begins with a spoof piece I wrote called ‘Aristotle’s Regime of the Americans’. It is based on passages and themes from Aristotle’s Politics, but as directed toward characteristic commonsense features of American political theory and practice. This spoof piece will help to focus the course and set the scene for the systematic examination of Aristotle’s own writing. Topics include especially the rationale or origin of political life in the fact and pursuit of moral virtue (as detailed at the end of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics which leads directly into the Politics); the pursuit of the best life within the city (the aboriginal form of human political life); the nature of the city and of the regime or the political arrangement of the city; the best way to arrange rule in the city; the different ways in fact that people arrange their cities, from good to bad; the several kinds of cities; the stability and precariousness of cities (relative to the idea of revolution and political overthrow); and ways to organize actual cities, or political associations, to promote the good and to mitigate the evil.
14) Educational Consultant: Dr. Peter L.P. Simpson is a semi-retired Full Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York, USA, where he taught full time from 1989 to 2019. Author of several philosophical books and numerous articles and book reviews, he is a native of the UK, and has lived in the USA since the mid-1980s. More details can be found on his website: aristotelophile.com.
Course Number: Ph 109
Course Title: Aristotle’s Uncommon Commonsense Waking Realism: Physics and Metaphysics
Course Description: This course is a study of the uncommon commonsense realism, or waking realism, as one may call it, of Aristotle as found in his writings on the nature of our world. Waking realism is the realism about the world that we all espouse as a matter of course in our day to day lives. It contrasts with the picture of this world promoted (not altogether consciously) by modern science or more properly by modern physics. Themes include the difference between waking and dreaming; between the world as we directly perceive it and the world as modern science describes it (e.g., the difference between seen colors and frequencies of light waves); the question of matter and form and what constitutes or is reducible to what; the nature of motion, especially the motion of living things; mind, body, speech, thought; goodness and God.
Educational Consultant: Peter L. P. Simpson
15) Course Number: Ph 110
Course Title: Introduction to the Liberal Art of Uncommon Commonsense Logic
Course Description: This course is a study of the first act of the intellect, simple apprehension, the act by which we know the essence of things. The traditional term for this discipline is 'material logic' because it treats of the building blocks of thought: concepts. Most logic courses skip over material logic, begin and end with formal logic: the study of the third act of the mind: reasoning. The first act of the mind begins with the formation of the concept of a being from sense perception and culminates in the propositional expression of the essence of the being in definition.
To be able to define things, we need to know the ways “being can be said,” as Aristotle puts it, which are the Categories; and the ways that concepts can be related to each other, which are the Predicables. To understand these, comprehending the following is helpful: 1) the relation of logic to grammar in the parts of speech (the categories) and syntax (the predicables); 2) the process by which a concept is formed from sense perception (abstraction); 3) the natural of the concept and its relation to real beings (comprehension and extension); 4) the fundamental components of all material beings (form and matter); 5) why things are the way they are (Aristotle's famous four causes); and 6) seeing the first act in relation to the other two acts, especially judgment, the act by which we apprehend existence and, hence, truth. This course will treat all these topics. The book for this course was written for teenagers, but it is profitable for adults, and my lectures will be geared for adults.
After going through these fundamentals of material logic, we shall examine how Aristotelian/Thomistic moderate realism, in which reality and the human soul are capable of intimate union, enables us most effectively both to understand and engage with pressing cultural, anthropological, political problems and issues. To this purpose, we shall read and discuss selected chapters from my book Modernity as Apocalypse.
Educational Consultant: Dr. Thaddeus Kozinski is former Associate Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College and Academic Dean. He teaches political philosophy, logic, and Latin at John Adams Academy, and Great Books for the Angelicum Academy. His latest book is Modernity as Apocalypse: Sacred Nihilism and the Counterfeits of Logos, Angelico Press (2019).
16) Course Number: Ph 111
Course Title: Thomistic Uncommon Commonsense Exemplar Leadership
Course Description: This course, which will be conducted online and asynchronously, is a study and application of Thomistic exemplar, soulful organizational leadership based on a metaphysics of organization and a faculty-behavioral-psychology. It applies to a broad definition of organizations, i.e. profit, nonprofit, government, religious and volunteering. Since our study of exemplar soulful leadership is of an organizational context, the course focuses largely on the executive function of organizational leadership. The primary reason for a study of soulful organizational leadership is to comprehend and apply the executive function and diffusion of leadership powers at work in a soulful organization. Therefore, it is essential to our Thomistic uncommon commonsense exemplar organizational behavioral study that we must initially focus on the function of the executive and his/her character as a wise and prudent leader.
We stress that this course is chiefly a study of the practical function of the executive exemplar soulful leader and the diffusion and emulation of uncommon commonsense soulful exemplar leadership throughout an organization. Fundamentally, it is a study of the executive function as a practice of exemplar virtuous habits of character. We argue that exemplar leadership is best comprehended and practiced from the perspective of a Thomistic practical understanding of a faculty-behavioral-psychology.
Educational Consultant: Dr. Arthur William McVey has had a long and varied career. He graduated decades ago from St. Paul’s College, University of Ottawa, Canada with a Bachelor of Scholastic Philosophy and Theology. After this, he attended the School of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and completed a Master of Arts in Religion and Culture. At Wilfrid Laurier University much of his research was on the subject of social behavior, symbolic interactionism, and secular rituals. One of the pleasures of his graduate studies was that he came to know the eminent Marshall McLuhan as a scholar and devout Catholic. He gave generously of his time and encouraged and assisted McVey with his research.
After he left Wilfrid Laurier University, Dr. McVey did not pursue an academic career. The School was extremely oriented toward an empirical study of religion and culture. Gradually, he became increasingly data driven and positivistic in his methodology. After graduating, he left Canada, and moved to the USA, married, and began a family life. His skills and talent in the domain of social behavior and statistical method seemed to fit well for a career in sales and marketing. He and his wife, Linda, raised three daughters who gave them two wonderful sons-in-law and seven beautiful grandchildren.
Dr. McVey spent the greater part of his early career in the private sector, advancing to the level of a Chief Executive Officer and a senior level business consultant. After a major spiritual experience, he returned to Christ and became an Episcopal priest. However, over time, he began a study of Charles Sanders Peirce that guided him back to a serious study of Thomas Aquinas. Eventually, he became more and more dedicated to Thomistic philosophy and theology. He was especially motivated by the scholarship of Peter Redpath, so much so that he decided to do a Ph.D. in Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical psychology at the Universitat Abat Oliba University in Barcelona, Spain. He received my doctoral degree "with highest honors" on the topic of organizational leadership and the nature of Aristotelian-Thomistic Behavioral Organizational Psychology.
During his return to Aquinas he began to draw closer to the Roman Church. He had fallen away from Rome, but as he returned to Aquinas, the medieval spirituality in his heart returned to Rome. After he received my Ph.D., I strongly felt the call to revert back to Rome the Church of his birth.
17) Course Number: Ph 112
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas regarding the True, the False, the Lie, and the Fake
Course Description: This course is a study of the uncommon commonsense metaphysical and moral wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas about the nature of truth and its opposites (the false, the lie, and the fake) in relationship to unity and multiplicity, being and non-being, and good and evil; and different kinds of falsehood, considered in themselves and in relation to their existence within human knowing faculties, appetites, and in relationship to God.
Educational Consultant: Eduardo Bernot
18) Course Number: Ph 113
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of Marcus Tullius Cicero in De amicitia (On Friendship)
Course Description: This course will examine in detail the uncommon commonsense wisdom in Cicero's celebrated dialogue on the nature of friendship, including that of a perfect friend, addressed to his close friend Titus Pomponius Atticus, which occurred shortly after the suspicious and sudden death of the younger Scipio Africanus (Scipio the Younger) in 129 B.C.. A close friend of Scipio, Gaius Laelius and his two sons-in-law (Gaius Fannius [a historian] and Quintus Mucius Scaevola [an Augur]) are the interlocutors.
This examination will include discussion of the Laelius' eulogy about the virtues of Scipio, and the discussion in which he and Fannius engage regarding the nature of Laelius' friendship with Scipio and 'the nature and laws of friendship' in general.
Educational Consultant: To be announced
19) Course Number: Ph 114
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of Marcus Tullius Cicero in De officiis (On Duties)
Course Description: This course will study in detail Cicero's 44 B. C. personal letter to his son Marcus shortly before Cicero's death a year later. It will do so according to the order of his 3 books of moral obligations related to the best way to live, act, and to observe moral duties, or obligations, in which he discusses the nature of the honorable (Book 1); the personally advantageous (Book 2); and how to behave when the honorable and the personally advantageous appear to conflict Book 3).
Educational Consultant: To be announced
20) Course Number: Ph 115
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of the Confessions of St. Aurelius Augustine
Course Description: In this course on Augustine's Confessions, we begin where St. Augustine did: with God and man. We find at the beginning the knowledge of God and
the knowledge of the human condition. The Confessions represent one of the great accounts of a Christian struggling from unbelief to belief, filled with common and uncommon commonsense wisdom.
From the opening, and through the entire book, we find Augustine recounting the clarity of the knowledge of God and contrasting this with the sinful unbelief and willfulness of man.
This course goes book by book through the Confessions as Augustine recounts the stages of his own life and his move to Christian belief. There we will find Roman polytheism, Manichean dualism, Platonism, and finally Christianity. There we will also find the most common struggles with ordinary sins and the moral conscience wrestling with
the implications of such a life. Our own attention will be drawn to the revelation of God in all of his works including the work of redeeming a willful sinner.
Educational Consultant: Dr. Owen Anderson has been teaching philosophy and religious studies for 21 years and is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Arizona State University. His research focuses on general revelation and related questions about reality, value, and knowledge. He has been a fellow at Princeton University, a visiting scholar at Princeton Seminary, and a fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has published several books including, "Job: A Philosophical Commentary" (2021); "The Declaration of Independence and God" (2015); and "The Natural Moral Law" (2013). He regularly teaches Philosophy of Religion, Introduction to Philosophy, Applied Ethics, World Religions, Western Religious Traditions, and Religion in America.
21) Course Number: Ph 116 A
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of Augustine's On the City of God against the Pagans (De civitate Dei contra paganos), Part 1
Course Description: This course is an introduction to the uncommon commonsense wisdom of St. Augustine of Hippo's early 5th-century theological-philosophical masterpiece, which responds to claims that Christianity was the chief cause of Rome's decline and sacking by the Visigoths in 410 A. D.. Consisting of 2 Parts and 22 Chapters, this book is a keystone of Christian philosophy and theology.
Part 1 of this course will examine in detail Augustine's Chapters 1 through 10, in which he critiques pagan religion and philosophy, and argues against the pagans who attributed the sack of Rome to Christianity, claiming, instead, that progressive Roman moral corruption, abandonment of the classical virtue of its ancient leaders, led to Rome's decline. In so doing, it will also consider: (1) arguments Augustine offers that Christianity was actually responsible for Rome's longstanding political power and existence; (2) his criticism of pagan religion's teaching about Fate; (3) his explanation of Christian teaching about free choice of the will and how it does not contradict divine omniscience; (4) Augustine's interpretation of human history as a political conflict between the Earthly City (the City of Man) and the Heavenly City (the City of God), and arguments he presents as to why this conflict is destined to end in victory of the City of God; and (5) his description of the nature of the citizens of these two cities.
Educational Consultant: To be announced
22) Course Number: Ph 116 B
Course Title: The Uncommon Commonsense Wisdom of Augustine's On the City of God against the Pagans (De civitate Dei contra paganos), Part 2
Course Description: Part 2 of this course continues our introduction to the uncommon commonsense wisdom of St. Augustine of Hippo's City of God.
In it, we will examine in detail Augustine's Chapters 11 through 22 of his masterful City of God, in which he discusses: (1) the origin of these two cities and its relationship to the separation of good and bad angels, as explained in Genesis, Book 1; (2) why some angels are good and others bad; (3) creation of Adam and Eve; (4) the origin of death being a penalty for Adam's sin; (4) the nature of original sin and it relationship to lust and shame; (5) the history of the two cities, including first principles of Jewish theology; (6) events in Genesis between the time of Cain and Abel to the time of the Flood; (7) progress of the two cities from Noah to Abraham and of the heavenly city from Abraham to the kings of Israel; (8) history of the city of God from Samuel to and Christ; (9) Christological interpretations of the prophecies in Books of Kings and Psalms; (10) the parallel history of the earthly and heavenly cities from Abraham to the end; (11) doctrine of Witness, that Jews received prophecy predicting Jesus, and, to provide independent testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures, that Jews are dispersed among the nations; (12) the deserved destinies of the two cities; (13) the end of the two cities, and the happiness of the people of Christ; (14) prophecies of the Last Judgment in the Old and New Testaments; (15) eternal punishment for the City of the Devil; and (16) eternal happiness for the saints and explanations of the resurrection of the body.
Educational Consultant: To be announced