About Gerhart Niemeyer

Gerhart Niemeyer (1907-1997) was Professor of Government at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Niemeyer authored Between Nothingness Paradise and The Loss and Recovery of Truth: Selected Writings of Gerhart Niemeyer.

The Glory and Misery of Education

By |2019-09-12T12:05:55-05:00October 16th, 2017|Categories: Christianity, Education, Gerhart Niemeyer, Liberal Learning, St. Augustine|Tags: |

The misery will have to become more sharply unbearable, the suffering personal and yet wide-spread, before people begin to run after a real teacher, seize him by the hem of his overcoat, and beg him to take charge of their children. Let us not say that then it will be too late. It may be [...]

Russell Kirk and Ideology

By |2016-10-28T12:24:42-05:00October 2nd, 2016|Categories: Christianity, Conservatism, Featured, Gerhart Niemeyer, Philosophy, Russell Kirk, Timeless Essays|

Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Gerhart Niemeyer as he explores the role and nature of ideology as applied to politics, through the lens of Russell Kirk. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher Russell Kirk “Philosophy”—love of wisdom—is a word first used by Heraclitus. “Sophia” as listed [...]

A Warning About Order

By |2016-11-26T09:52:07-06:00March 1st, 2014|Categories: Christianity, Civilization, Gerhart Niemeyer, Quotation|

A warning may be in order that our civilization is not in good shape, furthermore, that awareness of this fact and analysis of the disorder are among the foremost obligations of intellectual leadership. Both require a return to basic questions, such questions as are usually answered at the beginning of things. A thinking person should [...]

Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy & the Drama of Mankind

By |2016-06-14T09:09:05-05:00April 16th, 2013|Categories: Christianity, Eric Voegelin, Gerhart Niemeyer, Philosophy|Tags: |

Eric Voegelin Nearly two decades ago there appeared the first three volumes of Eric Voegelin’s exemplary quest for a theoretically intelligible order of history (Vol. I, Israel and Revelation; Vol. II, The World of the Polis; Vol. III, Plato and Aristotle). The plan projected three more volumes: Empire and Christianity, The Protestant Centuries, and The Crisis [...]

Russell Kirk and Ideology

By |2018-10-11T17:08:42-05:00April 10th, 2012|Categories: Christianity, Gerhart Niemeyer, Ideology, Philosophy, Russell Kirk|Tags: |

“Philosophy”—love of wisdom—is a word first used by Heraclitus. “Sophia” as listed in the dictionary means “perfect scientific knowledge, wisdom,” but a “sophist” is “a quibbler, a cheat.” And Plato made a sharp distinction between sophistes, philosophos, and the sophos, the sophistes being a person who, claiming that he possesses wisdom, takes money for teaching it. The philosophos, by contrast, knowing [...]

Christian Studies and the Liberal Arts College

By |2017-06-29T16:14:38-05:00May 24th, 2011|Categories: Christianity, Gerhart Niemeyer, Liberal Learning, Religion|Tags: |

What can a student today rightfully demand from a “liberal arts education”? A diploma that translates into a better-paid job? Such a certificate calls for vocational training. A smattering of a wide range of various disciplines? That would hardly make him a more useful citizen. “Liber” is the Latin word for “free.” A “liberal” education [...]

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