About José Maria J. Yulo

José Yulo, Ed.D. teaches philosophy, Western civilization, and United States history at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Dr. Yulo completed his undergraduate studies at St. John’s College, Annapolis, where his love of liberal learning, and great books, was cultivated.

A Worthy Chase: Pursuing an Ideal Education

By |2024-02-09T22:57:23-06:00February 9th, 2024|Categories: Books, Classical Learning, Education, Eva Brann, Liberal Learning, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

Eva Brann’s latest book, “Pursuits of Happiness,” is a collection of essays which range from Aeschylus to Austen, with topics spanning the nature of time itself to Sacred Scripture. Interspersed here are two parts constituting the whole of an ideal education. Pursuits of Happiness: On Being Interested by Eva Brann (640 pages, Paul Dry Books, [...]

Requiem for a Soldier: Louis Awerbuck

By |2023-11-09T19:05:25-06:00November 9th, 2023|Categories: Classics, Sophocles, Timeless Essays, War|Tags: |

Louis Awerbuck believed that societies fell to folly when they drew distinct lines between their warriors and scholars. What this ultimately led to was a society’s thinking being done by cowards and its fighting done by fools. Awerbuck saw himself as the keeper of a tradition, a heritage of warriors in ages past, and civilization’s [...]

The Purpose of Peace: Maritain, Augustine & the Battle of Vienna

By |2023-11-04T20:09:09-05:00September 11th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, History, Philosophy, Timeless Essays, War, Western Civilization|

The question of the purpose of peace has troubled humanity from the time an ancient hand was first raised in anger. It is one thing to win a war and impose peace on a vanquished enemy, and altogether another thing to cultivate one’s own victorious city or nation once the wolf has been held at [...]

Maritain, Brann, & Raphael: Seeking Bridges to Beauty in Art

By |2023-05-22T21:56:56-05:00May 22nd, 2023|Categories: Art, Beauty, Culture, Eva Brann, Philosophy, St. John's College|

Beauty is found in art when there is connectedness to something beyond novelty and originality. This connectedness must exist between the artist and the source of what inspires the particular medium of art. Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.[1] Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever [...]

Beyond Mere Measure: Eva Brann on Equality

By |2022-10-03T18:56:02-05:00October 3rd, 2022|Categories: Alexis de Tocqueville, Books, Equality, Eva Brann, St. John's College|

It is no mean feat to bring together the thought of Thucydides and Tocqueville when discussing the topic of equality, a concept seemingly so ancient and timeless. In her new book, Eva Brann has crafted a bridge beyond these revered sources onto the banks of newer, gleaned insights; it is a bridge that invites the [...]

Thoughtful Theism: Redeeming Reason in an Irrational Age

By |2022-05-18T16:23:53-05:00May 18th, 2022|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Faith, Featured, Reason, St. Thomas Aquinas|

Contrary to conventional wisdom, this age’s crisis is not one of faith. If anything, there is plenty of faith around, in both good and bad things. What we lack is that which since the Middle Ages has been seen as a complement to faith: reason. Thoughtful Theism: Redeeming Reason in an Irrational Age by Fr. [...]

With Gratitude to a Sentinel of Classical Learning

By |2021-07-12T16:24:54-05:00January 19th, 2019|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Great Books, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Liberal Learning, St. John's College, Wisdom|

From time to time, there is the need for sentinels of classical learning, individuals who, if one is fortunate to be around them, beckon the meandering intellect back to the pursuit of the truth, the discovery of the good, and the conservation of the beautiful. In the end, the student is invited to the quest [...]

The Tragedy of Democracy Without Authority: Maritain & Thucydides

By |2020-09-11T16:41:40-05:00August 19th, 2018|Categories: Civil Society, Conservatism, Democracy, History, Philosophy, Politics, Thucydides, Timeless Essays|

Democracies were acutely problematic when they did not collectively comprehend the necessity of legitimate authority permeating the polis. Lacking this understanding, power was elevated in authority’s absence. Scrupulous fear of the gods is the very thing which keeps the Roman Commonwealth together. To such an extraordinary height is this carried among them, both in private [...]

Rigor in Place of Rancor

By |2021-04-24T19:20:40-05:00March 27th, 2018|Categories: Eva Brann, Featured, Great Books, Jacob Klein, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, St. John's College|

In the last few years, accounts of the growing politicization of academic discourse have made their way from colleges and universities onto conversations on a public, and perhaps national, scale. What is the essence behind such rancor?… There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. -G. K. Chesterton[1] [...]

When Gentlemen Dispute

By |2020-11-04T16:06:40-06:00August 14th, 2016|Categories: Essential, Politics, St. John's College, Timeless Essays, Wisdom|

Demonstrations that are political possess a tendency to be governed by loudness and force rather than by reflection and thought, and thus bear the shrill dictates of power instead of being willing servants to truth. And above all, we should remember that there is simply no point in winning the argument if we know we [...]

Whence Comes the Machiavellian: A Discussion of Maritain’s Paradigms

By |2021-05-06T20:04:15-05:00March 28th, 2015|Categories: Classics, Morality, Plato|Tags: |

Thus says the Lord: Do not learn the ways of the nations, and have no fear of the signs of the heavens, even though the nations fear them. For the carvings of the nations are nonentities, wood cut from the forest, fashioned by artisans with the adze, adorned with silver and gold. With nails and [...]

When Gentlemen Dispute: A St. John’s College Reflection

By |2021-05-24T12:03:31-05:00August 12th, 2012|Categories: St. John's College|Tags: , |

“And above all, we should remember that there is simply no point in winning the argument if we know we are wrong.” —Mortimer Adler It was 1992, and as the nation prepared to reelect the current administration or elect an incoming one, no dearth of opinions could be found in the national punditry. It appeared [...]

When Greeks Bear Gifts: On Economy, Philosophy and Freedom

By |2014-01-26T16:07:39-06:00May 13th, 2012|Categories: Economics, Political Economy|Tags: , , |

“To say that private men have nothing to do with government is to say that private men have nothing to do with their own happiness or misery; that people ought not to concern themselves whether they be naked or clothed, fed or starved, deceived or instructed, protected or destroyed.”—Marcus Cato The Elder “Didst thou forget [...]

Go to Top