The After Dinner Scholar

Arithmetic, Murder, and Redemption in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment with Dr. Thaddeus Kozinski

“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?” asks a student as he considers murder as a road to justice. If one death could mean liberation for many, why not kill? For him it's just a hypothetical question, but at a nearby table Radion Raskolnikov listens, takes in the argument, and later kills.

In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky considers what happens after the blood is shed: the confusion, the remorse, the justifications, the anguish, and finally in Raskolnikov's case redemption. Dr. Thaddeus Kozinski, Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Humanities here at Wyoming Catholic College has been reading Crime and Punishment with our senior class. Inthis podcast, he shares his and their insights into this exploration of the human heart.

The Roots of Philosophy: Theories about Everything

Everything in this world changes and yet at the same time, everything seems to remain the same. That observation is hardly new. In fact, between about 625 BC and 450 BC the question of the nature of reality and the nature of motion and change were the primary focuses of the great thinkers of the era, thinkers we call the pre-Socratic philosophers.

This week, Dr. Michael Bolin, Assistant Professor of Theology and Philosophy who has been teaching the pre-Socratics to our freshmen here at Wyoming Catholic discusses these earliest philosophers and the ways in which they can help us understand our world and culture today.