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On the ‘Conflict’ of Plural Worldviews
“Whereas the beautiful is limited, the sublime is limitless, so that the mind in the presence of the sublime, attempting to imagine what it cannot, has pain in the failure but pleasure in contemplating the immensity of the attempt” -- Immanuel Kant In this paper, I will defend that Kant’s theory of aesthetics illustrates a more advantageous baseline for defining political judgement in a democratic liberal society than Kant’s theory of morality. In his Third Critique, Kant

Emerson Sayde
Mar 237 min read


'A Brooding Omnipresence in the Skies'
" The whole body of law is permeated by two recurring standards of decision: fault and intent." -- Lon Fuller In this paper, I will defend Lon Fuller’s account of the 1949 postwar Grudge Informer case and the natural law conception of the vitality of moral consideration in the legal sphere. According to Lon Fuller, there is no neutral way to identify law without interpreting it. In every place that Fuller’s antithesis, H.L.A. Hart, argues for the separation of law and

Emerson Sayde
Feb 168 min read


Aquinas’s Defense of Antigone’s Kreon
“Oh, it is hard to give in! But it is worse to risk everything for stubborn pride.” In this paper, I will defend King Kreon’s decree in Sophocles’s Antigone using principles derived from Aquinas’s natural law theory. According to Aquinas, law is an exercise of public personage by a sovereign who cares for all people of his state. As an instance of divergence from positive and divine law particular to a case of treachery, Kreon’s law was protective of natural law’s end towar

Emerson Sayde
Dec 26, 20254 min read


Au Fait Response to Romanticism and "Tragic Beauty"
“To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.” ~Schumman Perceptions come in stages, and there are intricate timelines that accompany emotional resonance; all the art ever asks of you is patience. As we study and consume works of art, we ought to carefully uphold this procedure of patience so as to avoid diminishing some of its most primitive and enigmatic aspects. When we take viewership and engage with forms of media and portraiture, th

Emerson Sayde
Nov 9, 20255 min read
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