Marin Philosophical Society

Date/time: Monday, 10/13/25: 11:30-1:30pm,

Location: @VenturePad: 1020 B St, between 4th & 5th street, across from the Marriott Hotel

Speaker: Dr Patrick Downey, St. Mary’s College

Three Quarrels of Western Civilization   

Western civilization has been shaped by three defining quarrels that continue to echo through our culture. The first, between Poets and Philosophers, asks whether imagination or reason best explains our world. The second, between Athens and Jerusalem, that pits rational inquiry against moral revelation and the third, framed by Jonathan Swift, as the quarrel of Ancients and Moderns, that weighs tradition against progress. 

Far from being destructive, these quarrels have given Western life dynamism – like a long marriage, full of tension but also renewal. The pregnant question is whether the underlying narratives play out as tragedy, with downfall and loss, or as comedy, with reconciliation and surprising joy. Dr Patrick Downey is Professor and Philosophy Chair at Saint Mary’s College.