BCYC Immersion Philosophy Track

BCYC Immersion participants in a seminar-style class

  • Session 2: July 7-12, 2024

For nearly three millennia, philosophers in the west have grappled with some of the most difficult questions we have ever thought to ask. Seeking answers, they left their conclusions behind, along with the arguments supporting them. In the BCYC Immersion Philosophy program for high school students, we will be looking at some of the better-known philosophical arguments from these past thinkers. From the allegory of the cave to the five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas to Pascal’s wager, these arguments are a brief introduction to the life and work of philosophers to anyone who would like to learn more about the “examined life”.

“You say one must philosophize. Then you must philosophize. You say one should not philosophize. Then (to prove your contention) you must philosophize. In any case you must philosophize.” — Aristotle

Track Instructor

Dr. Jean Rioux
Professor of Philosophy

Dr. Jean Rioux


Dr. Rioux is a professor and chair of the philosophy department at Benedictine College. A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College, he earned his Master's and Ph.D. in philosophy from the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
Specializing in the thought of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, Dr. Rioux has written textbooks in logic and natural philosophy, as well as articles in the philosophy of mathematics. His most recent publication is Thomas Aquinas' Mathematical Realism (291 pp., Palgrave Macmillan).
He and Dr. Richard White (a member of Benedictine's theology department) regularly offer great books classes in philosophy and theology. Dr. Rioux and his wife, Maria, raise their children in a renovated farmhouse in rural Kansas. They have been designing their own curricula and educating their children at home for many years.

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