Dr. Kevin Kambo argues that our culture has moved from a “dictatorship of relativism” to a “tyranny of pathos,” in which appeals to hurt feelings and empathy displace reasoned deliberation about truth, justice, and human nature.

This lecture was given on October 23rd, 2025, at Fordham University.

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About the Speakers:

Kevin M. Kambo is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas in Irving, TX. Before completing his doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America, he earned a bachelor of science in Chemistry at Stanford University and worked as an intellectual property paralegal in Manhattan, NY. Dr. Kambo specialises in classical Greek philosophy, particularly on Platonic moral psychology and on the dramatic elements of Platonic dialogues. He also works on the reception of Platonic thought through history, from late antique (e.g., in Clement of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo) through contemporary (e.g., W. E. B. Du Bois and Simone Weil) thinkers, and has broader scholarly interests in philosophy of technology, philosophy and literature (especially tragedy), philosophy of race, and liberal education. He is a partisan of the original Star Wars trilogy, P. G. Wodehouse, and receiving postcards--not necessarily in that order.

Keywords: Aristotle and Logos, Benedict XVI Regensburg, Dictatorship of Relativism, Ethics and Politics, John Paul II, Nature and Human Flourishing, Politics of Pathos, Relativism and Tolerance, Tyranny of Pathos

From the Dictatorship of Relativism to the Tyranny of Pathos – Dr. Kevin Kambo

The Thomistic Institute