The Ralston College Podcast

Episoder

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  AI and the Battle for the Soul with Iain McGilchrist - Lecture 2: True Freedom in an Artificial World 30.07.2026 1t 10min

  Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. The final lecture of Ralston College's symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, asks a question that turns from the future of artificial intelligence to something far older and more enduring: What does freedom require? Weaving together neuroscience, philosophy, physics, and literature, Dr Iain McGilchrist examines free will, consciousness, and the forms of attention that compose our engagement with the world. Over several decades at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience, Dr McGilchrist's contributions have transformed contemporary discussions of consciousness, attention, and meaning. At a moment so often dominated by mechanical explanations and computational models, he emphasizes the indispensable role of openness, receptivity, and participation in understanding, arguing that reality exceeds reductionist accounts.  If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Henry Stapp Pierre-Simon Laplace Benjamin Libet Immanuel Kant Plato Socrates Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound Charles Darwin William Blake Carl Jung Albrecht Altdorfer Daniel Phillips  
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  AI and the Battle for the Soul with Stephen Wolfram and Iain McGilchrist - Conversation: What is Artificial Intelligence? 28.07.2026 1t 9min

  Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. Ralston College welcomed Iain McGilchrist and Stephen Wolfram in May of 2026 for a public conversation during our symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul. Beginning with the promises and implications of this technology, the discussion opens onto a deeper inquiry concerning consciousness, computation, purpose, and the irreducible constitution of reality itself.  Setting out from seemingly distant philosophical commitments, these thinkers demonstrate an uncommon willingness to follow first principles wherever they lead. After decades in physics, computer science, and the study of complex systems, Wolfram shares his vision through the lens of computation, looking for the simple rules underlying complexity in the natural world. Drawing upon decades studying philosophy, literature, and neuropsychiatry, McGilchrist makes the case that reality exceeds computation, suggesting that consciousness is grounded in embodiment, receptivity, and participation. The two thinkers do not remain at the level of disagreement, but examine one another's fundamental assumptions with a rare seriousness and intellectual charity.    If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Alan Turing Isaac Newton Albert Einstein Charles Darwin Aristotle René Descartes Ludwig Wittgenstein John von Neumann  Roger Penrose  
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  AI and the Battle for the Soul with Jonathan Pageau Lecture: Whom Does AI Serve? Sacrifice in the Digital Age 23.07.2026 1t 12min

  Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this second lecture from our recent symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, theologian and iconographer Jonathan Pageau asks: Who, or what, does AI serve? By drawing on mythology, scripture, symbolism, and poetry, he argues that the questions raised by AI directly concern human purpose and meaning. Through the stories of Prometheus, the Holy Grail, Moloch, and the Tower of Babel, Pageau unpacks the deepest questions raised by AI, calling on us to recognize what technology reveals about ourselves and the civilization we are building.    Recorded at Ralston College in May 2026, this event brought together leading thinkers including Iain McGilchrist, Jonathan Pageau, and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself.  If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy The Holy Grail (Arthurian Legend) Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene Scott Alexander's Meditations on Moloch Allen Ginsberg's Howl Alfred North Whitehead Simone Weil Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man's Search for Meaning  
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  AI and the Battle for the Soul with Iain McGilchrist - Lecture 1: Information is Not Understanding 21.07.2026 51min

  Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this opening lecture from Ralston College's symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, Dr Iain McGilchrist traces a line of questions concerning the nature of intelligence, embodiment, wisdom, and the soul in an age increasingly defined by mechanistic thinking and the rise of large language models. Drawing on neuroscience, literature, theology, music, and myth, he explores what it means to understand beyond the constraints of reductionist accounts that view the human being as a computational information processor. In this wide-ranging and dynamic talk, he invites us to consider, as deeply as we can, the essence of our humanity.   Recorded at Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, this event brought together leading thinkers including Jonathan Pageau and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself. .  If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: E. M. Forster: The Machine Stops Isaiah Berlin Plato David Bohm Ludwig Wittgenstein  Gabriel Marcel Homer William Shakespeare: Othello  William Ernest Henley:  Invictus Nelson Mandela William Wordsworth: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey Thomas Tallis Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Tomás Luis de Victoria William Byrd Emil Cioran Johann Sebastian Bach Eugene Gendlin George Gaylord Simpson Galileo Galilei Peter Medawar Niels Bohr Joseph Pieper V. S. Ramachandran D. H. Lawrence Laozi: Tao Te Ching George Steiner Martin Heidegger Hannah Arendt John Milton: Paradise Lost Saint Paul: Epistle to the Ephesians Onondaga Nation Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man's Search for Meaning  
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  Memory, Tradition, and the Unity of the Classical Mind: Dr Armand D'Angour on the Lyrical Poetry of Horace 28.04.2026 1t 14min

  Dr Armand D'Angour turns our attention to the lyrical poetry of Horace, as it is placed within the Greek musical and poetic inheritance. With close readings of key odes, he shows us how Horace uses Greek lyric meters to achieve something both rhythmic and aural. Constructed around the themes of love, time, and political life, these poems can be seen as carefully constructed personnae, rather than autobiographical confession. This lyric poetry is shown to be a disciplined artform that carries inherited Greek forms into something distinctly Roman, without disturbing the musical intelligence beneath them. These poems were not written to be read silently, but were deeply connected to music, rhythm, and memory. By recovering this dimension, Professor D'Angour illuminates Horace not just as a literary figure, but as a poet working within a living tradition of song in which meaning is brought about through the interplay of sound, structure, and voice.    Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Horace's Odes Homer's Iliad and Odyssey Sappho Alcaeus Anacreon Pindar Catullus Virgil Aristotle Plato Epicurus Augustus Maecenas  
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  How Dante Can Save Your Life with Rod Dreher 26.03.2026 1t 15min

  Great works of literature are often regarded with admiration and even intimidation for their role as the lofty subject of scholarly analysis, but these books were not written for the halls of the university alone. These works were composed to be used: insofar as they are able to challenge, guide, and transform the lives of those who come into their possession. The redemptive power of philosophy and literature is something we focus on often at the college, but few people today model this power as well as Rod Dreher. In this lecture, we find a potent example of the enduring vitality that exists in Dante Alighieri's  Divine Comedy. The resulting expanse is an account of literature as something spiritually operative. Dante's poem becomes, in Dreher's telling, a work not only to be interpreted but to be inhabited, as a means by which grace can possess the imagination and heal what argument alone cannot.  Subscribe for updates at www.ralston.ac/subscribe  Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Inferno Purgatorio Paradiso Augustine's Confessions Julian of Norwich Benedict XVI Thomas Aquinas Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue
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  The Practice of Loving Wisdom | A Conversation with Spencer Klavan and Connor Livingston 17.02.2026 1t 9min

  The great books have never been more accessible, yet we live in a moment increasingly drawn away from them. Their value and transformative power are immediate, but many lack the patience and desire to become truly acquainted with the great minds of antiquity. In this installment of the Career and Life Conversation series, Dr Spencer Klavan joins Ralston College Fellow Connor Livingston for a discussion on the utility of the classics, the confluence of religion and philosophy, and the role of embodiment in human reason, along with what this reveals about artificial intelligence. From Athens to Jerusalem, from Plato to Paul, this exchange offers lofty reflections alongside practical insights for those seeking wisdom in an age that does not make it a priority.  If you have found these conversations meaningful, please consider supporting our work at www.ralston.ac/donate. Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Athanasius's On the Incarnation C.S. Lewis Plato's Republic Aristotle's De Anima and Nicomachean Ethics Socrates St. Paul Augustine's Confessions Disputation of the Holy Sacrament by Raphael T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets  Dante Aquinas Shakespeare Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  Owen Barfield  
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  Blood Guilt and Ballot Boxes: The Oresteia in America | A Lecture by Spencer Klavan 10.02.2026 1t 3min

  In his first lecture at Ralston College, Spencer Klavan offers a reading of Aeschylus' Oresteia that seeks to make sense of the American political landscape. The Furies exemplify the impersonal arithmetic of blood and counter-blood, while the younger gods introduce personal claims, partiality, and the integrity of the individual. When these powers collide with a single human being, we enter into a tragic cycle that demands a payment which only deepens the debt. Resolution is brought about by Athena and the city that bears her name. Deliberative justice creates a forum in which opposing claims can be weighed without the need for more bloodshed. Vengeance and wrath are transmuted into law that enable the city to live with its past, rather than being ruled by it. Klavan reminds us that scapegoating increases when deliberation is foregone, leaving us prone to ritual violence. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Plato's Euthyphro Homer's Iliad Aeschylus' Oresteia The Code of Hammurabi Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Herodotus Aristotle's Poetics The Book of Exodus Shakespeare's Hamlet Abraham Lincoln Ken Burns' The Civil War Palace of Knossos The Acropolis and Parthenon of Athens The Theatre of Dionysus Barbara Fields Eddie Izzard Neil Gaiman's the Sandman  
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  Founding an Empire: Lessons from Augustus with Dr Barry Strauss 28.01.2026 1t 35min

  In this lecture, historian Dr Barry Strauss examines Augustus as the architect of Rome's imperial settlement, tracing how a young heir of extraordinary ambition transformed a republic struggling with civil war into an enduring political order. Tracing events from the turmoil following Julius Caesar's assassination to the victory at Actium, the creation of the Pax Romana, and Augustus's claim to rule as Rome's "first citizen," Strauss highlights how Augustus secured power by building trust, managing rivals, and reshaping public life through law, ritual, architecture, and art. The talk concludes by asking what is preserved and what is lost when a society exchanges republican freedom for imperial stability, and what the study of ancient leadership can still teach us about prudence, courage, and political responsibility today. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Winston Churchill William Shakespeare Herod the Great Homer Virgil's Aeneid Cicero Mark Antony Julius Caesar Cleopatra  
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  Universities and the Future of Civilization: In Conversation with Iain McGilchrist 20.01.2026 1t 24min

  Ralston College Dr President Stephen Blackwood speaks with newly appointed Chancellor Dr Iain McGilchrist about the fate of the universities and their role in the future of civilization. Reflecting on education, tradition, and the conditions necessary for genuine understanding, Dr McGilchrist shares his hope that we can restore places of truth, beauty, and wisdom despite the pressures of  reductionism, instrumentality, and mechanistic thought. The conversation also traces prevailing academic narratives such as reduction and computation, which risk a flattening of human life into utility, data, and procedure. McGilchrist distinguishes information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, arguing that wisdom depends on lived experience, sustained attention, and a cultivated disposition toward reality itself.  Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Plato's Seventh Letter Aristotle's Political Animals Johann Sebastian Bach Isaac Newton  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Simon Conway Morris The Matter with Things The Cathedral Builders of the Middle Ages - Alain Erlande-Brandenburg Margaret Mead  
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  Taking Up Your Inheritance: A Philosophical Conversation Between Student and Teacher 30.12.2025 55min

  In this conversation, Jay Morris speaks with Dr James Bryson about the modern crisis of meaning and the difficulty of remaining spiritually oriented in a world shaped by reductionist accounts of mind, body, and nature. They reflect on the psychological and cultural repercussions of a scientific picture that brackets teleology and final causes, leaving many modern people disembodied, disenchanted, and uncertain about purpose. While acknowledging the genuine success of modern science, Dr Bryson argues that its limits must be faced honestly, especially where questions of meaning, value, and the human heart are concerned. The discussion then turns to education and the experience of intellectual disinheritance. Dr Bryson reflects on his own formation through a liberal arts education and the humbling discovery of the vast conversation that constitutes the Western tradition. Reading Plato, Dante, and Hegel not as isolated figures but as interlocutors across time, he emphasizes that tradition is a lineage we already inhabit, whether consciously or not. To read historically, he suggests,  is not to retreat into the past, but to become aware of the forces shaping our thinking and to take responsibility for them. The conversation culminates in a meditation on teaching, love, and the philosophical life. Dr Bryson argues that education at its best does not impose conclusions, but kindles desire, granting students permission to pursue the questions that genuinely move them. Drawing on Plato's understanding of eros, he describes philosophy as an act of midwifery, helping ideas come to birth rather than dictating outcomes. In an age marked by spiritual malaise and intellectual fragmentation, the conversation offers a hopeful vision of education as the recovery of orientation, enchantment, and the shared pursuit of wisdom. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Authors, Artists, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Plato   Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit   Blaise Pascal Dante Plotinus Homer Virgil Alfred North Whitehead Arthur O. Lovejoy Aristotle Johann Gottlieb Fichte Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy An Outline of European Architecture by Nikolaus Pevsner Dante's Paradiso The Ring of Truth by Roger Scruton The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis  
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  Drs Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying in Conversation with Ralston College's Students 25.11.2025 1t 44min

  In this wide-ranging conversation with students at Ralston College, evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying reflect on how to live well in the modern world, biologically, philosophically, and spiritually. Moving from Aristotle's De Anima to the ethics of diet and the future of civilization, they explore the body not as an obstacle to overcome but as the very substrate through which consciousness takes form. From lineage and the long arc of life on Earth to nutrition, parenthood, grief, and the challenges of modern medicine, the discussion reveals an integrated vision of human flourishing rooted in both biology and meaning. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Aristotle's De Anima  
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  The Sophia Lectures With Bret Weinstein - Lecture 4: The Relationship Between Culture and Genes 04.11.2025 1t 14min

  In the fourth and final lecture of the 2025 Sophia Lecture series, Dr Bret Weinstein explores how humanity's evolutionary inheritance, both genetic and cultural, has enabled us to navigate an extraordinary range of ecological and social niches. They show that while genes provide the foundational architecture of the mind, culture allows for rapid adaptation and the creation of new possibilities, from the construction of monumental cathedrals to the development of shared narratives that transmit knowledge across generations. Weinstein examines consciousness as a tool for novelty, emphasizing its role in parallel processing, collective problem-solving, and the creation of stories that humanize experience more efficiently than manuals or mechanistic instructions. Humans, he argues, have no fixed niche. Instead, we invent niches through language, shared imagination, and the transmission of culture, feeding back into the evolutionary pressures that continue to shape us. In the concluding discussion, joined by his wife Dr Heather Heying, Dr Weinstein explores how, by tracing the patterns of evolution and the ways we construct civilizations, we can reflect on the enduring questions of human life, our responsibilities within nature, and the role of beauty, creativity, and imagination in shaping a sustainable future. Authors, Artists, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris Tikal Ruins of Guatemala
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  The Sophia Lectures With Heather Heying - Lecture 3: The Usual Suspects 28.10.2025 1t 1min

  In this third lecture, Dr Heather Heying turns to the conditions sufficient for the emergence of sentient consciousness, exploring how life evolves the capacity to perceive, learn, and create. Drawing on the examples of primates, corvids, dolphins, elephants, wolves, and others, she reveals how traits such as long lifespans, extended childhoods, sociality, and play recur in the rare instances where sentience has independently evolved. These convergences, she argues, point to universals in the nature of intelligence itself, from cooperative learning to creative problem-solving. Along the way, Heying connects the biological scaffolding of consciousness to broader questions of culture and discovery, reclaiming science as a pursuit not only of logical proof but also of intuitive insight, where the recognition of pattern is inseparable from the apprehension of beauty. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Thomas Henry Huxley Gerard Manley Hopkins Spiral Staircase: Sagrada Família, Barcelona, Spain   Alhambra: Granada, Spain Mattias Desmet Hannah Arendt Henri Poincaré  Louis Agassiz Yanagi Soetsu
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  The Sophia Lectures With Bret Weinstein - Lecture 2: Biological Nature to What End? 21.10.2025 1t 19min

  In his lecture Biological Nature to What End?, Dr Bret Weinstein explores the principles of evolution as a lens for understanding human nature, culture, and the pursuit of well-being. Moving from the biotic and abiotic universes to the subtle dynamics of kin and group selection, he reveals how traits emerge, persist, and change across generations. Weinstein challenges the conflation of data collection with science, advocating for predictive models that embrace paradox, complexity, and long-term explanatory power. Throughout the talk, he considers how evolutionary patterns shape morality, culture, and human creativity, demonstrating how the principles of biology illuminate both the substrate of our nature and the universals that underlie human civilization. Bret is later joined by his wife, Heather, to respond to audience questions exploring the relationship between scientific insight and the aesthetic and conceptual modes of the arts, underscoring the complementary ways humans discern meaning and pattern in the world. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Maimonides Notre Dame Richard Dawkins: Selfish Gene Aristotle The Cathedral of Córdoba Dmitri Mendeleev's Periodic Table of Elements  
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  The Sophia Lectures With Heather Heying - Lecture 1: Foundations 15.10.2025 57min

  In this opening lecture, Dr Heather Heying invites listeners on an exploration of the deep structures that underlie both scientific inquiry and the human experience of knowing. Moving fluidly between biology, philosophy, and the history of ideas, she challenges inherited beliefs while seeking reconciliation through a broader epistemic lens. Weaving together Darwin's early evolutionary sketches, the concept of universals, and the distinction between biotic and abiotic origins, she explores how evolution shapes everything from molecular structures to symbolic expression, and how the universals of biology illuminate both human uniqueness and our continuity with the rest of life. Along the way, she reclaims the scientific method from dogma, distinguishes between biotic and abiotic origins, and examines the patterns of similarity and difference that reveal descent with modification. Ultimately, this talk is an invitation to see science not as a closed system of answers, but as a living mode of inquiry, attuned to both mystery and discovery. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Nicole Oresme Galileo Mendeleev Willi Hennig Von Baer - On the History of the Development of Animals Ernst Haeckel
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  Making Sense of Complex Systems with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying 06.10.2025 1t 37min

  In this informal and wide-ranging conversation with Stephen Blackwood, Drs Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying reflect on the formative influences that shaped their intellectual journeys, the role of teachers in cultivating curiosity and courage, the spirit of play as essential to genuine learning, and the challenges of navigating hyper-novelty in the modern world. Throughout the discussion, they explore the limits of empiricism, the need for humility in the face of complex problems, and the enduring value of beauty, biology, and philosophy in guiding human flourishing. Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Karl Popper Plutarch Aristotle Luca Turin Jonathan Haidt  
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  Katabasis and Return: A Conversation With Mari Otsu About Her Time at Ralston College 25.08.2025 1t 14min

  Mari Otsu joins Stephen Blackwood for a deeply personal conversation about her journey through the wounds of materialism, ideology, and spiritual forgetting, and her return to the soul through the beauty of the humanities. Reflecting on her years at NYU and the Grand Central Atelier, Mari speaks of a longing that nothing in the modern, politicized worldview could satisfy, and how she found healing in therapy, classical painting, and, most profoundly, the living philosophical community of Ralston College. Engaging with the works of Plotinus, Boethius, and Dante, she discovered a path of purification and ascent that restored her sense of meaning and inspired her to share these treasures with others. This conversation explores the roots of today's meaning crisis and the redemptive power of beauty, thought, and imagination to heal the soul. Subscribe to receive the latest Ralston College updates at www.ralston.ac/sign-up. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Plotinus' Enneads Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy Augustine's Confessions Plato Dante's Divine Comedy Monique Wittig's The Straight Mind Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 01:29 - Conversation Begins 02:18 - About Mari 6:00 - Βrief Review of Mari's time at Ralston 8:00 - Mari's Descent into Anguish and Fragmentation 15:20 - The Ideological Component: NYU 23:30 - Leaving Blame Behind 27:20 - Fear as a Symptom of a Spiritual Pathology 29:00 - The Role of Therapy and Right Relationship 34:00 - The Power of Art 44:16 - Moving from Beauty to Contemplation 46:51 - Beginning at Ralston 1:00:00 - Plotinus Moving Beyond Beauty 1:08:00 - Wrapping It All Up 01:11:01 - Exit Music and Fade  
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  Society, Technology and Philology with Dr Jason Pedicone: Thoughts on the Study of the Classical Humanities at the Dawn of the Digital Revolution 14.07.2025 42min

  Ralston College presents a lecture by Dr Jason Pedicone, distinguished scholar and classicist and the co-founder and President of the Paideia Institute. In this rich and compelling address, Dr Pedicone introduces the subject of philology - the study of language in its historical context - before embarking on a historical tour of philological interventions – times when people have decided to pay particularly close attention to language for societal, historical or technological reasons. Our tour takes us from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds of Plato and Pisistratus through Charlemagne, Valla, Erasmus, Nietzsche and up to the present day and the inexorable rise of AI. For the latest Ralston College updates visit: www.ralston.ac/sign-up.   Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: C.S Lewis Plato Suetonius Pisistratus Homer - The Iliad; The Odyssey Aristophanes of Byzantium Aristarchus of Samothrace Callimachus of Cyrene Quintus Ennius Livius Andronicus St. Boniface Jerome Charlemagne Alcuin of York Boniface Lorenzo Valla Desiderius Erasmus - Novum Instrumentum Omne Nietzsche - The Birth of Tragedy Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff - Philology of the Future Friedrich August Wolf - Prolegomena ad Homerum Derrida Plato - The Phaedrus Roland Barthes - The Death of the Author Wilhelm von Humboldt Heidegger - Being and Time Camus Shakespeare Marsilio Ficino Nick Bostrum - Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World Ray Kurzweil  
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  Nature in Augustine's Confessions 23.06.2025 1t 16min

  Ralston College presents a talk by Christopher Snook, Lecturer in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University, on St. Augustine's great autobiographical text The Confessions. This talk offers a detailed walk through of Books VII and VIII of Augustine's text in light of Augustine's "abiding preoccupation with the nature of the created order."  Snook explores how Augustine absorbed the  insights of Platonist philosophers like Plotinus and Porphyry but also moved beyond them as he sought a more embodied account of the nature of the human person. Augustine's own conversion stresses the importance of encountering models for life and reveals the centrality of the incarnate Logos to the Christian understandings of self-realization. This lecture was delivered on January 9th, 2025 at Ralston College's Savannah campus during the third term of the MA in the Humanities program. Support Ralston College's mission to revive the conditions of a free and flourishing culture. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Dante, The Divine Comedy Cicero, Hortensius T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock St. Ambrose Plotinus Porphyry Gaius Marius Victorinus Plato, The Republic Virgil, The Aeneid  Iamblichus Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol St. Anthony the Great John Scotus Eriugena Anselm of Canterbury Martin Luther Rene Decartes