Douglas Hedley's guest appearances

Douglas Hedley

Aspects of Philosophy at Cambridge

The Lumen Christi Institute

The Ralston College Podcast

Jordan Peterson

Victor Davis Hanson

Cal Newport

Thomas Aquinas

Wallace Stevens

Michael Murphy

Douglas Murray

Andrew Doyle

Patrick Deneen

Meghan Sullivan

Iain McGilchrist

Luigi Zingales

Jennifer Frey

Ross Douthat

John Inazu

OwlTail

Ralston College presents a lecture by University of Cambridge Professor Douglas Hedley on the influential and mysterious pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras. Given in the very cave in Samos in which Pythagoras taught, this brief lecture touches on the philosopher’s influence on the Western tradition and the importance of the cave as an imaginative motif. Professor Hedley explores this recurring symbol as a place of birth and rebirth, of contemplation and illumination, and of tremendous inspiration to later figures such as Plato and many early Christian thinkers.   The lecture took place during the first term of Ralston College's inaugural MA in the Humanities in autumn of 2022.  Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode Eusebius Werner Jaeger Ralph Cudworth Kabbalah Pythagoras The Lyceum Lloyd P. Gerson St Ambrose Johannes Reuchlin St Augustine Metempsychosis Orphism Empedocles Plato’s Cave Socrates Mithraism Cave of the Apocalypse in Patmos Parmenides Aristotle Pindar Immanuel Kant Gottlob Frege  Links of Possible Interest Douglas Hedley’s Cambridge Profile https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/douglas-hedley  Living Forms of the Imagination https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0567032957/breviaryinfo-21 Dr Stephen Blackwood  https://www.stephenjblackwood.com Dr James Bryson  https://www.ralston.ac/people/james-bryson Ralston College (including newsletter) https://ralston.ac Ralston College Short Courses  https://www.ralston.ac/humanities-short-courses

Ralston College presents a lecture by University of Cambridge Professor Douglas Hedley on the influential and mysterious pre-Socratic philosopher Pythagoras. Given in the very cave in Samos in which Pythagoras taught, this brief lecture touches on the philosopher’s influence on the Western tradition and the importance of the cave as an imaginative motif. Professor Hedley explores this recurring symbol as a place of birth and rebirth, of contemplation and illumination, and of tremendous inspiration to later figures such as Plato and many early Christian thinkers. The lecture took place during the first term of Ralston College's inaugural MA in the Humanities in autumn of 2022. Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode Eusebius Werner Jaeger Ralph Cudworth Kabbalah Pythagoras The Lyceum Lloyd P. Gerson St Ambrose Johannes Reuchlin St Augustine Metempsychosis Orphism Empedocles Plato’s Cave Socrates Mithraism Cave of the Apocalypse in Patmos Parmenides Aristotle Pindar Immanuel Kant Gottlob Frege Links of Possible Interest Douglas Hedley’s Cambridge Profile <a href="https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/douglas-hedley" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/douglas-hedley</a> Living Forms of the Imagination <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0567032957/breviaryinfo-21" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0567032957/breviaryinfo-21</a> Dr Stephen Blackwood  <a href="https://www.stephenjblackwood.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.stephenjblackwood.com</a> Dr James Bryson  <a href="https://www.ralston.ac/people/james-bryson" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.ralston.ac/people/james-bryson</a> Ralston College (including newsletter) <a href="https://ralston.ac" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://ralston.ac</a> Ralston College Short Courses  <a href="https://www.ralston.ac/humanities-short-courses" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.ralston.ac/humanities-short-courses</a>

Ep. 30 - From the Cave of Pythagoras: A Lecture and Discussion with Douglas Hedley

A webinar lecture with Douglas Hedley (University of Cambridge, originally delivered August 4, 2020. Part of our summer webinar series on "Reason and Beauty in Renaissance Christian Thought and Culture," presented in collaboration with the American Cusanus Society. The Cambridge Platonists are the first modern Platonists. They are a group of English philosophers around the University of Cambridge in the seventeenth-century, in the context of reformed theology and the English Civil War. Yet while accepting the New Science of Copernicus and Galileo, they offer a fierce protest against mechanism and naturalism. Their notion of aesthetics and beauty--as historian Ernst Cassirer correctly saw--was one of the sources of the later Romantic movement. Their aesthetics has a theological foundation. As one of the Cambridge Platonists, Benjamin Whichcote (d. 1683) wrote: “There is that in God that is more beautiful than power, than will and Sovereignty, viz. His righteousness, His good-will, His justice, wisdom and the like’. In this webinar, Professor Douglas Hedley will discuss the Cambridge Platonists' thought on beauty and its theological dimension that is tied to a distinctly Platonic theory of enthusiasm or inspiration and that came to be a shaping force in 18th century thought.

A webinar lecture with Douglas Hedley (University of Cambridge, originally delivered August 4, 2020. Part of our summer webinar series on "Reason and Beauty in Renaissance Christian Thought and Culture," presented in collaboration with the American Cusanus Society. The Cambridge Platonists are the first modern Platonists. They are a group of English philosophers around the University of Cambridge in the seventeenth-century, in the context of reformed theology and the English Civil War. Yet while accepting the New Science of Copernicus and Galileo, they offer a fierce protest against mechanism and naturalism. Their notion of aesthetics and beauty--as historian Ernst Cassirer correctly saw--was one of the sources of the later Romantic movement. Their aesthetics has a theological foundation. As one of the Cambridge Platonists, Benjamin Whichcote (d. 1683) wrote: “There is that in God that is more beautiful than power, than will and Sovereignty, viz. His righteousness, His good-will, His justice, wisdom and the like’. In this webinar, Professor Douglas Hedley will discuss the Cambridge Platonists' thought on beauty and its theological dimension that is tied to a distinctly Platonic theory of enthusiasm or inspiration and that came to be a shaping force in 18th century thought.

Douglas Hedley - Reason and Beauty in Cambridge Platonism

Stephen Blackwood

What connects truth, imagination, and freedom? Stephen Blackwood talks with philosopher-theologian Douglas Hedley about the human mind and its participation in a fundamentally knowable universe. The conversation begins with an introduction to three foundational aspects of the Platonic tradition — beauty, nature, and self-knowledge — and to the influences of that tradition throughout history, extending from modern science and the Enlightenment to contemporary understandings of beauty and human rights. They discuss the mind's extraordinary and complementary capacities of imagination and rationality in making and understanding the world. They conclude with a discussion of dominant contemporary ideologies — both materialist determinism and the philosophies of power — and consider ways of regaining a more adequate standpoint.

What connects truth, imagination, and freedom? Stephen Blackwood talks with philosopher-theologian Douglas Hedley about the human mind and its participation in a fundamentally knowable universe. The conversation begins with an introduction to three foundational aspects of the Platonic tradition — beauty, nature, and self-knowledge — and to the influences of that tradition throughout history, extending from modern science and the Enlightenment to contemporary understandings of beauty and human rights. They discuss the mind's extraordinary and complementary capacities of imagination and rationality in making and understanding the world. They conclude with a discussion of dominant contemporary ideologies — both materialist determinism and the philosophies of power — and consider ways of regaining a more adequate standpoint.

Ep. 7 - Douglas Hedley and Stephen Blackwood: Reason, Imagination, and Reality