The Spirit of Play: A Conversation with Professor Douglas Hedley and Dr Stephen Blackwood
Release Date: 06/10/2024
AI and the Battle for the Soul with Iain McGilchrist - Lecture 2: True Freedom in an Artificial World
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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AI and the Battle for the Soul with Stephen Wolfram and Iain McGilchrist - Conversation: What is Artificial Intelligence?
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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AI and the Battle for the Soul with Jonathan Pageau Lecture: Whom Does AI Serve? Sacrifice in the Digital Age
The Ralston College Podcast
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. ...
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AI and the Battle for the Soul with Iain McGilchrist - Lecture 1: Information is Not Understanding
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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Memory, Tradition, and the Unity of the Classical Mind: Dr Armand D’Angour on the Lyrical Poetry of Horace
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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How Dante Can Save Your Life with Rod Dreher
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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The Practice of Loving Wisdom | A Conversation with Spencer Klavan and Connor Livingston
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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Blood Guilt and Ballot Boxes: The Oresteia in America | A Lecture by Spencer Klavan
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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Founding an Empire: Lessons from Augustus with Dr Barry Strauss
The Ralston College Podcast
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...
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Universities and the Future of Civilization: In Conversation with Iain McGilchrist
The Ralston College Podcast
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,...
info_outlineIn the inaugural episode of the Sophia Lecture Series, Ralston College President Stephen Blackwood and distinguished Cambridge Professor Douglas Hedley explore "The Spirit of Play", delving into the enigmatic nature of play, its historical and philosophical significance, and its intricate connection with human culture and imagination. This discussion highlights that concept's relevance in today's society, its role in fostering a comprehensive understanding of human experience, and its importance in addressing fundamental questions of human existence. By examining the playful foundations of philosophical inquiry and the significance of imagination, this conversation encourages listeners to embrace a richer, more nuanced view of the world, ultimately challenging our understanding of human culture and intellectual pursuits.
Douglas Hedley is a distinguished philosopher at the University of Cambridge, celebrated for his extensive research in the philosophy of religion and Platonism. He is the author of multiple influential works on imagination and religious experience.
Resources
Ralston College
Website: https://www.ralston.ac/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RalstonCollegeSavannah
X: https://twitter.com/RalstonCollege
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ralstoncollege/
Douglas Hedley
https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/douglas-hedley
https://www.ralston.ac/people/douglas-hedley
Living Forms of the Imagination -Douglas Hedley
Sacrifice Imagined: Violence, Atonement, and the Sacred - Douglas Hedley
The Iconic Imagination - Douglas Hedley
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture - Johan Huizinga
Truth and Method - Hans-Georg Gadamer
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Praise of Folly. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Quotes
"The concept of play...straddles evolutionary history, psychology, ethics, aesthetics, even religion." - Douglas Hedley [00:01:24]
"Play, perhaps surprisingly, has quite a significant role in the history of philosophy." - Douglas Hedley [00:02:53]
"Metaphysics is our spiritual oxygen." - Douglas Hedley [00:17:35]
Chapters
[00:00:00] - Introduction to Professor Douglas Hedley and the Sophia Lecture Series
[00:01:20] - Discussion on the choice of “The Spirit of Play” as the lectures' topic
[00:02:00] - Explanation of play's multifaceted nature
[00:04:40] - Importance of play in understanding human experience
[00:05:00] - Recommendation of Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens
[00:07:00] - Connection between play and the history of philosophy
[00:08:20] - Kant, Schiller, and Gadamer's perspectives on play
[00:09:20] - Ralston College as a vision of Christian humanism
[00:10:40] - Philosophy as a way of life and the importance of friendship
[00:11:20] - Learning through imitation and the educational experience
[00:12:40] - Joy from immersion in the philosophical tradition
[00:13:20] - Challenges to traditional humanities in contemporary culture
[00:14:20] - The richness of the Christian Platonic tradition
[00:15:20] - Discussion on ultimate questions independent of social constructs
[00:16:40] - The significance of beauty in the cosmos
[00:18:00] - Conclusion and appreciation for Hedley's contributions