Exploring the Inner Word: Play, Poetry, Philosophy | Sophia Lectures 2023 Part 2/5
Release Date: 06/12/2024
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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. ...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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 this second episode of the Sophia Lectures, Professor Douglas Hedley from the University of Cambridge embarks on a deep exploration into the theme of "play" and its relationship to consciousness, language, and poetic expression. Drawing upon the intellectual legacies of Owen Barfield and Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hedley explores the philosophical and theological dimensions of language, highlighting its role in shaping our understanding of existence. He discusses the concept of the "inner word" as described by Augustine and how poetry serves as a bridge between the tangible and the abstract, allowing for playful exploration of meaning. Hedley critiques modern perspectives on consciousness, suggesting that they often overlook the importance of play in human experience. Through discussions on the significance of metaphor, the societal role of poetry, and the collective versus individual nature of consciousness, Hedley offers a comprehensive examination of how language and poetry are fundamental to our comprehension of the world and how play is a vital aspect of this process. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersections of language, consciousness, and the human condition, providing a rich tapestry of philosophical inquiry and reflection.
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.
Glossary of Terms
Language games: A concept introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein that highlights the importance of usage and practice in shaping meaning
Resources
Ralston College
Website: https://www.ralston.ac/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RalstonCollegeSavannah
X: https://twitter.com/RalstonCollege
Douglas Hedley
https://www.ralston.ac/people/douglas-hedley
Philosophical Investigations - Ludwig Wittgenstein https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Investigations-Ludwig-Wittgenstein/dp/0631205691
The Trinity (Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century) - Saint Augustine https://www.amazon.com/Trinity-2nd-Works-Saint-Augustine/dp/1565484460
Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry - Owen Barfield https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Appearances-Idolatry-Owen-Barfield/dp/081956205X
Truth and Method - Hans-Georg Gadamer https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Method-Hans-Georg-Gadamer/dp/0826405851
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature - Richard Rorty https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Mirror-Nature-Richard-Rorty/dp/0691020167
Augustine-Confessions-vol-1.pdf - Augustine. (n.d.). Confessions, Vol. 1. https://wesleyscholar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Augustine-Confessions-vol-1.pdf
Plato. (n.d.). Alcibiades 1.
https://www.platonicfoundation.org/platos-alcibiades-1/
Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture - Johan Huizinga
https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Ludens-Study-Play-Element-Culture/dp/1621389995
Quotes
"The great archetypal activities of human society are all permeated with play from the start." - Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens [00:02:30]
“I think consciousness is fundamental to existence. In fact, it's the great philosophical question of our age.” - Douglas Hedley [01:01:24]
Chapters
[00:00:00] - Introduction to Sophia Lectures: Overview and Introduction of Professor Douglas Hedley
[00:02:00] - Exploring Play and Language: Merging Huizinga’s Play Concept with Wittgenstein’s Language Games and Investigations to Reveal Language’s Essence in Shaping Human Culture and Thought.
[00:20:00] - The Inner Word and the Play of Meaning: Exploring Augustine’s Inner Word and Poetry’s Power to Unveil Transcendent Truths.
[00:26:00] - Tradition, Interpretation, and the Essence of Language: Exploring the Intellectual Legacies of Barfield and Gadamer, Their Critique of Modernism, and the Philosophical Significance of Language's Transcendental Source.
[00:52:00] - Participation, Aesthetics, and the Divine Word: Navigating Gadamer's Concept of Participation through Platonic Light, Aesthetic Experience, and the Theological Depths of Language.
[01:00:00] - Audience Q&A and Concluding Reflections