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
Ep. 29 - Marie Kawthar Daouda: Baudelaire and the Creation of the Poetic Self
Ep. 28 - Arif Ahmed on David Hume’s Disturbing Conception of the Self
Ep. 27 - Alan Charles Kors: Voltaire’s ‘Philosophical Letters,’ Part II
Ep. 26 - Alan Charles Kors: Voltaire’s ‘Philosophical Letters,’ Part I
Ep. 25 - Theodore Dalrymple on H. G. Wells's 'The Time Machine'
Ep. 24 - Vernon Smith: Self-Interest Reconsidered
Ep. 23 - Iain McGilchrist: The Coincidence of Opposites
Ep. 22 - Marwa Al-Sabouni: Architecture as a Matter of Life or Death
Ep. 21 - Alexander Stoddart: Culture as Communion with the Dead
Ep. 20 - On Becoming Alan Dershowitz
Ep. 19 - Victor Davis Hanson on Who Killed Homer
Ep. 18 – Andrew Doyle on Free Speech and Why It Matters
Ep. 17 - Alexander Stoddart: A Conversation in His Studio
Ep. 16 - Harry Lewis and Stephen Blackwood: What's an Education For?
Ep. 15 – Theodore Dalrymple on Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons”
Ep. 14 - The Morality of Satire: Andrew Doyle and Stephen Blackwood
Ep. 13 - On the Freedom of Thought and Nature: Freeman Dyson and Stephen Blackwood
Ep. 12 - A Discussion of 'Ivan Ilyich:' Donna Orwin and Stephen Blackwood
Ep. 11 - Tolstoy: The Death of Ivan Ilyich
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