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