

The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute exists to promote Catholic truth in our contemporary world by strengthening the intellectual formation of Christians at universities, in the Church, and in the wider public square. The thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, is our touchstone.
The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more.
Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
The Thomistic Institute Podcast features the lectures and talks from our conferences, campus chapters events, intellectual retreats, livestream events, and much more.
Founded in 2009, the Thomistic Institute is part of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Apr 25, 2022 • 55min
Poetry, Philosophy, and the Sacred: An Example from Gerard Manley Hopkins | Prof. Kevin Hart
This lecture was given on March 9, 2022 at Washington and Lee University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Kevin Hart is the Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia where he also holds professorships in the Departments of English and French. His most recent scholarly books include Kingdoms of God (Indiana UP, 2014) and Poetry and Revelation (Bloomsbury, 2017). Among the books he has edited are Jean-Luc Marion: The Essential Writings (Fordham UP, 2013) and The Exorbitant: Emmanuel Levinas between Jews and Christians(Fordham UP, 2010). He is currently editing the fifth volume of a multivolume series The Bible and Literature, which will appear with Bloomsbury in 2020. His poetry is gathered in Wild Track: New and Selected Poems (Notre Dame UP, 2015) and Barefoot (Notre Dame UP, 2018). Among other honors, he holds an honorary doctoral degree in Philosophy from the Institut Catholique de Paris.

5 snips
Apr 22, 2022 • 1h 4min
The Philosophy of the Abortion Debate | Prof. Angela Knobel
Prof. Knobel's presentation slides can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8as75m
This lecture was given on March 24, 2022 at Texas State University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Angela Knobel is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. She received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 2004. From 2004 to 2020, she taught philosophy at her alma mater, the Catholic University of America. Her work focuses primarily on Aquinas’ theory of infused virtue, virtue ethics and applied ethics. Her book Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues is forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press.

Apr 21, 2022 • 1h 15min
The Crass and the Sublime in Dante and Chaucer | Dr. Patrick Callahan
This lecture was given on March 17, 2022 at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/4nh6uavk.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Patrick Callahan is director of the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought & Culture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as well as Assistant Professor of English & Humanities at St. Gregory the Great Seminary. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Dallas and his graduate work at Fordham University in Classical Philology. While his doctoral work focused on ancient Greek commentaries to the lyric poet Pindar, his recent work focuses on early Jesuit Latin texts.

Apr 20, 2022 • 54min
The Perennial Importance of Plato | Prof. John Rist
This lecture was given on March 3, 2022 at Trinity College Dublin.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
John M. Rist was educated in classics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He taught Greek at University College in the University of Toronto from 1959 to 1969 and from 1969 to 1980 was a professor of classics at the University of Toronto. He taught from 1980 to 1983 as Regius Professor of Classics at the University of Aberdeen, and returned to the University of Toronto, where he was professor of classics and philosophy from 1983 to 1996, with a cross-appointment to St. Michael's College from 1983 to 1990. In 1997, Rist became professor emeritus of the University of Toronto in 1997. He has been part-time visiting professor at the Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome since 1998. In 1976 Rist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 1991 he was elected a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. In 1995 he was the Lady Davis Visiting Professor in Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Professor Rist has written more than 100 scholarly works, including the following books: Man, Soul and Body: Essays in Ancient Thought from Plato to Dionysius (1996), Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (1994), The Mind of Aristotle (1989), Platonism and Its Christian Heritage (1985), Human Value: A Study of Ancient Philosophical Ethics (1982), On the Independence of Matthew and Mark (1978), The Stoics (1978), Epicurus: An Introduction (1972), Stoic Philosophy (1969), Plotinus: The Road to Reality (1967), and Eros and Psyche: Studies in Plato, Plotinus and Origen (1964). He is the author of more than 80 articles on ancient Greek philosophy, Hellenistic philosophy, Plotinus and Neoplatonism, Patristics, and medieval philosophy.

Apr 20, 2022 • 51min
A Thomistic Account of Truth | Prof. Timothy Pawl
This lecture was given on March 3, 2022 at the College of William and Mary.
The handout for this lecture can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/4dbe7m5r.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Timothy J. Pawl is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and holds a Ph.D. from Saint Louis University in philosophy, with specialization in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, Thomistic philosophy, analytic theology, and moral psychology. His books include In Defense of Conciliar Christology (Oxford, 2016), In Defense of Extended Conciliar Christology (Oxford, 2019), and The Incarnation (Cambridge, 2020). In addition, he has published more than thirty-five academic articles in his areas of expertise, and given almost 100 academic or popular-level talks or interviews about his work, including a series of interviews for the PBS show Closer to Truth. He is the husband of another philosopher, Faith Glavey Pawl, and the proud father of one son and four daughters.

Apr 18, 2022 • 1h 12min
Predestination and Human Freedom: A Catholic Approach | Prof. W. Matthews Grant (duplicate)
Access Prof. Grant's handout here: https://tinyurl.com/2utsun3j
This lecture was given on March 7, 2022 at Hillsdale College.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
W. Matthews Grant is Professor and Chair in the Department of Philosophy at University of St. Thomas (MN), and Associate Editor of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. His articles have focused on Aquinas and the Philosophy of God, particularly issues having to do with the divine nature and God’s relationship to human freedom. His new book Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account, draws resources from Aquinas and the scholastic tradition to explain how libertarian creaturely freedom can be reconciled with robust accounts of God’s providence, grace, and predestination.

Apr 15, 2022 • 57min
What Is Truth? Why Does It Matter? | Prof. Jennifer Frey
This lecture was given on February 28, 2022 at Indiana University.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Jennifer Frey is an associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. Prior to joining the philosophy faculty at USC, she was a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts. She has published widely on virtue and moral psychology and she has co-edited three volumes on Self-Transcendence and Virtue, Practical Wisdom, and Practical Truth. Her writing has been featured in Breaking Ground, Evangelization and Culture, First Things, Fare Forward, Image, Law and Liberty, The Point, and USA Today.

Apr 14, 2022 • 48min
The Life of the World to Come | Fr. Isaac Morales, O.P.
This lecture was given on February 22, 2022 at the University of Dallas.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Fr. Isaac Morales, O.P. entered the Dominican novitiate for the Province of St. Joseph in the summer of 2012. Before joining the order, Fr. Isaac received a BSE in civil engineering from Duke University, an MTS with a concentration in biblical studies from the University of Notre Dame, and a PhD in New Testament from Duke University. After completing his PhD, he taught in the department of theology at Marquette University for four years. During the academic year 2011-12, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich. Fr. was ordained to the priesthood in May of 2018.

Apr 13, 2022 • 1h 26min
Are We Just Accidents? Evolution in the Light of Faith | Prof. Tomás Bogardus
View Prof. Bogardus' slides here: https://tinyurl.com/yer9hxmu
This lecture was given on February 22, 2022 at the University of Arizona.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Tomás Bogardus is associate professor of philosophy at Pepperdine University. He was born in Long Beach, California, and earned his BS in biology at UC San Diego, his MA in philosophy at Biola University, and his PhD in philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He works mainly in metaphysics and epistemology and is most interested in the mind-body problem and the rationality of religious belief.

Apr 12, 2022 • 1h 18min
Biblical Responses to Objections to the Catholic Faith | Prof. Michael Dauphinais
This lecture was given on February 18, 2022 at the University of Oklahoma.
For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.
About the speaker:
Michael Dauphinais, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of the Theology Department at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida. Professor Dauphinais holds a B.S.E. from Duke University, an M.T.S. from Duke Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He has co-authored Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of Thomas Aquinas and Holy People, Holy Land: A Theological Introduction to the Bible. He has co-edited multiple volumes as well as numerous articles and chapters in books dedicated to theology and exegesis in Aquinas and other topics relating to Catholic theology. Professor Dauphinais previously served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty. His favorite courses are C.S. Lewis, Triune God, and the Colloquium on Ancients and Moderns. He also enjoys riding horses and running.