The Ralston College Podcast

In this episode, our Chancellor, Dr Iain McGilchrist, sits down with President Stephen Blackwood to discuss the formation of a human being. From Plato's reflections on the conditions required for intellectual development to Antonio Damasio's insights into how the brain works, this exchange stays with the question of how human beings achieve the capacity to think for themselves. Rather than focusing on standardized outcomes and instrumental ends, their exchange invites us to consider what happens when we pay attention to a given work for its own sake. The role of education, Dr McGilchrist argues, does not stop at the accumulation of information or the learning of rules, but extends into our capacity to go beyond the rules and reach past what is known for certain. In an age defined by algorithms and distraction, this conversation presents a vision of education that awakens the faculties by which human beings come to know freedom. This spark, well-tended, is what gives rise to the ideas and individuals that have the power to shape the course of history. If you would like to learn more about our mission, please visit www.ralston.ac Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Plato's Seventh Letter Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops Plutarch Friedrich Nietzsche Samuel Johnson Margaret Mead Henry David Thoreau Daniel Kahneman Isaac Newton Antonio Damasio Alfred North Whitehead Viktor Frankl D. H. Lawrence J. S. Bach Alfred Brendel

What does it mean to find our way home? In this conversation with composer and classicist Eugenia Manolidou, President Stephen Blackwood asks how the living inheritance of ancient Greece – through language, music, poetry, and the pursuit of freedom – can reconnect us with sources of self-understanding, helping us to recover a sense of where we come from and what we are here for. Beginning with Homer, their discussion examines the enduring principles and intellectual postures that have characterized the spirit of Hellenism for millennia. Beyond the language of the ancients, Eugenia raises music as an ontological reality, suggesting that melody and rhythm pervade the whole of existence. In considering what music and Greek thought have in common, she gestures toward a mutual intuition first pointed out by Pythagoras: beneath the seeming disorder of things, there exists intelligible harmony, ratio, and proportion. To live well, with this in mind, is to become attuned to that very order. To learn more or become part of our community, please visit www.ralston.ac Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey Plato Lord Byron's Don Juan

To mark the opening of applications for Ralston College's 2027–28 MA in the Humanities, President Stephen Blackwood and Provost David Butterfield sat down on Samos to discuss the theme of the coming academic year: the Self. Their conversation considers why self-knowledge has remained a perennial human concern, and how questions of character, desire, consciousness, and the soul shape our understanding of how we ought to live. They also reflect on what distinguishes Ralston's MA: its ambitious scope across disciplines and centuries, its movement between Greece and Savannah, and its commitment to pursuing fundamental questions through great works, close study, and serious conversation. Applications are now open. Full and partial scholarships available. Priority deadline: December 18th, 2026. Apply now at: https://www.ralston.ac/humanities-ma

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 contemporary discussions of consciousness, attention, and meaning. At a moment so often dominated by mechanical explanations and computational models, he emphasizes the indispensable role of openness, receptivity, and participation in understanding, arguing that reality exceeds reductionist accounts. If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Henry Stapp Pierre-Simon Laplace Benjamin Libet Immanuel Kant Plato Socrates Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound Charles Darwin William Blake Carl Jung Albrecht Altdorfer Daniel Phillips

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 physics, computer science, and the study of complex systems, Wolfram shares his vision through the lens of computation, looking for the simple rules underlying complexity in the natural world. Drawing upon decades studying philosophy, literature, and neuropsychiatry, McGilchrist makes the case that reality exceeds computation, suggesting that consciousness is grounded in embodiment, receptivity, and participation. The two thinkers do not remain at the level of disagreement, but examine one another's fundamental assumptions with a rare seriousness and intellectual charity. If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Alan Turing Isaac Newton Albert Einstein Charles Darwin Aristotle René Descartes Ludwig Wittgenstein John von Neumann Roger Penrose