Can Beauty Save the World? | Prof. Raymond Hain
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2024
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This lecture was given on April 11th, 2024, at University of North Texas.
For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.
About the Speaker:
Raymond Hain is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director of the Humanities Program at Providence College in Providence, RI. Educated at Christendom College, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Oxford, he is the founder of the PC Humanities Forum and Humanities Reading Seminars and is responsible for the strategic development of the Humanities Program into a vibrant, world class center of teaching, research, and cultural life dedicated to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. His scholarly interests include the history of ethics (especially St. Thomas Aquinas), applied ethics (especially medical ethics and the ethics of architecture), Alexis de Tocqueville, and philosophy and literature (especially Catholic aesthetics). His work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Templeton Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Charles Koch Foundation. His essays have appeared in various journals and collections including The Thomist, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and The Anthem Companion to Tocqueville. He is the editor of Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture and is currently working on a monograph titled The Lover and the Prophet: An Essay in Catholic Aesthetics. He joined Providence College in 2011 and lives just across the street with his wife Dominique and their five children.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast. |
| 0:06.8 | Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square. |
| 0:13.1 | The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world. |
| 0:19.1 | To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org. |
| 0:25.1 | Thank you all so much. |
| 0:26.2 | Thanks especially to the chapter here for inviting me. |
| 0:29.1 | It's a pleasure to be with you. |
| 0:30.1 | Thank you for your patience as I navigated Dallas traffic from the airport. |
| 0:36.1 | Can beauty save the world? |
| 0:38.4 | You might think the answer should be yes. |
| 0:42.3 | Given something Pope Benedict 16th said, |
| 0:45.6 | Art and the saints, he claimed, |
| 0:47.9 | are the greatest apologetics for our faith. |
| 0:51.5 | Since the poet makes beautiful things, |
| 0:56.7 | and the saint has a beautiful soul, |
| 1:03.5 | perhaps we should conclude that poets and saints should be people in the Marvel cinematic universe, |
| 1:07.6 | rather than, well, those other so-called superheroes. |
| 1:13.0 | On the other hand, perhaps some of you had an experience like this one. |
| 1:15.6 | You find yourself in a magnificent and beautiful church. |
| 1:19.7 | Let's say the church of San Luigi de Franchesi in Rome. |
| 1:22.5 | Have any of you been there by any chance? |
| 1:28.6 | It has a Caravaggio painting in it, a painting of the calling of St. Matthew. |
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