{"podcast":{"title":"Ascend - The Great Books Podcast","slug":"ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379","podcast_index_feed_id":6733379,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/ascend-the-great-book/","website_url":"https://ascend-the-great-book.captivate.fm","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/91cb8b50-c0b7-49d8-9476-279514463e73/TfaX-DfFN1GQWT2CL2LiBMBS.png","author":"Harrison Garlick and Adam Minihan","episode_count":151,"summary":"Welcome to Ascend! We are a weekly Great Books podcast hosted by Deacon Harrison Garlick and Adam Minihan. What are the Great Books? The Great Books are the most impactful texts that have shaped Western civilization. They include ancients like Homer, Plato, St. Augustine, Dante, and St. Thomas Aquinas, and also moderns like Machiavelli, Locke, and Nietzsche. We will explore the Great Books with the light of the Catholic intellectual tradition. Why should we read the Great Books? Everyone is a disciple of someone. A person may have never read Locke or Nietzsche, but he or she thinks like them. Reading the Great Books allows us to reclaim our intellect and understand the origin of the ideas that shape our world. We enter a \"great conversation\" amongst the most learned, intelligent humans in history and benefit from their insights. Is this for first-time readers? YES. Our goal is to host meaningful conversations on the Great Books by working through the texts in chronological order in a slow, attentive manner. Our host Adam Minihan is a first-time reader of Homer. We will start shallow and go deep. All are invited to join. Will any resources be available? YES. We are providing a free…","last_synced_at":"2026-09-16T04:18:19.709235+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379"},"episode":{"title":"Hippias Minor (On the Lie) with Dr. Grabowski and Friends","slug":"hippias-minor-on-the-lie-with-dr-grabowski-and-friends","published_at":"2026-08-18T11:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379/hippias-minor-on-the-lie-with-dr-grabowski-and-friends","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379","url":"http://mcidfrxn.podcastwebsites.com/episodes/hippias-minor-on-the-lie-with-dr-grabowski-and-friends","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/6a6906fc-063c-41ef-8ba9-c4f9b7ee86f3.mp3","summary":"Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick, Dr. Larson, Dr. Grabowski, and Mr. Thomas Lackey discuss the short, strange, and forgotten dialogue of HIppias Minor or \"On the Lie.\" 8 Questions on Hippias Minor Study Guide Check Ascend out on X, YouTube, Facebook, and More! Plato’s Hippias Minor is a short, strange dialogue with a traditional subtitle that cuts straight to the point: “On the Lie.” After the boastful sophist Hippias finishes a public speech ranking Achilles the best and Odysseus the most polytropos —the man of twists and turns—Socrates is drawn into a conversation that begins with Homer and ends in one of the deepest aporias of the early dialogues. What starts as a dispute over who is the better man, the straightforward Achilles or the wily Odysseus, quickly becomes a rigorous examination of voluntary versus involuntary wrongdoing, the nature of knowledge and power, and the unsettling claim that the man who does injustice on purpose is better than the one who does it by accident. Deacon and the guests work through the dialogue’s sharp arguments and its surprising relevance. The conversation exposes the limits of treating virtue as mere knowledge plus power, raises the question of whether a just person might ever speak falsely for a good end, and serves as a genuine appetizer for the noble lie in the Republic . Come listen—and discover why even Socrates, at the end, cannot agree with himself. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Hippias Minor and its Context 04:55 Setting the Scene: Hippias' Speech and Socrates' Role 09:22 Hippias' Boasts and Socrates' Irony 17:55 The Homeric Heroes: Achilles and Odysseus 25:04 Knowledge, Power, and the Art of Lying 36:15 The Distinction Between Capacity and Action 44:53 The Nature of Truth and Falsehood in Socratic Di…","meta_description":"Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick, Dr. Larson, Dr. Grabowski, and Mr. Thomas Lackey discuss the short, strange, and forgotten dialogu…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":5656,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379/episodes/hippias-minor-on-the-lie-with-dr-grabowski-and-friends/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379/hippias-minor-on-the-lie-with-dr-grabowski-and-friends.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}