{"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":"Plato's Lovers with Dr. Larson and Dr. Grabowski","slug":"plato-s-lovers-with-dr-larson-and-dr-grabowski","published_at":"2026-08-11T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379/plato-s-lovers-with-dr-larson-and-dr-grabowski","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379","url":"http://mcidfrxn.podcastwebsites.com/episodes/platos-lovers-with-dr-larson-and-dr-grabowski","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/0ee5b4a0-05e0-40f3-830f-73515dbf6273.mp3","summary":"Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick, Dr. Larson, and Dr. Grabowski discuss Plato's Lovers--a strange, short, and somewhat forgotten dialogue seeking the definition of philosophy. We are celebrating ONE YEAR of our sister-company, The Ascent, a top 100 Substack on Christian spirituality . Check out our WRITTEN GUIDE to the Lovers. Plato’s Lovers is a short, strange, and easily overlooked dialogue that asks one of the most important questions in the entire Platonic corpus: What is philosophy? Set in a grammar school where two rival older lovers—one an athlete, the other a cultured “know-it-all”—compete for the attention of younger boys discussing astronomy, the conversation quickly becomes an erotic and educational contest. Socrates enters the scene and quietly reorders the loves on display, showing that philosophy is not the accumulation of many things, that self-knowledge must come before any claim to rule, and that the true lover of the young is the one who leads their souls toward wisdom. In this episode of Ascend, Dcn. Garlick is joined by Dr. Grabowski and Dr. Larson to unpack the dialogue’s subtle images of the soul, its playful yet serious treatment of eros, and its surprising role as an appetizer for the Republic . The accompanying written guide offers a clear outline, preliminary questions, and dense Q&A—perfect for first-time readers, small groups, or anyone who wants to follow the argument more carefully. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Plato's 'The Lovers' 02:07 The setting and context of the dialogue 06:19 Who is the dialogue for? Audience and purpose 11:12 The erotic dimension of philosophy and education 16:10 The strangeness of the dialogue's setting 22:02 What is philosophy? The first definitions 27:36 The analogy of athletic traini…","meta_description":"Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Garlick, Dr. Larson, and Dr. Grabowski discuss Plato's Lovers--a strange, short, and somewhat forgotten dia…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3717,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/ascend-the-great-books-podcast-6733379/episodes/plato-s-lovers-with-dr-larson-and-dr-grabowski/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/plato-s-lovers-with-dr-larson-and-dr-grabowski.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}