The Thomistic Institute Podcast
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.
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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.
Recent Episodes
Sept. 22, 2026
'Experimentum' in Aquinas: How all Knowledge of Nature Begins in the Interior Senses - Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P.
Fr. Thomas Davenport corrects two misunderstandings of Aristotelian-Thomistic epistemology — the caricature that Aquinas relies on an intuition of essences and the oversimplification that the agent intellect automatically abstracts universals from phantasms — by recovering Aquinas's notion of experimentum, an ordered, pre-universal knowledge produced by the cogitative power's active collatio of particular intentions stored in memory, which prepares the phantasm for abstraction and shows that all
Sept. 21, 2026
An Introduction to Thomistic Philosophy of Nature - Prof. Ryan Miller
Prof. Ryan Miller offers an introductory overview of the foundational terminology of Thomistic philosophy of nature — potency and act, the four causes, per se versus per accidens, the categories of substance, accident, and relation, and nature versus instrument — illustrating each distinction with modern scientific analogies and everyday examples like the conductor, combustion, phonemes, ionization, model species. This lecture was given on July 16th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies. For mo
Sept. 18, 2026
Art that reveals Nature: A Thomistic Account of Scientific Experiments and Instruments - Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P.
Fr. Thomas Davenport argues against the Thomist intuition that artifice obscures nature, showing from Aquinas's account of art and artifacts that artificial forms are accidental forms rooted in the natural active and passive powers of substances, so that scientific instruments and experiments reveal rather than distort the natures they investigate. This lecture was given on July 18th, 2026, at Dominican House of Studies. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.o
Sept. 17, 2026
The Mystery of Beauty - Dr. Sarah E. Maple
Dr. Sarah E. Maple asks how we acquire an organic vision of beauty that is not merely material or visual, arguing from Aquinas's formal criteria of beauty (proportion, integrity, clarity) and Hans Urs von Balthasar's theological aesthetics (form and splendor, beholding and enrapture) that beauty belongs first to the human person, and that the artist's vocation is grounded in wonder, self-gift, and the sincerity of the body, culminating in a spirituality of artistic service. This lecture was giv
Sept. 16, 2026
The War on Beauty - Fr. Gabriel Torretta, O.P.
Fr. Gabriel Torretta argues that beauty has become a "forbidden word" for our age due to the effects of German Idealism and Modernism; as a remedy, he proposes a recovery grounded in the Christian metaphysical tradition (Eriugena, Aquinas, Augustine), in which beauty is the attractive power by which God draws all things to himself and which requires an asceticism of the gaze. This lecture was given on April 28th, 2026, at University of Washington. Support the Thomistic Institute Campus Chapter
Sept. 15, 2026
On the Via Pulchritudinis: Pope Benedict XVI’s Meditations on Art and Prayer - Fr. Alan O'Sullivan, O.P.
Fr. Alan O'Sullivan provides an introduction to Pope Benedict XVI's thought on the "via pulchritudinis" — the way of beauty — arguing that authentic beauty wounds the heart and draws it toward the transcendent Logos, is inseparable from truth, goodness, and prayer, and is indispensable for the Church's liturgy and evangelization against a false, self-absorbing beauty. This lecture was given on July 18th, 2026, at Glencomeragh House. Support the Thomistic Institute Campus Chapter Program here:
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