Podcast Link:
Transcript:
Welcome.
I’m glad you’re here.
This is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, using the Project Gutenberg edition—
red slowly, aloud, and in company.
Orthodoxy 2 -Discovering Home Again
Podcast Link:
Transcript:
Welcome.
I’m glad you’re here.
This is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, using the Project Gutenberg edition—read slowly, aloud, and in company.
These readings aren’t lectures, and they aren’t explanations. They’re an invitation: to listen carefully, to follow an argument that wanders on purpose, and to allow surprise to do some of the work. So let’s take our time—and begin where Chesterton leads us today.
Orthodoxy 3: The Madness of Self-Belief
In this episode of Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton turns modern confidence upside down, suggesting that absolute belief in oneself may be less a virtue than a symptom. Reading from Orthodoxy, we explore the strange connection between sanity, doubt, and conviction—and why faith that can admit uncertainty may be more alive than certainty that cannot be questioned.
Transcript:
Orthodoxy 4: The Madman’s Logic (Reading 3)
Chesterton begins his “philosophy of sanity,” arguing that the madman has not lost reason, but everything except reason. Along the way, we reflect on productivity, Sabbath, and the difference between a tidy mind and a whole soul.
Transcript:
Session 5: Complete, but Small (Reading 4)
Full Transcript Below.
Welcome.
I’m glad you’re here.
This is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, using the Project Gutenberg edition—read slowly, aloud, and in company.
These readings aren’t lectures, and they aren’t explanations. They’re an invitation: to listen carefully, to follow an argument that wanders on purpose, and to allow surprise to do some of the work. So let’s take our time—and see where Chesterton leads us today.
Last time we contemplated the sanity of useless things and the madness of extreme logic.
Today we walk with Chesterton as he moves from the logic seated in insanity to the razor-point logic of materialism.
Session 6: When the Whole Grows Smaller (Reading 5)
Full Transcript Below.
Welcome.
I’m glad you’re here.
Session 7: The Mystery That Keeps Us Sane (Reading 6)
Welcome.
I’m glad you’re here.
This is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, using the Project Gutenberg edition—red slowly, aloud, and in company.
These readings aren’t lectures, and they aren’t explanations. They’re an invitation: to listen carefully, to follow an argument that wanders on purpose, and to allow surprise to do some of the work. So, let’s take our time—and see where Chesterton leads us today.
Last time we followed Chesterton into a rather uncomfortable place, the mind of the madman, and found, somewhat to our surprise, that madness is not the loss of reason, but a kind of reasoning that has become… trapped. Complete, even convincing, but somehow cut off from the wider world.
Orthodoxy: Session 8 "When Virtues Go Mad"
Chesterton argues that the modern world is not evil but filled with virtues that have been torn from their balance and allowed to run wild. Truth without mercy becomes cruelty, pity without truth becomes sentimentality, and humility itself can shift into a corrosive doubt that undermines conviction. When reason turns inward and begins to doubt its own foundations, the mind risks destroying its ability to know anything at all. This session explores Chesterton’s warning that both virtue and logic must remain anchored within a larger harmony if they are to sustain faith, reason, and a livable world.
Full Transcript:
Orthodoxy: Session 9 "When Thought Stops Thought"
In Session 9 of The Paradox of Common Sense: Walking with Chesterton, we follow Chesterton into one of his sharpest critiques of modern thought: the moment when reason begins to question the very tools that make reasoning possible. From materialism and evolution to pragmatism and the worship of change itself, Chesterton argues that some philosophies do not merely challenge belief—they undermine thought, standards, and even the idea of objective truth. Along the way, we consider whether modern humanity has mistaken endless adjustment for genuine progress, and whether, like sweepers in the sport of curling, we have begun subtly altering not merely the path, but the target itself.
Full Transcript: