Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at Keynes College London and the LMU in Munich.

Online at historyofilosophy.net.

Today's episode, no place will please me so, Thomas Moore.

As you've no doubt noticed, I'm a big believer in the importance of historical context for understanding philosophy, but you might think that even I would make an exception for Thomas Moore's utopia.

After all, this is a book about a place that has no history, for the very good reason that it doesn't exist.

But as it turns out, all of Moore's writings dramatically illustrate the importance of historical and biographical circumstance, and that very much includes utopia.

This work was inspired in part by the contact of Europeans with the Americas, something no reader can miss, given that the fictional character, who describes this fantastic society, Raphael Hithlode, is said to have been a companion of Ametico Vespucci, and is described as a leading expert on unknown peoples and unexplored lands.

Hithlode's account alludes to other contemporary developments, too, like the printing press and the humanist study of Greek language and literature.

Indeed, the writing of utopia would have been unimaginable without the rise of humanism.

It is clearly a response to Plato's republic, which Moore would have been able to consult in the original Greek, just to ensure that we don't miss this either, he has Hithlode referred to Plato by name numerous times.

And a familiar humanist theme, the tension between a life of study and contemplation and a life of political engagement is also crucial for utopia.

That choice is the main focus of the dialogue between Hithlode and a fictionalized version of Thomas Moore himself in book one before we get to the famous description of utopia in book two, which brings us to the relevance of Moore's own biography.

The tension between contemplation and action was one he felt keenly.

After studying as a teenager at Oxford, remember this was the typical age for university students, he underwent a period of spiritual turmoil that lasted from 1494 until late 1504 or early 1505 when he got married.

In so doing, he turned his back on the possibility of committing himself to a chased monastic life when he'd been tentatively pursuing by residing in the London Charter House of Cartesian monks.

He would rather, he said, be a godfaring husband than an immoral priest. Nor would family life be his soul earthly concern.

Moore would, in due course, become one of England's most important politicians, albeit a reluctant one.

He said in a letter that he joined the royal court much against his will, and his good friend Erasmus claimed that no man was ever more consumed with ambition to enter a court than Moore was to avoid it.

But enter it he did. He would serve as ambassador, speaker of the House of Commons, and as of 1529, Lord Chancellor, all under the king who would eventually have him put to death Henry VIII.

Utopia may be a work of vivid imagination, but its writing fits snugly into this story of concrete political activity.

It was apparently composed in two parts, first in Flanders during a law and trade negotiations, and then back in England.

The fictional setting is a conversation in Antweff between Moore, his real-life colleague Peter Giles, and the invented Hithlode.

...