History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

For Descartes body is purely geometrical. So how does he understand features we can perceive, like color, and causation between bodies?

Transcribed - Published: 13 April 2025

How René Descartes’ understanding of his own intellectual project evolved across his lifetime.

Transcribed - Published: 30 March 2025

A look at the political and religious ferment that made up the historical context of philosophy in 17th century France and the Netherlands.

Transcribed - Published: 16 March 2025

In this interview we learn more about the Republic of Letters: its importance for the history of ideas, it geographic breadth, who was involved, and the contributions of figures including Leibniz and Hartlib.

Transcribed - Published: 2 March 2025

How scholars around Europe created an international network of intellectual exchange. As examples we consider the activities of Mersenne, Peiresc, Leibniz, Calvet, and Hartlib.

Transcribed - Published: 16 February 2025

What is Enlightenment, anyway?

Transcribed - Published: 2 February 2025

We finish our look at philosophy in the Reformation era with an interview about Galileo's use of a revolutionary technology: the telescope.

Transcribed - Published: 19 January 2025

The philosophical issues at the heart of the notorious condemnation of Galileo and Copernican astronomy.

Transcribed - Published: 5 January 2025

Though most famous for his role in persecuting Galileo, Robert Bellarmine was a central figure of the Counter-Reformation, especially in his political thought.

Transcribed - Published: 22 December 2024

Carlo Ginzburg’s innovative historical study The Cheese and the Worms looks at the ideas of an obscure 16th century miller, suggesting how popular culture might be integrated into the history of philosophy.

Transcribed - Published: 8 December 2024

Natural philosophy and medicine in the work of two unorthodox thinkers of the late sixteenth century, both of them women.

Transcribed - Published: 24 November 2024

Why do critics consider Don Quixote the first “modern” novel, and what does it tell us about the aesthetics of fiction?

Transcribed - Published: 10 November 2024

We're joined by Tom Pink, who tells us about Suárez on ethics, law, religion, and the state.

Transcribed - Published: 27 October 2024

Suárez and other Iberian scholastics ask where political power comes from and under what circumstances it is exercised legitimately.

Transcribed - Published: 13 October 2024

Vitoria, Molina, Suárez and others develop the idea of natural law, exploring its relevance for topics including international law, slavery, and the ethics of economic exchange.

Transcribed - Published: 29 September 2024

Did the metaphysics of Francisco Suárez mark a shift from traditional scholasticism to early modern philosophy?

Transcribed - Published: 15 September 2024

What was Luis de Molina trying to say about human free will with his doctrine of “middle knowledge,” and why did it provoke such controversy?

Transcribed - Published: 1 September 2024

To celebrate reaching 450 episodes, Peter looks at the philosophical resonance of two famous artworks from the turn of the 16th century: Dürer’s Self-Portrait and Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel.

Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2024

We learn from Anna Tropia how Jesuit philosophy of mind broke new ground in the scholastic tradition.

Transcribed - Published: 7 July 2024

The “School of Salamanca,” founded by Francisco Vitoria, and the commentators of Coimbra are at the center of a movement sometimes called the “Second Scholastic.”

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2024

Yes, there were Spanish Protestants! Andrew (Andrés) Messmer joins us to explain how they drew on humanism and philosophy to argue for their religious agenda.

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2024

Cajetan, Bañez and other thinkers make Aquinas a central figure of Counter-Reformation thought; we focus on their theories about analogy and the soul.

Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2024

Ignatius of Loyola’s movement begins modestly, but winds up having a global impact on education and philosophy.

Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2024

Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross push the boundaries of individual spirituality and offer philosophically informed accounts of mystical experience.

Transcribed - Published: 28 April 2024

Fray Luis de Leon, Antonio Nebrija, Beatriz Galindo and other scholars bring the Renaissance to Spain.

Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2024

In this interview we learn about the main issues in modern-day philosophy of disability, and the relevance of this topic for the European encounter with the Americas.

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2024

Bartholomé De las Casas argues against opponents, like Sepúlveda, who believed that Europeans had a legal and moral right to rule over and exploit the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2024

Iberian expeditions to the Americas inspire scientists, and Matteo Ricci’s religious mission to Asia becomes an encounter between European and Chinese philosophy.

Transcribed - Published: 3 March 2024

How religious persecution and censorship shaped the context of philosophy in Catholic Europe in the sixteenth century.

Transcribed - Published: 18 February 2024

How the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation created a context for philosophy among Catholics, especially in Spain, Portugal, and Italy.

Transcribed - Published: 4 February 2024

An expert on Renaissance alchemy tells us how this art related to philosophy at the time... and how she has tried to reproduce its results!

Transcribed - Published: 21 January 2024

Our last figure of the English Renaissance undertakes daring investigations of chemistry, medicine, agriculture, and cosmology – and gets accused of magic and Rosicrucianism.

Transcribed - Published: 7 January 2024

The cosmological and methodological implications of breakthroughs in the understanding of magnetism and electricity at the turn of the 17th century.

Transcribed - Published: 24 December 2023

Changing ideas about eyesight, light, mirror images, and refraction – and the skeptical worries they may have inspired.

Transcribed - Published: 10 December 2023

How scientists of the Elizabethan age anticipated the discoveries and methods of the Enlightenment (without necessarily publishing them).

Transcribed - Published: 26 November 2023

Science, intrigue, exploration, angelic seances! It's the life and thought of Elizabethan mathematician and magician John Dee.

Transcribed - Published: 12 November 2023

A discussion of the history and philosophical significance of scholasticism from medieval times to early modernity, and even today.

Transcribed - Published: 29 October 2023

The evolution of Aristotelian philosophy from John Mair in the late 15th century to John Case in the late 16th century.

Transcribed - Published: 15 October 2023

How women’s writing in England changed from the early fifteenth century, the time of Margery Kempe, to the late sixteenth century, the time of Anne Lock.

Transcribed - Published: 1 October 2023

How Macbeth reflects the anxieties and explanations surrounding witchcraft and witch-hunting in early modern Europe.

Transcribed - Published: 17 September 2023

Can Shakespeare’s Tempest be read as a reflection on the English encounter with the peoples of the Americas?

Transcribed - Published: 3 September 2023

How the Renaissance turn towards individual identity is reflected in Shakespeare's most famous play.

Transcribed - Published: 23 July 2023

We're joined by Patrick Gray to discuss Shakespeare's knowledge of philosophy, his ethics, and his influence on such thinkers as Hegel.

Transcribed - Published: 9 July 2023

How should we approach Shakespeare’s plays as philosophical texts? We take as examples skepticism and politics in Othello, King Lear, and Julius Caesar.

Transcribed - Published: 25 June 2023

We begin to look at Elizabethan literature, as Sidney argues that poetry is superior to philosophy, and philosophy is put to use in Spenser’s "Fairie Queene".

Transcribed - Published: 11 June 2023

Richard Hooker defends the religious and political settlement of Elizabethan England using rational arguments and appeals to the natural law.

Transcribed - Published: 28 May 2023

The evolution of ideas about kingship and the role of the “three estates” in 15th and 16th century England, with a focus on John Fortescue and Thomas Starkey.

Transcribed - Published: 14 May 2023

What is the message of the famous, but elusive, work "Utopia", and how can it be squared with the life of its author?

Transcribed - Published: 7 May 2023

Humanism comes to England and Scotland, leading scholars like Thomas Eylot and Andrew Melville to rethink philosophical education.

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2023

A leading expert on the history of the Reformation joins us to explain the very different stories of England and Scotland in the 16th century.

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2023