HoP 399 - Seriously Funny - Rabelais
June 19th, 2022
In his outrageous novel about Pantagruel and Gargantua, Rabelais engages with scholasticism, humanism, medicine, the reformation, and the querelle des femmes.
HoP 398 - Pearls of Wisdom - Marguerite of Navarre
June 5th, 2022
A Renaissance queen supports philosophical humanism and produces literary works on spirituality, love, and the soul.
HoP 397 - Do As the Romans Did - French Humanism
May 22nd, 2022
We begin to look at philosophy in Renaissance France, beginning with humanists like Budé and the use of classical philosophy by poets du Bellay and Ronsard.
HoP 396 - Lorraine Daston on Renaissance Science
May 8th, 2022
Comets! Magnets! Armadillos! In this wide-ranging interview Lorraine Daston tells us how Renaissance and early modern scientists dealt with the extraordinary events they called "wonders".
HoP 395 - Music of the Spheres - Johannes Kepler
April 24th, 2022
Johannes Kepler fuses Platonist philosophy with a modified version of Copernicus’ astronomy.
HoP 394 - Best of Both Worlds - Tycho Brahe
April 10th, 2022
Responses to Copernicus in the 16th century, culminating with the master of astral observation Tycho Brahe.
HoP 393 - The World Doesn’t Revolve Around You - Copernicus
March 27th, 2022
How revolutionary was the Copernican Revolution?
HoP 392 - John Sellars on Lipsius and Early Modern Stoicism
March 12th, 2022
John Sellars returns to the podcast to discuss Lipsius' work on Seneca and the early modern Neo-Stoic movement.
HoP 391 - Everything is Mine and Nothing - Lipsius and the Revival of Stoicism
February 27th, 2022
Justus Lipsius draws on Seneca and other Stoics to counsel peace of mind in the face of political chaos, but also writes a work on how such chaos can be avoided.
HoP 390 - Born to Be Contrary - Toleration in the Netherlands
February 13th, 2022
Amidst religious conflict in the Netherlands, Dirck Coornhert pleads for religious toleration and freedom of expression.
HoP 389 - The Acid Test - Theories of Matter
January 30th, 2022
Schegk, Taurellus, Gorlaeus, and Sennert revive atomism to explain chemical reactions, the composition of bodies, and the generation of organisms.
HoP 388 - Just Add Salt - Paracelsus and Alchemy
January 16th, 2022
Paracelsus adapts the tradition of alchemical science for use in medicine, and in the process overturns the scientific theories of Aristotle and Galen.
HoP 387 - Helen Hattab on Protestant Philosophy
January 2nd, 2022
An interview with Helen Hattab on the scope and impact of scholastic philosophy among Protestants.
HoP 386 - Perhaps Not Wrong - Cornelius Agrippa
December 19th, 2021
Was Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa a dark magician, a pious skeptic, or both?
HoP 385 - I Too Can Ask Questions - Protestant Scholasticism
December 5th, 2021
In a surprise twist, some Protestant thinkers embrace the methods of scholasticism, and even find something to admire in the work of Catholic authors like Aquinas.
HoP 384 - We Are Not Our Own - John Calvin
November 21st, 2021
John Calvin's views on predestination and the limits of human reason.
HoP 383 - Slowly But Surely - Huldrych Zwingli
November 7th, 2021
The Swiss theologian Zwingli launches the Reformation in Switzerland, but clashes with Luther and more radical Protestants.
HoP 382 - No Lord but God - the Peasants’ War and Radical Reformation
October 24th, 2021
Faced with massive political upheaval and the rise of the Anabaptists, Luther argues for a socially conservative version of the Reformation.
HoP 381 - More Lutheran than Luther - Philip Melanchthon
October 10th, 2021
Luther’s close ally Melanchthon uses his knowledge of ancient philosophy and rhetoric in the service of the Reformation.
HoP 380 - Take Your Choice - Erasmus vs Luther on Free Will
September 26th, 2021
Erasmus clashes with Martin Luther over the question whether our wills are free or enslaved to sin.
