HoP 404 - Robert Goulding on Peter Ramus
September 25th, 2022
A chat with Ramus expert Robert Goulding on the role of mathematics in Ramist philosophy.
HoP 403 - Make It Simple - Peter Ramus
September 11th, 2022
Peter Ramus scandalizes his critics, and thrills his students and admirers, by proposing a new and simpler approach to philosophy.
HoP 402 - Life is Not Enough - Medicine in Renaissance France
July 31st, 2022
Challenges to Galenic medical orthodoxy from natural philosophy: Jean Fernel with his idea of the human’s “total substance,” and the Paracelsans.
HoP 401 - Word Perfect - Logic and Language in Renaissance France
July 17th, 2022
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and Julius Caesar Scaliger fuse Aristotelianism with humanism to address problems in logic and literary aesthetics.
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.
Democracy and the History of Philosophy
January 21st, 2017
Peter muses on recent political events in light of the history of philosophy.
HoP 248 - Scott MacDonald on Aquinas
February 28th, 2016
Scott MacDonald joins Peter to discuss Thomas Aquinas' views on human knowledge.
HoP 247 - Onward, Christian Soldiers - Just War Theory
February 14th, 2016
Aquinas follows medieval legal thinkers in defining the conditions under which war may be justified, and proposes his famous doctrine of double effect.
HoP 246 - What Pleases the Prince - The Rule of Law
January 31st, 2016
Natural law and political legitimacy in thirteenth century thinkers up to and including Thomas Aquinas.
HoP 245 - What Comes Naturally - Ethics in Albert and Aquinas
January 17th, 2016
Natural and supernatural virtue and happiness in Thomas Aquinas and his teacher, Albert the Great.
HoP 244 - Everybody Needs Some Body - Aquinas on Soul and Knowledge
January 3rd, 2016
Thomas Aquinas makes controversial claims concerning the unity of the soul and the empirical basis of human knowledge.
HoP 243 - The Ox Heard Round the World - Thomas Aquinas
December 20th, 2015
An introduction to Thomas Aquinas, his views on faith and reason, and his famous “five ways” of proving God’s existence.
HoP 242 - Therese Cory on Self-Awareness in Albert and Aquinas
December 6th, 2015
Therese Cory tells Peter what Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas thought about self-awareness.
HoP 241 - The Shadow Knows - Albert the Great’s Metaphysics
November 22nd, 2015
Albert the Great’s theory of being and his attempt to explain what changes in the human mind when we come to see God in the afterlife.
HoP 240 - Animal, Vegetable, Mineral - Albert the Great’s Natural Philosophy
November 8th, 2015
Albert the Great earns his nickname “universal doctor” by devoting himself to the whole of nature, from geology and botany to the study of human nature.
HoP 239 - Catarina Dutilh Novaes on Medieval Logic
October 25th, 2015
Was medieval logic "formal"? Peter finds out from Catarina Dutilh Novaes.
HoP 238 - Binding Arbitration - Robert Kilwardby
October 11th, 2015
Robert Kilwardby is infamous for his ban on teaching certain philosophical ideas at Oxford, yet made contributions in logic and on the soul.
