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.
HoP 378 - Faith, No More - Martin Luther
August 1st, 2021
How Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone and his attack on the Church relate to the history of philosophy.
HoP 377 - One Way or Another - Northern Scholasticism
July 18th, 2021
Trends in Aristotelian philosophy in northern and eastern Europe in the fifteenth century, featuring discussion of the “Wegestreit” and the nominalist theology of Gabriel Biel.
HoP 374 - Opposites Attract - Nicholas of Cusa
June 6th, 2021
The radical negative theology of Nicholas of Cusa, and his hope of establishing peace between the religions of the world.
HoP 371 - European Disunion - Introduction to the Reformation
April 25th, 2021
How humanism and scholasticism came together with the Protestant Reformation to create the philosophy of 15-16th century Europe.
HoP 366 - The Men Who Saw Tomorrow - Renaissance Magic and Astrology
February 14th, 2021
Ficino, Pico, Cardano, and other Renaissance thinkers debate whether astrology and magic are legitimate sciences with a foundation in natural philosophy.
HoP 352 - The Teacher of Our Actions - Renaissance Historiography
June 28th, 2020
Bruni, Poggio, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini explore political ideas and historical method in works on Roman and Italian history.
HoP 350 - The Sentence - Machiavelli on Republicanism
May 31st, 2020
Peter celebrates reaching 350 episodes by explaining a single sentence in Machiavelli's "Discourses."
HoP 348 - The Sweet Restraints of Liberty - Republicanism and Civic Humanism
May 3rd, 2020
Did “civic humanism” really make republicanism a newly dominant political theory in the Italian Renaissance?
HoP 345 - What a Piece of Work is Man - Manetti and Pico on Human Nature
March 22nd, 2020
Pico della Mirandola and Giannozzo Manetti praise humans as the centerpiece of the created world. But what about the other animals?
HoP 334 - Chance Encounters - Reviving Hellenistic philosophy
October 20th, 2019
The rediscovery of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Sextus Empiricus spreads challenging ideas about chance, atomism, and skepticism.
HoP 331 - Literary Criticism - Lorenzo Valla
September 8th, 2019
Lorenzo Valla launches a furious attack on scholastic philosophy, favoring the resources of classical Latin.
HoP 329 - Greeks Bearing Gifts - Byzantine Scholars in Italy
July 14th, 2019
Bessarion and George Trapenzuntius, rival scholars from the Greek east who helped inspire the Italian Renaissance.
HoP 325 - Platonic Love - Gemistos Plethon
May 19th, 2019
Was Gemistos Plethon, the last great thinker of the Byzantine tradition, a secret pagan or just a Christian with an unusual enthusiasm for Platonism?
HoP 292 - Say it With Poetry - Chaucer and Langland
December 31st, 2017
Philosophical themes in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and “Troilus and Criseyde,” as well as Langland’s “Piers Plowman.”
HoP 287 - Down to the Ground - Meister Eckhart
October 22nd, 2017
The scholastic and mystic Meister Eckhart sets out his daring speculations about God and humankind in both Latin and German.
HoP 282 - Portrait of the Artist - John Buridan
July 16th, 2017
The hipster’s choice for favorite scholastic, John Buridan, sets out a nominalist theory of knowledge and language, and explains the workings of free will.
