History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

HoP 482 Indivisible, Under God: the Revival of Atomism

Why did Sébastian Basso and Pierre Gassendi think ancient atomism was the key to developing a new, modern science?

HoP 479 Gideon Manning on Cartesian Medicine

An interview exploring Descartes' interest in medicine, how his medical ideas relate to his dualism, and his influence on medical science.

HoP 478 This Gland Is Your Gland: Cartesian Science

From comets to blood transfusions, embryology, and the debate over the pineal gland: Descartes’ impact on science, especially medicine.

HoP 466 Well Hidden: Descartes’ Life and Works

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

HoP 457 - Take Your Medicine - Oliva Sabuco and Camilla Erculiani

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

HoP 433 - Nature’s Mystery - Science in Renaissance England

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

HoP 413 - Don’t Be So Sure - French Skepticism

The sources and scope of the skepticism of Montaigne, Charron, and Sanches.

HoP 402 - Life is Not Enough - Medicine in Renaissance France

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

Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and Julius Caesar Scaliger fuse Aristotelianism with humanism to address problems in logic and literary aesthetics.

HoP 388 - Just Add Salt - Paracelsus and Alchemy

Paracelsus adapts the tradition of alchemical science for use in medicine, and in the process overturns the scientific theories of Aristotle and Galen.

HoP 381 - More Lutheran than Luther - Philip Melanchthon

Luther’s close ally Melanchthon uses his knowledge of ancient philosophy and rhetoric in the service of the Reformation.

HoP 368 - Boundless Enthusiasm - Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno’s stunning vision of an infinite universe with infinite worlds, and his own untimely end.

HoP 367 - Brian Copenhaver on Renaissance Magic

Our guest Brian Copenhaver joins us to explain how Ficino and other Renaissance philosophers thought about magic.

HoP 366 - The Men Who Saw Tomorrow - Renaissance Magic and Astrology

Ficino, Pico, Cardano, and other Renaissance thinkers debate whether astrology and magic are legitimate sciences with a foundation in natural philosophy.

HoP 364 - Guido Giglioni on Renaissance Medicine

An interview with Guido Giglioni, who speaks to us about the sources and philosophical implications of medical works of the Renaissance.

HoP 363 - Man of Discoveries - Girolamo Cardano

The polymath Girolamo Cardano explores medicine, mathematics, philosophy of mind, and the interpretation of dreams.

HoP 362 - Just What the Doctor Ordered - Renaissance Medicine

Connections between philosophy and advances in medicine, including the anatomy of Vesalius.

HoP 359 - There and Back Again - Zabarella on Scientific Method

Jacopo Zabarella outlines the correct method for pursuing, and then presenting, scientific discoveries.

HoP 281 - Monica Green on Medieval Medicine

An interview with Monica Green reveals parallels between medicine and philosophy in the middle ages.