History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

How the French formal garden embodied both Cartesian philosophy and the political ideology of the French monarchy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Challenges to Galenic medical orthodoxy from natural philosophy: Jean Fernel with his idea of the human’s “total substance,” and the Paracelsans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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