Episodes

Sunday Nov 26, 2023
HoP 433 - Nature’s Mystery - Science in Renaissance England
Sunday Nov 26, 2023
Sunday Nov 26, 2023
How scientists of the Elizabethan age anticipated the discoveries and methods of the Enlightenment (without necessarily publishing them).

Sunday Dec 18, 2022
HoP 410 - Ann Blair on Jean Bodin’s Natural Philosophy
Sunday Dec 18, 2022
Sunday Dec 18, 2022
A chat with Ann Blair about the "Theater of Nature" by Jean Bodin, and other encyclopedic works of natural philosophy.

Sunday Sep 11, 2022
HoP 403 - Make It Simple - Peter Ramus
Sunday Sep 11, 2022
Sunday Sep 11, 2022
Peter Ramus scandalizes his critics, and thrills his students and admirers, by proposing a new and simpler approach to philosophy.

Sunday Jul 31, 2022
HoP 402 - Life is Not Enough - Medicine in Renaissance France
Sunday Jul 31, 2022
Sunday Jul 31, 2022
Challenges to Galenic medical orthodoxy from natural philosophy: Jean Fernel with his idea of the human’s “total substance,” and the Paracelsans.

Sunday May 08, 2022
HoP 396 - Lorraine Daston on Renaissance Science
Sunday May 08, 2022
Sunday May 08, 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".

Sunday Apr 24, 2022
HoP 395 - Music of the Spheres - Johannes Kepler
Sunday Apr 24, 2022
Sunday Apr 24, 2022
Johannes Kepler fuses Platonist philosophy with a modified version of Copernicus’ astronomy.

Sunday Apr 10, 2022
HoP 394 - Best of Both Worlds - Tycho Brahe
Sunday Apr 10, 2022
Sunday Apr 10, 2022
Responses to Copernicus in the 16th century, culminating with the master of astral observation Tycho Brahe.

Sunday Mar 27, 2022
HoP 393 - The World Doesn’t Revolve Around You - Copernicus
Sunday Mar 27, 2022
Sunday Mar 27, 2022
How revolutionary was the Copernican Revolution?

Sunday Jan 30, 2022
HoP 389 - The Acid Test - Theories of Matter
Sunday Jan 30, 2022
Sunday Jan 30, 2022
Schegk, Taurellus, Gorlaeus, and Sennert revive atomism to explain chemical reactions, the composition of bodies, and the generation of organisms.

Sunday Jan 16, 2022
HoP 388 - Just Add Salt - Paracelsus and Alchemy
Sunday Jan 16, 2022
Sunday Jan 16, 2022
Paracelsus adapts the tradition of alchemical science for use in medicine, and in the process overturns the scientific theories of Aristotle and Galen.

Sunday Jan 02, 2022
HoP 387 - Helen Hattab on Protestant Philosophy
Sunday Jan 02, 2022
Sunday Jan 02, 2022
An interview with Helen Hattab on the scope and impact of scholastic philosophy among Protestants.

Sunday Jul 18, 2021
HoP 377 - One Way or Another - Northern Scholasticism
Sunday Jul 18, 2021
Sunday Jul 18, 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.

Sunday Mar 28, 2021
HoP 369 - The Harder They Fall - Galileo and the Renaissance
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
Sunday Mar 28, 2021
Did Galileo’s scientific discoveries grow out of the culture of the Italian Renaissance?

Sunday Mar 14, 2021
HoP 368 - Boundless Enthusiasm - Giordano Bruno
Sunday Mar 14, 2021
Sunday Mar 14, 2021
Giordano Bruno’s stunning vision of an infinite universe with infinite worlds, and his own untimely end.

Sunday Feb 14, 2021
HoP 366 - The Men Who Saw Tomorrow - Renaissance Magic and Astrology
Sunday Feb 14, 2021
Sunday Feb 14, 2021
Ficino, Pico, Cardano, and other Renaissance thinkers debate whether astrology and magic are legitimate sciences with a foundation in natural philosophy.

Sunday Jan 31, 2021
HoP 365 - Spirits in the Material World - Telesio and Campanella on Nature
Sunday Jan 31, 2021
Sunday Jan 31, 2021
Was the natural philosophy of Bernardino Telesio and Tommaso Campanella the first modern physical theory?

Sunday Nov 22, 2020
HoP 360 - Dag N. Hasse on Arabic Learning in the Renaissance
Sunday Nov 22, 2020
Sunday Nov 22, 2020
An interview with Dag Nikolaus Hasse on the Renaissance reception of Averroes, Avicenna, and other authors who wrote in Arabic.

Sunday Sep 13, 2020
HoP 355 - Town and Gown - Italian Universities
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
The blurry line dividing humanism and scholastic university culture in the Italian Renaissance.

Sunday Oct 20, 2019
HoP 334 - Chance Encounters - Reviving Hellenistic philosophy
Sunday Oct 20, 2019
Sunday Oct 20, 2019
The rediscovery of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Sextus Empiricus spreads challenging ideas about chance, atomism, and skepticism.

Sunday Apr 07, 2019
HoP 322 - Do the Math - Science in the Palaiologan Renaissance
Sunday Apr 07, 2019
Sunday Apr 07, 2019
Mathematics and the sciences in Byzantium, focusing on scholars of the Palaiologan period like Blemmydes and Metochites.