Episodes

Sunday Jul 09, 2023
HoP 425 - Patrick Gray on Shakespeare
Sunday Jul 09, 2023
Sunday Jul 09, 2023
We're joined by Patrick Gray to discuss Shakespeare's knowledge of philosophy, his ethics, and his influence on such thinkers as Hegel.

Sunday Jun 25, 2023
HoP 424 - Hast Any Philosophy In Thee? - William Shakespeare
Sunday Jun 25, 2023
Sunday Jun 25, 2023
How should we approach Shakespeare’s plays as philosophical texts? We take as examples skepticism and politics in Othello, King Lear, and Julius Caesar.

Sunday May 28, 2023
HoP 422 - The World’s Law - Richard Hooker
Sunday May 28, 2023
Sunday May 28, 2023
Richard Hooker defends the religious and political settlement of Elizabethan England using rational arguments and appeals to the natural law.

Sunday May 14, 2023
HoP 421 - With Such Perfection Govern - English Political Thought
Sunday May 14, 2023
Sunday May 14, 2023
The evolution of ideas about kingship and the role of the “three estates” in 15th and 16th century England, with a focus on John Fortescue and Thomas Starkey.

Sunday May 07, 2023
HoP 420 - No Place Will Please Me So - Thomas More
Sunday May 07, 2023
Sunday May 07, 2023
What is the message of the famous, but elusive, work "Utopia", and how can it be squared with the life of its author?

Sunday Apr 23, 2023
HoP 419 - Write Till Your Ink Be Dry - Humanism in Britain
Sunday Apr 23, 2023
Sunday Apr 23, 2023
Humanism comes to England and Scotland, leading scholars like Thomas Eylot and Andrew Melville to rethink philosophical education.

Sunday Apr 09, 2023
HoP 418 - Diarmaid MacCulloch on the British Reformations
Sunday Apr 09, 2023
Sunday Apr 09, 2023
A leading expert on the history of the Reformation joins us to explain the very different stories of England and Scotland in the 16th century.

Sunday Mar 26, 2023
HoP 417 - To Kill a King - The Scottish Reformation
Sunday Mar 26, 2023
Sunday Mar 26, 2023
John Knox polemicizes against idolaters and female rulers, while the humanist George Buchanan argues more calmly for equally radical political conclusions.

Sunday Mar 12, 2023
HoP 416 - God’s is the Quarrel - The English Reformation
Sunday Mar 12, 2023
Sunday Mar 12, 2023
The historical context of English philosophy in the sixteenth century, with particular focus on Thomas Cranmer, and the role of religion in personal conscience and social cohesion.

Sunday Dec 04, 2022
HoP 409 - One to Rule Them All - Jean Bodin
Sunday Dec 04, 2022
Sunday Dec 04, 2022
The polymath Jean Bodin produces a pioneering theory of political sovereignty along the way to defending the absolute power of the French king.

Sunday Nov 20, 2022
HoP 408 - Constitutional Conventions - the Huguenots
Sunday Nov 20, 2022
Sunday Nov 20, 2022
Protestant French thinkers like François Hotman and Theodore Beza propose a radical political philosophy: the king rules at the pleasure of his subjects.

Sunday Nov 06, 2022
HoP 407 - Maria Rosa Antognazza on Early Modern Toleration
Sunday Nov 06, 2022
Sunday Nov 06, 2022
An interview on the nature of religious tolerance, and the forms it took during the Reformation and in the thought of early modern thinkers like Locke and Leibniz.

Sunday Oct 23, 2022
HoP 406 - Believe at Your Own Risk - Toleration in France
Sunday Oct 23, 2022
Sunday Oct 23, 2022
Even as wars of religion in France prompt calls for toleration, hardly anyone makes a principled case for freedom of conscience… apart from Sebastian Castellio.

Sunday Feb 27, 2022
Sunday Feb 27, 2022
Justus Lipsius draws on Seneca and other Stoics to counsel peace of mind in the face of political chaos, but also writes a work on how such chaos can be avoided.

Sunday Feb 13, 2022
HoP 390 - Born to Be Contrary - Toleration in the Netherlands
Sunday Feb 13, 2022
Sunday Feb 13, 2022
Amidst religious conflict in the Netherlands, Dirck Coornhert pleads for religious toleration and freedom of expression.

Sunday Nov 07, 2021
HoP 383 - Slowly But Surely - Huldrych Zwingli
Sunday Nov 07, 2021
Sunday Nov 07, 2021
The Swiss theologian Zwingli launches the Reformation in Switzerland, but clashes with Luther and more radical Protestants.

Sunday Oct 24, 2021
HoP 382 - No Lord but God - the Peasants’ War and Radical Reformation
Sunday Oct 24, 2021
Sunday Oct 24, 2021
Faced with massive political upheaval and the rise of the Anabaptists, Luther argues for a socially conservative version of the Reformation.

Sunday Oct 10, 2021
HoP 381 - More Lutheran than Luther - Philip Melanchthon
Sunday Oct 10, 2021
Sunday Oct 10, 2021
Luther’s close ally Melanchthon uses his knowledge of ancient philosophy and rhetoric in the service of the Reformation.

Sunday Aug 01, 2021
HoP 378 - Faith, No More - Martin Luther
Sunday Aug 01, 2021
Sunday Aug 01, 2021
How Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone and his attack on the Church relate to the history of philosophy.

Sunday Jul 04, 2021
HoP 376 - Books That Last Forever - Erasmus
Sunday Jul 04, 2021
Sunday Jul 04, 2021
The “learned piety” of Desiderius Erasmus, the greatest figure of northern humanism.