History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

HoP 438 - Don't Give Up Pope - Catholic Reformation

How the Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation created a context for philosophy among Catholics, especially in Spain, Portugal, and Italy.

HoP 437 - Jennifer Rampling on Renaissance Alchemy

An expert on Renaissance alchemy tells us how this art related to philosophy at the time... and how she has tried to reproduce its results!

HoP 436 - Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores - Robert Fludd

Our last figure of the English Renaissance undertakes daring investigations of chemistry, medicine, agriculture, and cosmology – and gets accused of magic and Rosicrucianism.

HoP 435 - Metal More Attractive - William Gilbert and Magnetism

The cosmological and methodological implications of breakthroughs in the understanding of magnetism and electricity at the turn of the 17th century.

HoP 434 - The Eye Sees Not Itself But By Reflection - Theories of Vision

Changing ideas about eyesight, light, mirror images, and refraction – and the skeptical worries they may have inspired.

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 432 - If This Be Magic, Let It Be an Art - John Dee

Science, intrigue, exploration, angelic seances! It's the life and thought of Elizabethan mathematician and magician John Dee.

HoP 431 - Calvin Normore on Scholasticism

A discussion of the history and philosophical significance of scholasticism from medieval times to early modernity, and even today.

HoP 430 - I’ll Teach You Differences - British Scholasticism

The evolution of Aristotelian philosophy from John Mair in the late 15th century to John Case in the late 16th century.

HoP 429 - She Uttereth Piercing Eloquence - Women’s Spiritual Literature

How women’s writing in England changed from the early fifteenth century, the time of Margery Kempe, to the late sixteenth century, the time of Anne Lock.

HoP 428 - Weird Sisters - Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Witchcraft

How Macbeth reflects the anxieties and explanations surrounding witchcraft and witch-hunting in early modern Europe.

HoP 427 - Brave New World - Shakespeare’s Tempest and Colonialism

Can Shakespeare’s Tempest be read as a reflection on the English encounter with the peoples of the Americas?

HoP 426 - A Face Without a Heart - Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Individualism

How the Renaissance turn towards individual identity is reflected in Shakespeare's most famous play. 

HoP 425 - Patrick Gray on Shakespeare

We're joined by Patrick Gray to discuss Shakespeare's knowledge of philosophy, his ethics, and his influence on such thinkers as Hegel.

HoP 424 - Hast Any Philosophy In Thee? - William Shakespeare

How should we approach Shakespeare’s plays as philosophical texts? We take as examples skepticism and politics in Othello, King Lear, and Julius Caesar.

HoP 423 - Heaven-Bred Poesy - Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser

We begin to look at Elizabethan literature, as Sidney argues that poetry is superior to philosophy, and philosophy is put to use in Spenser’s "Fairie Queene".

HoP 422 - The World’s Law - Richard Hooker

Richard Hooker defends the religious and political settlement of Elizabethan England using rational arguments and appeals to the natural law.

HoP 421 - With Such Perfection Govern - English Political Thought

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.

HoP 420 - No Place Will Please Me So - Thomas More

What is the message of the famous, but elusive, work "Utopia", and how can it be squared with the life of its author?

HoP 419 - Write Till Your Ink Be Dry - Humanism in Britain

Humanism comes to England and Scotland, leading scholars like Thomas Eylot and Andrew Melville to rethink philosophical education.