Munich musings

Peter, how could you not include Ambrose?! He was like an ancient Justin Bieber, anguished Milanese parents were at their wits end trying to keep their daughters to embrace a life of abstinence and I am sure he was like Obi-Wan Kenobi to Augustine.

Also we are totally missing on pictures of a dignified King's College professor wearing shorts, drinking beer and eating wieners...

Peter,
enjoying your podcasts - thank you. I would like to submit a request for you to cover Maximus the Confessor. I am currently reading a book on the topic of how the concept of energeia developed from its Aristotelian beginnings all the way through antiquity, contributing to the eventual split of Christendom into East and West. Maximus appears to be an important link in that chain, and I'd love to hear what you had to say about him.

Thanks!

Welcome to Munich andthe LMU ))) ... your joining a great institution ;) ... Btw, beer gardens are very nice musing environments)).

Well thank you very much for your podcasts. I couldn't find the proper access to "all that" before your podcasts (I studied management and informatics) and it is very convenient but not superficial. Now I'm appreciative of the work of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. And thanks for drawing esp. Xenophanes to my attention and Plato's Meno. I've been thinking a lot about that from a Google user's perspective and the Meno was really helpful to me in that regard. Me saying this is probably very epic in this context.

Anyway, could you please announce the dates of your lectures since I'd like to attend your first one in here.

Peter, thanks for the immense work that must go into this podcast! I just discovered it a few days ago and have listened to the first two lectures already. I am a Byzantine religious historian, and have always wanted to get a better sense of the history of philosophy than what I got from reading Will Durant when I was in high school. And the short podcast format is ideal for little snatches of time during the day between ploughing through books and articles for my dissertation.

I would like to second (or third) the request for St. Maximus. He's considered by many to be the greatest Byzantine theologian, in terms of a creative synthesis of what came before. Plus there's been an explosion in scholarship on him over the past half-century or so, so you will not be lacking in studies to consult.

Might I also suggest John of Damascus? He's important in his own right as a systematizer of the Byzantine theological and philosophical tradition, but also was read and used by Aquinas. There's a good introduction to him by Fr. Andrew Louth, formerly of Durham. I don't now if he would require a whole episode, although is theory of the nature of images would probably provide enough material and interest.

And I assume you will cover John Philoponus and his late antique Alexandrian milieu . . .