Causality
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Plato sets out criticisms against his own theory of Forms in the "Parmenides". In this episode Peter looks at the criticisms, including the Third Man Argument, and asks what Plato wants us to conclude from them.
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Aristotle's Physics presents four types of cause: formal, material, final and efficient. Peter looks at all four, and asks whether evolutionary theory undermines final causes in nature.
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Peter looks at the Stoic idea of god, a providential fire that pervades nature, and considers their idea of a deterministic and eternally recurring cosmos.
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In his Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazālī attacks Avicenna’s theories about the eternity of the universe and insists on the possibility of miracles.
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Abraham Ibn Ezra, Ibn Daud and Maimonides consider the philosophical implications of astrology as science flourishes in the Jewish culture of Andalusia.
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Peter Damian takes up a question with surprising philosophical implications: can God restore virginity to a woman who has lost it?
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Roger Bacon extols the power of science based on experience and uses a general theory of "species" to explain light and vision.
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Gautama and his commentators tell us how to separate good inferences from bad ones.
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Bradwardine and other thinkers based at Oxford make breakthroughs in physics by applying mathematics to motion.
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Ockham, Buridan, Oresme and Francis of Marchia explore cosmology, atomism, and the impetus involved in motion.
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Nāgārjuna applies his emptiness theory to motion, change, and cognition.
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Dignāga’s trairūpya theory, which sets out the three conditions required for making reliable inferences.
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Special forms of knowledge and the explanation of misfortunes in African tradition.
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Gregory Palamas and the controversy over his teaching that we can go beyond human reason by grasping God through his activities or “energies”.
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Anton Wilhelm Amo, brought to Germany from his native Ghana, defends a rigorous dualism of mind and body. Was this philosophy connected to his African origins?
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Hosea Easton’s Treatise provides an overlooked but fascinating theory of race and racism.
