Comments Page

Hey Peter,

Are you going to cover the Combahee River Collective? They were a Black feminist lesbian socialist organisation in Boston USA. Just learned about them recently and seeing that they were the ones who coined the term "identity politics" they seem like they would be an important group to cover in the history of Africana podcast. I'm guessing they are going to be covered in the Black Feminists episode right?

Any note to y’all would be remiss if I didn’t start with many thanks.  You have produced something truly remarkable (and terribly punny).  The podcasts remain, for me, an intellectual highlight.

You did however “miss” (or at least reduced to background status) one of the most important African American political thinkers (and my personal hero).  Sure, you mention Rustin, but his uniqueness and impact in the Civil Rights movement is almost impossible to overlook.  Here is a pacifist who went to jail rather than serve in even a support position in WWII (his letter to the draft board is, as all Rustin’s writing cogent, piercing, and well reasoned).  As AP Randolph’s right hand, he was also a man at the center of political power.  Not only did this include planning the cancelled March on Washington, through which he and Randolph won concessions from the FDR, but also the principle organizer of the more famous one in 1963.  He was also the man who pushed Randolph to push Robeson out of the movement for fear of the damage he might do.

Here is a thinker who stood astride the whole of 20th century African American politics, pushed to the background because of his sexuality (though in his later years his strong zionism also doubtless played a role).  If there is a figure who should be included to fill in tragic gaps, I can’t imagine a more important figure to include.  Rustin is long overdue.  Perhaps a later filler episode?  

Again, all my thanks.

Hey Peter, I was wondering - are you going to cover Thomas Sankara? He was another African revolutionary and Pan-African. I looked and I don't think there has been any mention of him anywhere on the website. Is there nothing interesting to cover with him? I would be surprised if that was true.

The other thing is that the comments link at the bottom of the home page of the blog leads to 404 page.

I would like to hear in particular about Bacon's distinction between active Hebraic inquiry and passive Aristotelian receptivity, a distinction I heard he has made. If my information is incorrect, I would be happy to be corrected. At a minimum, I would like to know where in Bacon this distinction can be found, if indeed he makes it. I would be happy to learn about that in a reply to this comment, if you know the answer. Thank you for your work on this podcast. 

Thank you for a most impressive web-site! 

I live in South Africa and had no idea that that Africa boasts such an impressive gallery of philosophers. Not to mention Indian & Byzantine philosophers!  

Is it the sheer volume of your work that has kept you from going beyond the Reformation or are there other reasons why your website does not seem to include post-Reformation philosophers?

Hey Peter,

Not to saddle you anything more than all the great stuff you already provide but I was wondering if there might ever be the possibility of posting a super index for the books on the website. When you refer to a thinker you’ve discussed in the past in one of the episodes, it’s easy to find the volume and section for the big names. But sometimes you mention an idea associated with a less well known  thinker and don’t have time to mention their dates. I know it’s easy to look them up re. the podcast index. But (as a geezer) I sometimes find it easier (and faster) to grab one of the books and skim there for a little more on that idea. No worries if that seems unreasonable; just wanted to float the idea…

Thought you might enjoy this, from Mad Magazine, late 60’s

Stuck with me all these years..

Peter,

Good evening - long time listener to your series here, and have enjoyed it immensely. I tend to drop in on specific episodes, and often revisit those that delve specifically into areas of interest of mine. There is of course so much to consume. I certainly applaud the time, and detail that you take to this process. 

 

My question concerns the meeting point of Jurisprudence and theology with that of philosophy proper, specifically within the Arabic and Islamic traditions. I should mention that I am a student in history more so than philosophy - but the two topics have many fascinating points of overlap. In any case, I have long been fascinated by the divergent ways in which the major figures of Christian theological history have been treated philosophically - be it Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas, Scotus and so forth - as opposed to those within the Islamic sphere. For instance, within the Islamic intellectual sphere Abu Hanifa, Malik ibn Anas, Al-Shari’s, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal assume a position of greater reverence over most anyone, the prophet aside. Yet scant mention is made of any of these figures within most overviews of Islamic philosophy. Later predominant theologians, such as Al-Ghazali, Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi and others to warrant more consideration. I suppose I am this curious as to whether these four Imams, and originators of jurisprudence in Islam, indeed have any connection to philosophy, or whether their efforts were somewhat aside. I have tried, without success, to determine for instance, was Malik ibn Ana’s familiar with Aristotle - or centuries later did Al-Farabi or Ibn Sina draw any knowledge forth from Al-Shari’i. I have also attempted to discern whether later Latin theologians, specifically those operating within such matters as law - such as Aquinas - were familiar with any of these early Muslim jurists. Would be very curious as to any thoughts you may have.

One additional thought - I have wondered why the jurisprudence transition within Islam is so much greater than that of Christianity. As well as why theology seems to be less of a focus by Muslim’s during the medieval period than Christians. At some point I came across the perspective that Islam was itself such a comprehensive, complete faith - one that through the Qur’an already attempted to address most every concern of life - and those that were missed, the Hadith would take up the task. Whereas, even from the outset, Christianity had a more perhaps patchy, approach to things. Thus, within Islam theologians who carry the proverbial water of explaining entire concepts within the faith were less necessary - but what was needed were interpreters of law. Whereas in Christianity, a less thorough screed opened the door for Augustine, Aquinas and many others to have greater say and influence on the direction of the religion. I have come around to that perhaps too-simplistic interpretation but again would love for someone of your knowledge to weigh in on its veracity.

thank you

Hi there! I recently discovered your podcast on Spotify and I love it! I'm only up to Episode #38 so far, but it's been really fascinating and I'm so glad to see you're still doing it. Thank you for all the philosophy!

Hey Peter. I have recently found out myself about a group called the Brixton Black Women's Group, and they seem really fascinating, being that some of the founding members were previously active in the British Black Panthers. After reading a pdf of one of their works, I really want to learn some more about them. Do you plan to cover them? I'm guessing that if you are, it would be just a mention in the Black Feminism episode though.

Hi Peter,

Thank you so much for this podcast! I have enjoyed it immensely so far! I joined relatively recently and am not yet up-to-date but I have just reached the end of your coverage of the Italian Renaissance (Episode 370). Where I’m up to you’ve been discussing Galileo and I’m wondering if there will be any coverage of the developments in music and aesthetics soon. Particularly I think Gioseffo Zarlino’s first book of Le institutioni (recently translated by Lucille Corwin) might be of interest as he explicitly uses ideas of form and matter in his conception of music. Zarlino was involved in the church and worked at st marks in Venice. He also studied philosophy and logic under Ligname as well as Greek and son Hebrew. He is a fascinating figure in the history of music and a wonderful blend of music theory and philosophy. His work was based upon antique readings as well as the humanist writings of H Glareanus. Also he was an influential teacher and Vincenzo Galilei was a student of his, who also made important contributions. Anyway, I’m getting a little carried away but I just wanted to put a good word in for some excellent musical philosophers and philosophers who wrote of music (Descartes comes to mind). Alright, thank you so much for the wonderful work you are doing!

Sincerely,

Kai

I've immensely enjoyed your podcast and just received Classical Philosophy.  Thank you sincerely for your work and attention to detail.  Your clever presentation makes me wish I could actually meet your sister.  I'm sure she'd have tales to tell. 

Hi Peter, just wondering, is Franz Xaver missing from the timeline?

I noticed the focus early on for ethics was built around ethics as the study of the best way to live one's life.  But now, the general case is taken to be what is acceptable in society.  When and why did this transition take place?  

+JMJ

Greetings --  Have been enjoying the podcast immensely and learning a lot.  I especially enjoy the puns and wordplay!  I just delved into this website today -- have been aware of it but not really looked into it.  Is there a Search capability?  That would be very helpful.  

Thanks for all the outstanding work.

Best wishes.

Peter, 

Enormously educational and entertaining series - have enjoyed every episode and have almost caught up to the current releases. I have also been using the ebook versions for the full text search and hyperlinked index features. Here, there seems to be a “gap” - the Kindle version of volume 2 is not available, will it be released at some point?

Hey Peter,

I was wondering how far you are going to take your expansive view on philosophy, especially as you get to modern times? So far, most of what you done hasn't attracted controversy as far as I know, outside of maybe the eastern traditions in the islamic world with the whole Persian thing with the Iranian revolution maybe. But I was thinking, if you are going to tackle Marx eventually, what to say for an episode on Lenin or Mao? For Mao, he would be important for Alain Badiou, and there were philosophers in the soviet union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_in_the_Soviet_Union). How willing would you be to tackle these, despite the definite controversy they would attract? Or what about Nazi philosophers? I am mainly thinking of Carl Schmitt, but there are probably other examples. I am sure there is something to find in Gaddafi as well.



I am putting this more so as a interest in how far the boundries for "without any gaps" is going to go, but also there is (potentially perverse, depending on your perspective) curiosity of you actually covering these people, despite the controvery. I feel the need to say this before I get weird eyes from people.

Hi Peter, just a random thing that popped in my head.



You should find ways to take advantage of the fact that this is a audio medium. You have to some level, like the music video in the islamic world, and that random law and order clip I can't remember which episode it is from, but it has been extraneous to the philosophy so far. To be fair, I don't really know how you could for some of the philosophy you are currently doing but one example in my head would be when explaining the Phenomenological tradition (if you ever get there). I think leverging the medium can help get across (especially Phenomenology) the philosophy in a way that the philosophy isn't usually presented, since most philosophy people encounter is via books.



Just a random thought.

Thanks for this ambitious podcast series.  I just noticed that the Reformation series is skipped in the "All Episodes" tab.  You may want to add it!

A suggestion for your Links page: 81 lecture series  - A History of Philosophy - Prof Arthur Holmes  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yat0ZKduW18&list=PL9GwT4_YRZdBf9nIUHs0z…

Just interested when episodes on Frantz Fanon will appear, and if you will be covering Angela Davis and Kimberlé Crenshaw. 

What happened to Episodes 392 to 395?

My recollection is that 1 of the Islamic philosophers  Believes that God-created the universe  And it and everything it can continues to exist simply because God continues to will it.  Should GodCease to willSomething or someone's existenceIt would cease to exist instantly.

 I thought it was  Al razi But I  Re listened to that episode and I see that he was the one who believed in the 5 Eternal substances...

No is a great answer but do you happen to recall Who might have Held that unique theory I would love to be reminded.

I am hoping that you will spend some time on Spinoza soon.

Professor Adamson -- Great job on the podcasts.  I'm working my way through them (mostly by subject matter, not in chronological order) with enthusiasm.

At the appropriate place in your historical timeline, I hope you do one or more podcasts on Friederich Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and the other early German originators of hermeneutics.  In particular, it would be of great interest to hear the historical reasons why rhetoric (but not the theory of interpretation, hermeneutics) assumed a dominant place in the trivium and why the theory of interpretation did not gain footing as a separate discipline until Schleiermacher (or maybe Herder).  My guess is that this is in some large measure a function of Aristotle's treatment of interpretation (in On Interpretation) as a matter of the logical form and the logical relations of individual propositions, as contrasted to his far broader characterization of rhetoric as applying to complete texts (speeches, written works, etc.).  It's only a guess, and I would welcome your informed views on this.  (Apologies if you have covered this turf already, as I've said, I've not heard all of the podcasts.)

Best regards,

Jim Scheuermann   

I've been reading the first book and I'm so happy to finally have a comprehensive guide of philosohpy through history.



Already bought the whole series but kind of bummed out that all of them except the second are available for Kindle. What's up with that?

To notice Valentin Weigel and not Jacob Boehme (d. 1624) is fairly disorderly. In fact, to notice any part of idealism without a competent conspectus of JB is like discussing the world without the Triune God who, as Hegel said, is the only thing worth thinking about.

Hi Peter,

I’m exploring the wonderful world of Ancient Greece and your podcast is one branch that is helping put the puzzle together.  I’m neither a scholar or philosopher but listening to the first few episodes I have a question eating away at me and hopefully it isn’t to stupid. You speak of Thales as the first philosopher.  If philosophy is understanding the world around us or at least it seemed that way back then before becoming so complex. Wouldn’t the people or person who created the original Greek Gods be considered the first philosopher(s)?  Each deity had purpose and explained happenings in the world around them.  Also, the ancient Greeks worshipped the Iliad almost as a holy text, who’s to say their wasn’t an old Bard or wise man wandering around making sense of the world and sharing tales of how they believed things worked to the point where it went from story to religion.

Dear Peter,

I remember listening to an episode where one of the Neoplatonists was mentioning how we are always connected to “the source” even though it appears we are not (I am muddling the terms for sure). Then another neoplatonist disagreed, saying that if this were true there would be no point in doing philosophy.

I’ve listened back through many episodes but haven’t yet tracked down that moment. Do you by any chance happen to remember which thinker thought we were perhaps always in a state of henosis or something similar?

thanks,

adam

I want to congratulate you on an absolutely great series, Peter. It made me look forward to my long commute twice a week.

I just got through the Islamic part, so I'm *way* behind, but I guess that's ok; I'll catch up eventually. :-)

There is some truth to your claim that to a large extent the History of Philosophy *is* Philosophy.

However, there is a slight but important difference: i.e. the main purpose of the entire enterprise.

Maybe it's because I'm a practical engineer; maybe it's because my parents suffered through WWII as teenagers and spent the rest of their lives wondering, "Why did this happen?"

I don't know for sure about WWII (there are lots of good answers to my parent's question), but I am pretty certain that ideas have consequences.

So it was with great interest that I listened to your broadcast on Ibn Khaldun and his theories about the rise and fall of civilizations. He had some great ideas, especially in terms of using empirical evidence to prove his theories, though I think that Islamic fatalism may have tripped him up a bit. As a Catholic Transhumanist, I ask: Why can't the cycle be broken?

The thing is, people are pretty much the same everywhere. Granted, a harsh environment will generate a harsh religion (e.g. Norse and Islam), but incorrect ideas can also lead to fatal behaviors (for the latter, I'm thinking of the Azteks in particular).

My point is this: What is the essence and purpose of philosophy?

It is not to record who came up with which interesting idea, and who was able to criticize that idea in new and different ways.  Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Nothing more, nothing less.

Knowing who came up with some idea, and interplay of different aspects of that idea, and what the context all this played out in--i.e. what you talk about a lot in your podcasts is useful because it helps us keep track of the ideas themselves. And now that we know whose idea it was, we know how to look it up. So it's ok.

I just wish (now that it's too late) that you would have put a wee bit more emphasis on the ideas themselves, and a little less on the people.

Oh well, maybe next time around.

OTOH, you have *great* puns! I hope you keep them!

Sincerely.

Tihamer T. Toth-Fejel

where and when are the Hugonaughts from what happened to them. why don't they  exist anymore at  some point you should probably do a wrap-up episode the quickly talks about  the dead forms of Protestantism 

David graebers book dawn of everything makes interesting argument that the criticism of european philosophy on the part of north american indigenous thinkers was an impetus for enlightenment philosophy in europe

Hi,

I discovered this podcast series recently (July of this year) and I enjoy it very much. Very clear presentation and easy for me to understand. 

I'm an engineer (at least in my heart), I'm 53 years old, lost my religion (Catholic) about 10 years ago (thanks to Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris) and started to wonder more deeply about what we are doing on this planet. If someone told me that I would be interested in philosophy 30yrs ago, I would laugh. I feel that I missed so much in the meantime but at the same time I'm very excited to discover that this huge void in me that I wasn't ever aware existed, can be filled to a great satisfaction with philosophy, amongst other branches of knowledge. 

I listened to every of your episodes since July, but my goal is to also start from the beginning and eventually catch up completely  in a year of so.  

I also started to read the Bertrand Russell's book 'History of Western Philosophy' a few years ago but that stalled due to my time constraints. I will return to it, after I finish your podcast :). 

Please make a podcast of the history of western modern philosophy, from Descartes, Hume, Kant to modern philosophers such as Ayer, Wittgenstein and Nietzsche ... even up to more recent philosophers in the 80s and 90s.

I guess that might also be called contemporary philosophy.

please add a 2x audio option as I can't even listen to your podcast on your website on account of how slow you talk

I have been listening to your wonderful podcast on my daily walks. Walking and philosophy are natural companions. I was a philosophy major in my undergraduate days (the late 70s), and back then, I got the history of philosophy with the near two millennium gap. So nice to fill it in! Besides your lucid expositions, Peter, I appreciate the disinguished guests you bring on board to go deeper with selected philosophers. Also love the humor, and references to giraffes and Buster Keaton. Keep up the great work!!

Hi there,

Just started listening to your show and I've been enjoying it a great deal. Your comment on Anaximander's notion reminded me of Adriana Cavarero's work in For More than One Voice, where she links these notions to a translation of ancient Hebrew theology that describes the breath of God as what creates the world instead of the word of God.

Thanks for your work,

Zen

Sir,

     Been listening to your podcast during my daily lunch walks for several weeks now & am truly enjoying it.  The length of the episodes is perfect for an hour long walk away from my desk.  The questions raised & the answers provided are enlightening for someone whose education & profession is as a software engineer.

     I never realized that philosophers & engineers are similar in that they both use systematic processes to work towards an answer, i.e. asking/answering a series of simpler questions until a more complex idea is developed.  A difference being that as an engineer I do in the end need to provide a distinct final answer as opposed to providing material for yet another question.

     I do somewhat feel like I’m missing a lot of the concepts simply because there is just so much information, though I know some of it is sticking because I find myself going over some of the ideas in my head on my drive home in the evenings.

     Keep up the good work.  I’m currently at episode 140 & am looking forward to the rest of the series. 

Jeff J. Edelbrock

p.s. in the past 57 years, I have not heard the word giraffe or the name Buster Keaton as many times as I have in the past several weeks.

Peter, I salute your undertaking of this ambitious project. I am approaching the end of what you now have on offer.

The content has been interesting on the whole.  I would like to take exception with two points where I find the

presentations fall short. 

 

The interviews with colleagues are most often too long and more lecture than discussion.

Your intro and closing “ music “  is cringe worthy for most of the segments. An exception, the Islamic World.

More melodious music would improve the enjoyment. 

 

Again, thank you for this educational, ambitious and entertaining work.

Carl

Hi Peter. I just listened to your Erasmus–Luther episode. You did a good job treating it from a philosophical background, but I thought you might be interested to have a theological perspective. Luther’s point in talking about the bondage of the will is that we can choose whatever we want, but that every choice will be “turned inward”, that is, selfish and proud. Thus, there is no chance that we would ever, as you put it, choose the things that really matter, but the perspective is different: everything, big and small, has been infected by sin, and thus all decisions are sinful, or, to use the language of the Erasmus–Luther debate, “bound”. What God’s grace does is allow us to recover what we lost in the Garden of Eden: to love God and neighbor. Kind regards.

I was having a discussion with one of my friends on if the 4 classical virtues (temperance, courage, piety, and justice) are held as such now-a-days.  During said discussion, I tried to play around with the definitions a little bit as we may hold the same virtues in other terms, or hold similar virtues still.  While I was doing this i noticed that they could be set up in an interesting pair of parallels.

Temperance is resisting pleasures that are bad for us

Courage is enduring pains that are good for us

Piety (or Reverence is the term i had switched it to at the time) is respect for that which is greater than us

Justice is respect for that which is lesser than us (the idea being that it is of greatest concern when one side has the power to enforce an unfair situation).

While these parallels line up nicely, I doubt they came up at the time, but I was wondering if there is prior president for some of these, or the relations between temperance/courage or piety/justice

I randomly came across your podcasts on the history of philosophy a few hours ago, and am now deep into episode 7. Thank you for sharing such a wonderful wealth of knowledge!

Hi Peter,

a couple of times we got very close to the topic of perennial philosophy (Pico, Ficino, Nasr, ...) but I am not sure (although I am a long time listener and have listened to all episodes so far), did you cover it separately somewhere in any of the episodes?

thanks!

This podcast seems like exactly what I needed to build an understanding of philosophy, starting from the very base.

However, I was wondering, do you maintain the Spotify version or is it unofficial? It would be much more convenient for me (and probably for other people who don't use Apple software as well) to listen to that. But there is no mention of it on this website, which is a reason why I hesitate to use it.

I'm guessing that Jan Hus and the Hussite's aren't getting an episode? I can't recall if you mentioned them when you did an episode on Wycliff or not.

Peter:

I've been listening to this podcast on Spotify for some months - I'm up to HoP 067. It is one of the best podcasts I've followed in the last 10 years. Brilliant!

I have been listening to your podcast on Indian philosophy lately. While overall it’s a nice effort, one can’t help but sense a constant undertone of a subtle bias and mockery against the Indian thinkers in your voice. Your efforts to play them down are a put off from time to time.

Hi Peter,

among the 20th century topics, are you planing to consider NOI / MalcolmX and figures like Fanon in the Africana series?

Greetings once again. I believe it was in episode 373 where you briefly alluded to Aristotle’s definition of a “demonstration” in his Posterior Analytics. If I understood you correctly, you said that Aristotle says that it is different that a dialectical argument, but actually just a really good one, so good that it couldn’t be questioned. Is that correct? If so, then my question is: what is the relationship between a demonstration and poetry, that is, poetry as understood by Plato in his “ancient quarrel” between poetry and philosophy. In other words, if philosophers used dialectical arguments, then does this imply a relationship between poets and demonstration? Thanks in advance.

I’ve finished the series up to present but I went back to episode 42 because there’s a point Sorabji makes that really bugs me and I wondering if I’ve missed something about the argument. 

Sorabji says that a golden mountain won’t exist at any point in infinite time even though it’s conceptually and physically possible, and adds it’s like how that monkey’s typing randomly over infinite time won’t produce the works of Shakespear. 

But he seems wrong on both points. On the monkeys, the probablity of typing shakespear is simply (1/(27*numbers of letters in shakespear)) ie greater than zero, for 26 letters and a space bar (assuming the probability of striking each key is the same but unless they always skip a key the probability still won’t be zero). Given an infinite number of key strokes then the probability of occurence is 1. I’m extremely confused why he says otherwise, but he says it with such confidence.

That’s fine but the mountain example might say something more interesting about Aristotle. The conceptually and physically possible mountain implies that there is a finite probability of stocastic geological processes accumlating gold in one spot and eroding it, etc, and so again the probability is definently 1 if you integrate over infinite time - if geological processes are stocastic. But I might be missing an aristotlean point here instead of a statistical one. A counter example, Aristotle doesn’t seem to think that all forms of animal that are conceptually and physically possible will come into being based on what is said in the episode, but based on other episodes I assume that’s because animal forms are teleologically, not stocastically, determined. But still Aristotle talks about mountains deforming around eruptions, etc, so the particular form of the Earth doesn’t seem to a strict teleologically determined thing. I don’t see any reason the gold mountain won’t appear in infinite time - but I’de love to know if I’m missing something. I presume has Sorabji thought abot this more than me.

I am a big fan of your podcast! Just a quick question...I am a public school teacher of World History at an IB (International Baccalaureate) school. Part of the school's diploma program is a course called Theory of Knowledge in which students must examine how they know what they know (examining both different types of knowers and different ways of knowing, and solving knowledge problems).

Ok...the question...are there any thoughts about developing lesson plans for teachers around the podcasts, especially for a course like my World History and/or the Theory of Knowledge course?

Just a thought! 

So I noticed there are now roughly as much podcast material as there is classroom hours spent by people who have a minor in philosophy.  So I was just curious, given that you also teach, how do you think the two compare?  (obviously, being history of pre-modern philosophy, the scope will be different at the very least, but it still might be interesting to hear if the range of issues discussed is comparable as well)

Regarding Classical Chinese Philosophy/Indian series, I have some question.

1. Where do you and Karyn Lai both intend to stop with the series? is it with the introduction of Buddhism in China? is it before the arrival of the Tang Dyansty?

2. is Karyn Lai willing to work on after Classical Chinese given her expertise seems to be classical Chinese? where as Jonardon Ganeri is well versed in later Indian works well after Dignaga given his research and has released more Scholarly works for example.

3. If Karyn Lai won't be doing after Classical Chinese, has there been any other collaborator that at this moment of time you're aware of that might be willing to do work after Classical Chinese that will tackle the  Neo-Confucianism period/Modern Era, Islam in China and the influence of Chinese philosophy and Buddhism in Korea and Japan 

4. Given the extensive Materials of Japan and Korea, one would assume they would be separate series as opposed to being lumped with Medieval/Modern Chinese Philosophy ?

5. Have you thought about tackling Tibetan tradition? they have a rich history of Buddhism and have enough material. Also continues the tradition of Buddhism that would eventually die out from India. 

6. Regarding Post Dignaga India, I believe it would best for you and Ganeri (if he is willing to) tackle this tradition once you have concluded Classical Chinese Philosophy. Having listened to episode 61 on Later Indian Philosophy, there is that sense of cliffhanger looming about lol. Given that you and Chike are wrapping up the entirety of Africana philosophy in the next 2 or so years it would be a shame if Indian philosophy did not get that sense of closure. Post Dignaga India is extremely under-appreciated and unknown to many people. 

The European development of modern computing is well-established, but would you cover the African genealogy of modern computing, as presented by Ron Eglash in the latter part of his "The fractals at the heart of African designs" TED talk (although the entire presentation may be of pertinence)? Surely its implications would significantly locate the role of Africa and expand deliberations in issues of epistemology, science and technology, philosophy of science, and African philosophy itself. In other words, filling in a gap.

Eglash traces the roots of modern computing from binary geomantic algorithms from sub-Saharan African into Andalusia, eventually passing through Leibniz, Boole and von Neumann. The particular binary nature facilitating emergence of computational calculus is stressed because eight-factored geomancy predominated in other areas of the world.

Hello Peter,

I am a recent fan of the monumental work you have undertaken. I'm listening to every episode sequentially--without any gaps--and I'm up to #81 now. In an episode before #81 (which I can't locate now) you mentioned a greek term that translates as "repairing/healing myths" and I was wondering if you could remind me what the term is and whether there is any academic work on it. My spouse is a scholar of postcolonial literature, and many of the authors she is studying are doing something similar in their work: repurposing indigenous mythology in a postcolonial context.

With thanks,

Graham

P.S. I, myself, am a specialist in classical Chinese literature, and I was also wondering if you have any plans to venture into East Asian philosophy with the podcast--not that you need more on your plate!

Hi Peter,

I would like to ask you how you go about researching, scripting, and recording the episodes on a given week. In the Q&A episode, you said that you don't like thinking about how much time you spend writing the podcast. I'm hoping that it was mostly a funny way of saying that it really does take quite some time, and you won't find my question too annoying. 

My question is not how long you take to write an episode but rather, how you go about it on a given week, and how do you make time for this project while also having to make time for research, teaching, being a parent, husband, and football fan? I truly appreciate that you also seem to manage to make time to read and thoughtfully react to the comments posted here on this website.

I'm especially curious when it comes to making episodes about philosophers like Saint Augustin whose work seems so extensive and the subjects touched in these texts are (at least for me) not the easiest to grasp, much less summarize into something approaching a coherent and entertaining narrative. This conceptual difficulty seems only to be compounded with the need to familiarize one's self with the cultural, religious, historical, and (obviously) philosophical environment in which a particular work, idea, or author developed as well as being familiar with the language and the specific meanings of terms in relation to a specific author, time and place.*

Your output sometimes makes me think that "speed reading" is actually a thing and not the hoax I always thought it was. Is there's something magical about Ph.D.'s that makes your reading comprehension beyond that of us mere mortals? Then again, you did say that it took you one summer to try and figure out what Kant was saying in the critique of pure reason, so how do you manage? Is it rather that you just constantly read (I remember that in a previous episode you said that you got yourself into trouble by trying to read while doing something else like walking)? Or is there something else that can explain it, barring fictitious basement-dwelling sisters?  

I'm asking this a person who struggles with time management and procrastination (I'm procrastinating right now by writing this question), and who is very slow at reading and writing. I would like to know just what is it that makes it possible for you to release something which I consider of such high quality in terms of content and entertainment so consistently. How does your week look like regarding the process of making an episode and how does it fit in relation to the rest of your responsibilities?

How do you go about collecting and structuring the information that goes into creating something coherent and engaging and not getting lost in the weeds while keeping this deadline? Do you start from an outline, a central idea, clever title, or do you write the silent movie star jokes first and make the philosophical ideas fit around them? Does it change and depend on the particular philosopher or episode? Is it even a weekly process or do you write the scripts at one stretch of time and record them later?

More particularly, what are the specific ways in which you go about making an episode? Do you write it down by hand or type them out on a computer? How many revisions do you make? Do you read it out loud to see how it sounds before recording? When do you consider an episode finished? Is there a particular day of the week when you read the sources, another when you write, and another when you record? And how do you choose what to read? Is there a time of day allotted to this task?

If you already answered this in some blog post or comment, please feel free to redirect me to it.

As always, thank you for your podcast,

Jorge.

* The initial reason I fell through the rabbit hole that is listening to your podcast was to get a bit of historical background about the idea of substance after multiple failed attempts to read Spinoza's Ethics. As you might expect, this greatly backfired since I found myself sidetracked by getting interested in philosophers I didn't even know existed before!

Hello. First of all, I love your site and your podcasts so much. Thank you so much for your efforts. My question is why there is no Omar Khayyam in the Islamic World's phiolosophers He is one of the most important one. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Omar_Khayyam . I know the site owner already have education about Islamic World philosophers so this why I a little puzzled.

Best regards

I have listened to many episodes and love your podcast, I really can't wait to hear the episodes on Kant and Hume. I felt like I knew a great deal about Plato and Aristotle and your podcast simply added so much context and did a great job weaving together their ideas throughout from piece to piece. My undergrad experience with philosophy was wonderfully focused on two or three pieces but the way you have these philosophical ideas evolve or expand from piece to piece does such a better job exploiting all there is understand about simply "one idea". I think I will experience something similar when you get to Kant and Hume. I am very much looking forward to it and appreciate the books you've released as well, they have made my academic endeavors so much more fulfilling. Thank you.

This may be petty but it's annoying me. In the top left corner, the mic is off centre from its "swing" or whatever you would call it.

Your website does not scroll correctly.

DKG

Will your 2019 OUP book on Medieval Philosophy become available in paperback and if so, when?

Keep up the great work! Doug Shenson 

Greetings again. Still enjoying your podcast. Quick question. As you know, Greek and Indian religion/philosophy shifted from sacrifice, ritual, external, etc., to philosophy, internal, etc., and both did so about the same time (c. 8th–6th cent. BC, correct?). What are the best works that address the reasons for this shift, perhaps comparing and contrasting them? Thanks in advance.

About 3 months ago, I searched "philosophy" on Spotify in hopes of finding some drab lecture to listen to while painting. 237ish episodes later, I find myself mixing paint just to let it dry out while listening to episode after episode. If you did the math, the answer is, no, I don't have a life. Anyway, I just wanted to reach out to say Danke! Ich habe keine beine! My German is a little dishonest.. I love your podcast, especially the puns, my world is so much bigger thanks to you! Sorry, this would be easier to read if you had made a grammar podcast instead..

Thank you, thank you, thank you Peter Adamson, I will always cherish our time together (even though you are more like your sister in this scenario)

Victoria

One last thing.. your voice has joined my inner dialogue and holy guacamole do I sound smart in here now!

Hello again, Dr. Adamson.

You may remember that a little under a year ago, I made a comment asking about the possibility of revising your policy on transcripts. For reference, it was on July 31st of 2020. I'd link it, but whenever I go to the link that says it is to that comment, it simply takes me to the final page of the comments--very peculiar behavior!

Anyway, I wanted to update you on that with the intention of hopefully persuading you to change your policies in a way that my peers and I would be very grateful for--you did change it somewhat, saying that I could let my disabled peers know that you would be willing to give them transcripts if they contacted you directly via email. Unfortunately, invariably, this has caused a reaction of frustration, anger, and disappointment. I'd like to try and explain this as diplomatically as I can, at which point you're free to make whatever decision you feel is best.

The problem that has been made clear is that the solution that has been described, insofar as I and they have understood it, is overburdening for someone who fairly constantly has to deal with several extra barriers for access across many different domains. In other words, the solution that's been described is to email you for any scripts of interest. So for me, a hearing person, if I want to go through your podcast episode by episode, I need only click on the episodes I want, and then click on the next episode I want, etc. For them, they must type up a message for the transcript of each episode. As well, I don't think this was clear, but I believe you were implying that they could only do this until the book was released, in which case they'd have to pay for the books where a hearing person would not need to to listen to these episodes. Having these extra barriers to accessibility also has other invisible effects too--sometimes, because certain things are required to include you in some group event, the group must either exclude you or simply not do the event. Someone might silently think "Oh, we should do a group listen to Peter's series! Oh, but so-and-so is hard of hearing, and so I'd have to email for transcripts for each episode--eh, forget it."

When you multiply this across a wide variety of domains in their lives, this burden becomes quite unreasonable and unmanageable, and then of course there are domains of interest that are simply wholly inaccessible.

I confess that I have my own disabilities--I have a nose that doesn't work, which causes my central sleep apnea, which throughout most of my life (unbeknownst to me until recently) caused severe depression among other problems. And this has led to a similar sort of pervasive burdening that I have to deal with, but I won't claim to understand the experiences of people with completely different disabilities than I do. But I can at least back up what they say about disabilities causing this exhausting ubiquitous overburdening effect.

I hope this won't offend you or decrease the likelihood of persuading you, but I do feel some obligation to include this to make sure the voices of my disabled peers are heard even if the consequences aren't optimific. So I'd like to include that at least part of the frustration that invariably came from my peers was your explanation that the reason you didn't want to put the transcripts up was because you felt they were a bit too messy and embarrassing to put in public.

Anyway, I hope none of this came off in any way as coercive or anything like that, and more importantly that I've done my best to represent my peers and make sure their feelings on the matter were heard. Thank you for your previous offer. All the same I hope you'd consider publishing the transcripts somewhere without the need to contact you for particular transcripts of interest, and I know a lot of people would be very, very grateful if you did.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Hi Peter,

I was reading E. Pagels' 'The Gnostic Gospels'. There she writes that Clement of Alexandria has mentioned the names of some women philosophers in his works. Like Theano of Crotone, Arignote the Pythagorean, Themisto the Epicurean and apparently two women who studied with Plato and one trained by Socrates.

I was wondering whether any evidences can be found of their philosophical activities?

Hello professor, i hope you had a wonderful holiday and a happy new year.

There is a question that has stirred up in my rational soul and has caused some debate among me and my friend. It concerns the nature of teleology and its relation to logic.

What is teleology? Ie purpose, final cause, whatever one might call it. Is it an aspect or logic or is it more like aesthetics or even ethics? Or all of those things?

The most interesting implication here for me is whether teleological arguments can be properly called logical arguments. If so, the implication would bridge the gap between prescriptive and descriptive and overcome the fact/value distinction?

Surely i cannot be the first to ponder this issue. Can you recommend works and thinkers who have dealt with this issue? It feels like something that ought to be relevant to religious thinkes, a field of philosophy i have so far not explored. I know the logical positivists dealt with this issue from their view but to me it seems more like they were starting from the presumption of a distinction rather than going back to the beginning.

The closest i have come is perhaps Aristotle who in many places seems to imply that Final Cause and Formal Cause is identical, i.e a things purpose its defined by its essence. A man ought to philosophize because man is a rational animal. What we call analytical knowledge is thus inherently prescriptive. But does he ever prove or justify this assumption?

Plato also certainly must have thought the two were connected, because The Good is both the supremely Good and the Real, the Truth which is desired for its own sake, source of both Truth and Desire.

Best regards.