441. Lambs to the Slaughter: Debating the New World
Bartholomé De las Casas argues against opponents, like Sepúlveda, who believed that Europeans had a legal and moral right to rule over and exploit the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Themes:
• N. Griffin (trans.), Bartolomé de las Casas: A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Penguin: 1992).
• D.M. Lantingua and L.A. Clayton (trans.), Bartolomé de las Casas and the Defense of Amerindian rights : a Brief History with Documents (Tuscaloosa: 2020).
• G. Sanderlin, Bartolomé de las Casas: A Selection of His Writings (New York: 1971).
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• E. Andujar, “Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda: Moral Theology versus Political Philosophy,” in K. White (ed.), Hispanic Philosophy in the Age of Discovery (Washington DC: 1997), 69-87.
• M. Beuchot, Los fundamentos de los derechos humanos en Bartolomé de las Casas (Barcelona: 1994).
• D.R. Brunstetter, “Sepúlveda, Las Casas, and the Other: Exploring the Tension between Moral Universalism and Alterity,” Review of Politics 72 (2010), 409-35.
• D. Castro, Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Durham NC: 2007).
• L.A. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Conquest of the Americas (Chichester: 2011).
• L.A. Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas: a Biography (Cambridge: 2012).
• S. Davis, “Humanist Ethics and Political Justice: Soto, Sepúlveda, and the ‘Affair of the Indies’,” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 19 (1999), 193-212.
• J. Friede and B. Keen (eds), Bartolomé de las Casas in History: Toward an Understanding of the Man and His Work (DeKalb: 1971).
• A. Gerbi, The Dispute of the New World: The History of a Polemic, 1750-1900 (Pittsburgh: 1973).
L. Hanke, Bartolomé de las Casas: an Interpretation of his Life and Writings (The Hague: 1951).
• L. Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians: a Study of Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Bloomington: 1959).
• L. Hanke, All Mankind Is One: a Study of the Disputation Between Bartolomé De Las Casas and Juan Ginés De Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians (De Kalb: 1994).
• G. L. Huxley, “Aristotle, Las Casas and the American Indians,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 80 (1980), 57-68.
• D.T. Orique and R. Roldán-Figueroa (eds), Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P.: History, Philosophy, and Theology in the Age of European Expansion (Brill: 2018).
• A. Pagden, “The ‘School of Salamanca’ and the ‘Affair of the Indies’,” History of Universities 1 (1981), 71-112.
• A. Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: the American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge: 1982).
• K.J. Pennington, Jr., “Bartolome de Las Casas and the Tradition of Medieval Law,” Church History 39 (1970), 149-61.
• S. Poole, Bartolomé de las Casas: In Defense of the Indians (DeKalb: 1974).
• T. Todorov, The Conquest of America: the Question of the Other, trans. R. Howard (New York: 1984)
• X. Tubau, “Canon Law in Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s Democrates Secundus,” Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 73 (2011), 265-77.
• D. von Vacano, “Las Casas and the Birth of Race,” History of Political Thought 33 (2012), 401-26.
Online bibliography on the encounter with the Americas: www.lascasas.org
Comments
Italy + Iberian +Russian philosophy 17th/18th century
Professor have you thought about covering Italy alongside Iberian Peninsular philosophers in a combined short series for the 17th/18th century alongside Russian Philosophy?
I believe having these 3 combined in 1 book is more ideal, as Italian/Iberian philosophy makes thematic sense to be combined with France (Catholic heritage) and Low Countries (Holland fighting wars of independence from Spanish Habsburgs) but the content might get too bloated, as Iberian + Italian might take around the same size as your coverage of Byzantine philosophy and having that size alongside covering Spinoza/Grotius/Descartes/Cartesians/Bayle/Montesquieu/Rousseau, Christiaan Huygens (scientific revolution) will be fine in a podcast format but when you are putting them in to a OUP volume might get bloated (and you might have to split that book in half).
Russian Philosophy (Orthodox Heritage) initially you wanted to incorporate that with German Philosophy (17th/18th) but wouldn't it better to mix Russian Philosophy alongside Iberian + Italian (Catholic heritage) as I don't see Russian Philosophy taking up much content in this period and you can have a short volume of these 3 geographical regions in 1 book.
So your 17th/18th century coverage will look like...
1. France + Low Countries
2. Britain, Ireland and Early US
3. German Philosophy (+ Central Europe)
4. Iberian + Italian + Russian Philosophy (short work)
In reply to Italy + Iberian +Russian philosophy 17th/18th century by dukeofethereal
Fourth volume
Hm, that's interesting. No I hadn't thought about that. Iberia & Italy certainly makes sense. Wouldn't Russia feel like a bit of an interloper there though? Not so much in the podcast, where a shorter series would be fine, I am more worried about the book series. But it is definitely worth considering, thanks!
In reply to Fourth volume by Peter Adamson
Russia as an interloper
On a second though, thematically Russia would make more sense to be combined with German philosophy given many German intellectuals would be invited by the Russian Tsar in the 18th/19th century and the influence of Leibniz, Kant, Schelling and Hegel on Russian philosophy/culture.
If you don't want to consider making a 4th series, just combine Iberian/Italy with France/Low Countries. I sent you a list of philosophers of 17th-18th century Italian Philosophers some time ago on this website.
In reply to Russia as an interloper by dukeofethereal
Russia
Yes that was my thought too about going well with Germany. And yes thanks, I still have your list!
Pre-Columbian American Philosophy
Hi Peter,
Have you considered covering Mesoamerican, or pre-columbian American philosophy in general? From what I can gather, it's a pretty rich subject. Why, the Aztec even had their own bonafide, philosopher king in Nezahualcoyotl!
Thanks
Rick
In reply to Pre-Columbian American Philosophy by Rick
Pre-Columbian
More than just considered, actually. This is the leading candidate for what I will do after classical China for non-European philosophy, along with Native American and Latin American philosophy, in a series/book called "Philosophy in the Americas." I'm toying with the idea of not having a co-author (but getting lots of advice) since it would be such a varied range of topics; and also I may change schedule and do 3 early modern European episodes for every 1 "Americas" episode. That's my current most likely plan but we'll see, China will run a couple of years still so it's a ways off.
In reply to Pre-Columbian by Peter Adamson
Philosophy in the Americas schedule
Dear Professor Adamson, concerning your idea to change the schedule and do 3 early modern European episodes for every 1 "Americas" episode: Wouldn’t this mean that the “Americas” series would take a very long time? If you do one episode per month, you’ll release only 11 episodes per year (with the summer hiatus). So, if you’d do 77 episodes (including interviews) the series would last 7 years. And 77 episodes seem few to me, especially as you’ll be also covering the 19th and 20th centuries, where there are lots and lots of material (cf. the Africana series for the 20th century which was way more extensive than originally thought). Probably for these centuries one could do easily 50 episodes about the intellectual history of individual countries like Mexico or Brazil alone. I fear a bit, that with this schedule, we will never reach later Indian and Chinese / East Asian philosophy, which would be a pity.
In reply to Philosophy in the Americas schedule by Bernese
Americas
Hm, that's a good point. On the other hand by the same token if I only do 24 episodes a year on European philosophy, it will take me at least nine years to do early modern philosophy i.e. 17-18th century, reckoning three series of about 75 episodes each. I will have to think about this some more.
(24 episodes by the way is every second week all year, minus the August summer break.)
Please emphasize European Philosophy
Peter,
As someone who knew nothing about philosophy (until listening to this podcast), but had a long-standing (60-year) interest in history, my strong preference is for you, Peter, to "get back to" more emphasis on European philosophy. As much as non-European philosophy is interesting to me (to one degree or another), it pales in comparison to how much I enjoy being introduced to European philosophy, as done in this podcast... Which is to set prominent, less prominent, and obscure "thinkers" in the context of history I have modest familiarity with and in the context of other, previous philosophers.
I am just much more interested in learning about Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Spinoza than people I've not (yet) heard of. I am interested in a lot of things, just some things much more than other things.
Thank you for your efforts.
Spencer
In reply to Please emphasize European Philosophy by Spencer
European vs non-European
Yes I suspect that would be the majority feeling among the listeners. I am a bit torn because on the one hand I realize that this is more interesting to more people, but on the other hand an overview to philosophy in the Americas would be more "game-changing." I mean, that doesn't really exist at all in the form I am imagining, whereas there are plenty of introductions to early modern European philosophy of varying levels of detail. Of course I hope the early modern series will still add something to what is out there but it is inevitably less innovative. Still I do still lean towards the three-and-one idea, because setting aside all these more abstract issues, it will just be a lot easier for me to write podcasts on early modern philosophy given how much helpful literature and how many translations there are. So I think this gives me a better chance to keep churning out installments once per week.
In reply to European vs non-European by Peter Adamson
a 2nd for staying the current course
Hey Peter,
Though I understand Spencer’s feeling, i. e. I’d also love to hear you weigh in, re. more time on Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz,… I feel like I can get pretty good discussions of those thinkers in some other easily accessible places, whereas you’re no gaps MO (temporally and geographically) feels unique, valuable, and hard to find anywhere else, so I’m submitting a vote for carrying on with your stated plans.
In reply to European vs non-European by Peter Adamson
Maybe we are a loud minority…
Maybe we are a loud minority, but I want to add my voice to the more "pro-americas" side, precisely because it is unknown and hard to find anywhere else. It would be an excellent way to introduce many people to the topic (like me) who know nothing about it.
In reply to Maybe we are a loud minority… by Andrew
Silent majority?
Yes it's hard to tell from comments on the site. I could ask the question on social media (FB, Twitter, Bluesky) and that might give me a better picture of how listeners feel in general. I don't need to decide for a while though since the question is how to proceed once China is done.
I have to say that I've just been working on the episode list for early modern France and Netherlands and it is threatening to get really vast, like, creeping towards 100 episodes or more just for that part of Early Modern including interviews. So that might be a reason to think I should try to get through it faster.
In reply to Silent majority? by Peter Adamson
I feel like either way one…
I feel like either way one of them is going to take forever to get through, which really sucks. Either we go with the 1 to 3 ratio and the Americas would take nearly a decade to get through, or the same but for European if we do what we are doing now.
How many episodes would you want to do for the Americas, and for how long? While both might take awhile, maybe we can find a rate that would be acceptable for both series.
In reply to I feel like either way one… by Andrew
Americas
Well I was thinking "one book's worth" so, say, 75 episodes plus or minus (not counting interviews). But as I say just doing this list on France and the Netherlands made me realize that these topics don't so easily allow themselves to be squeezed into that size. In a way the book limitation, though rather artificial, may be useful for the sake of keeping the project within somewhat reasonable dimensions.
Ultimately I guess from the point of view of many podcast listeners, the main thing is to just have an episode come out on something every week, and that at least is something I am fully committed too, at least as long as life doesn't throw a wrench into the works!
In reply to Americas by Peter Adamson
In favour of Podcast episodes not being restricted by Books
Wouldn't it be easier if you feel the episode count for a particular Geographical Early Modern Bloc will be too much for 1 book to simply split the book into 'Part I and Part II' instead? this series is a podcast after all, I feel it should not be limited because of the Book format, thus why not split France/Netherlands/Southern Europe into two books if you feel it's too much for 1 book?
Also I'm in favour of 3 weeks Western and 1 week non-Western. That way you can churn out more Western philosophy episodes and giving you more time to work on Americas/Latin America which probably does not have much secondary literature and since you're doing it solo, you'll need all the time you'll need to research and create scripts. I don't know how you plan on getting Portuguese materials since you are not that well acquainted with that language so would that not be a barrier for you when researching Brazil for example?
Seems quite daunting and challenging trying to research Colonial America and post Latin America independence philosophy as so far I'm seeing Mexican Philosophy being really explored but what about the other nations? that's for you to find out. So you'll need all the time you need to research this, that's why I'm in favour of you working on it once a month, surely listeners will be patient plus your Non-Western feed won't be on hiatus and still active.
In reply to Maybe we are a loud minority… by Andrew
A compromise?
An idea: So far the options seem to be to either continue with the weekly change between European and non-european philosophy or to switch to a 3-1 ration with three weeks European and one week Americans. So, wouldn’t it be an obvious compromise to have a 2-1-ration, two weeks about European philosophy and then one week Americas? So both series will take long, but the podcast still can reach someday both the early 19th century and Neo-Confucianism. Or is this for some reason out of question?
In reply to A compromise? by Bernese
Two and one
Um... good point. To be honest I am not sure why I didn't consider this, you are right that it's obvious! I guess because I am so used to the alternating week thing that I had a hard time moving away from multiples of two. But you are right that this would also be a good option. Thanks!
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