Eternity of the Universe
Posted on 23 April 2011
Peter looks at Plato's Timaeus, focusing on the divine craftsman or demiurge, the receptacle, and the geometrical atomism of Plato's elemental theory.
15 comments
Posted on 16 September 2012
Proclus’ system, presented in original works and in commentaries on Plato and Euclid, integrates Neoplatonic philosophy with pagan religious belief and practice.
13 comments
Posted on 14 October 2012
John Philoponus refutes Aristotle’s and Proclus’ arguments for the eternity of the universe, and develops new ideas in physics.
14 comments
Posted on 21 October 2012
Sir Richard Sorabji, founder of the Ancient Commentators Project, joins Peter to discuss the history of ancient commentary on Aristotle.
1 comments
Posted on 7 April 2013
Al-Kindī uses Hellenic materials to discuss the eternity of the world, divine attributes, and the nature of the soul.
18 comments
Posted on 21 April 2013
Saadia Gaon draws on philosophy and Islamic theology to provide a rational account of Jewish belief.
10 comments
Posted on 4 August 2013
Avicenna’s proof of the Necessary Existent is ingenious and influential; but does it amount to a proof of God’s existence?
56 comments
Posted on 6 October 2013
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.
9 comments
Posted on 2 February 2014
Peter tests different approaches to interpreting Maimonides, focusing on his discussion of the eternity of the world, which tries to settle the debate by declaring a draw.
15 comments
Posted on 24 August 2014
Kātib Çelebi defends cigarettes and coffee and Khojozāda wins a prize for evaluating the Incoherence of the Philosophers, along with several other philosophical and religious debates in the Ottoman empire.
12 comments
Posted on 24 April 2016
Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the so-called “Latin Averroists” take up the question of whether the universe has always existed, and settle once and for all which comes first, the chicken or the egg.
12 comments
Posted on 25 March 2018
The Renaissance ideals of humanism and universal science flourish already in the medieval period, in the works of Petrarch and Ramon Llull.
5 comments
Posted on 7 October 2018
The trial of John Italos and other signs of Byzantine disquiet with the pagan philosophical tradition.
4 comments
Posted on 14 March 2021
Giordano Bruno’s stunning vision of an infinite universe with infinite worlds, and his own untimely end.
6 comments
Posted on 16 January 2011
Peter discusses the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles and his principles: Love, Strife, and the four “roots,” or elements.
14 comments