Matter
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In this episode Peter discusses the Atomists Democritus and Leucippus, and how they were responding to the ideas of Parmenides and his followers.
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Peter discusses Anaxagoras, focusing on his theory of universal mixture ("everything is in everything") and the role played by mind in Anaxagoras' cosmos.
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Peter discusses the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles and his principles: Love, Strife, and the four “roots,” or elements.
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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 begins to examine the philosophy of Epicurus, focusing on his empiricist theory of knowledge and his atomic physics.
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Lucretius’ poem On the Nature of Things sets Epicureanism into verse. Peter takes a look at its treatment of the soul, free will and the swerve and human society.
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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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Jan Opsomer helps Peter to understand principles, Plato interpretation, and Plutarch in a wide-ranging discussion of Middle Platonism.
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Plotinus struggles to explain the presence of suffering, evil and ugliness in a world caused by purely good principles – and tells us what role we should play in that world.
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A first look at the philosophical contributions of Islamic theology (kalām) and its political context, focusing on the Mu'tazilites Abū l-Hudhayl and al-Naẓẓām.
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The doctor and philosopher Abū Bakr al-Rāzī sets out a daring philosophical theory involving five eternal principles: God, soul, matter, time and place.
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Neoplatonism returns in Ibn Gabirol (known in Latin as Avicebron), who controversially holds that everything apart from God has both matter and form.
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Scotus explains how things can share a nature in common while being unique individuals.
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The Vaiśeṣika response to Buddhist skepticism about wholes made up of parts.
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Pāyasi and the Cārvāka anticipate modern-day theories of mind by arguing that there is no independent soul; rather thought emerges from the body.
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Ockham, Buridan, Oresme and Francis of Marchia explore cosmology, atomism, and the impetus involved in motion.
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Bob Pasnau joins Peter to discuss ideas about substance from Aquinas down to the time of Locke, Leibniz and Descartes.
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The trial of John Italos and other signs of Byzantine disquiet with the pagan philosophical tradition.
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Mathematics and the sciences in Byzantium, focusing on scholars of the Palaiologan period like Blemmydes and Metochites.
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An interview with Helen Hattab on the scope and impact of scholastic philosophy among Protestants.
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Paracelsus adapts the tradition of alchemical science for use in medicine, and in the process overturns the scientific theories of Aristotle and Galen.
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Schegk, Taurellus, Gorlaeus, and Sennert revive atomism to explain chemical reactions, the composition of bodies, and the generation of organisms.
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Challenges to Galenic medical orthodoxy from natural philosophy: Jean Fernel with his idea of the human’s “total substance,” and the Paracelsans.
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How scientists of the Elizabethan age anticipated the discoveries and methods of the Enlightenment (without necessarily publishing them).
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An expert on Renaissance alchemy tells us how this art related to philosophy at the time... and how she has tried to reproduce its results!
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How René Descartes’ understanding of his own intellectual project evolved across his lifetime.
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For Descartes body is purely geometrical. So how does he understand features we can perceive, like color, and causation between bodies?
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The word “Cartesian” is synonymous with a radical contrast between mind and body. What led Descartes to his dualism, and how can he explain vital activities in humans and animals having rejected the Aristotelian theory of soul?
