And the Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, online

at W.W.

History of Philosophy. net.

Welcome to the first episode.

Everything is full of gods.

In which I'll introduce the podcast and tell you about the first Greek philosopher Thales.

In this series of podcasts I'll be telling the whole history of philosophy without any gaps.

In time I hope we'll cover pretty much every figure in ancient medieval and modern philosophy.

Not only the greats like Permanides, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant, but also philosophers who may not be as famous, but who had their own part to play in the history of philosophy.

Later on in this episode, I'll be turning to Thales of Malititis. He may not be a household name, but he was the very first ancient Greek philosopher.

And in addition to being first, he had some rather attractive ideas, for instance that magnets have souls.

But we philosophers like to define our terms before we begin, so let me start by explaining

what I mean when I say telling the whole history of philosophy.

Let's start with the word whole.

The episodes to come deal with philosophy in the classical Greek world, beginning with the pre-Zacratics and then moving on,

naturally enough to Socrates, then Plato and Aristotle. But the series has a far wider scope than that.

The ambition is really to tackle the whole history of philosophy. That includes not just philosophy in Europe, but also

philosophy in the Islamic world, a subject dear to my own heart, since it is one of my main areas of research in my day job as a philosophy professor.

All European philosophy reacts, however indirectly to the philosophy of the Greeks, and that is true of philosophy

in the Islamic world, too.

But there are cultures where philosophy has risen independently of any Hellenic heritage, notably India, China, and Africa, all of which I hope to cover in due course.

To take account of those traditions and releasing episodes on a separate feed. To find it, just search for the podcast series on the history of philosophy in India.

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