The Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the support of the philosophy department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich,

online at www. History of Philosophy.net.

Today's episode, Time of the Signs, the 14th Century.

If asked to name my favorite century, I would probably go with the 20th, which gave us Buster Keaton, Stevie

Wonder, and Reese's peanut butter cups.

Beat that 21st century.

Most other historians of philosophy, being more serious-minded, would probably choose either the 4th century

BC, the time of Plato and Aristotle, or the 17th century AD, which can boast Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Margaret Cavendish, to name just a few.

Actually, as far as philosophy goes, that's probably just the right answer.

Officinators of medieval thought might, however, be tempted to go for the 13th century when you

had the rise of the universities, the recovery of Aristotle, Alpert the Great Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Skotus. It's a real embarrassment of riches. In comparison,

the 14th century looks to be a plain old embarrassment. A popular book about the history of the period labels it as calamitous, and here's a two-word

phrase that will probably tempt you to agree immediately, Black Death.

On the philosophical front, it's one of those eras people tend to skip, going straight from

high scholasticism to the Renaissance and Reformation, or indeed vaulting all the way to the aforementioned glories of the Enlightenment.

But this is a big mistake.

For one thing, you can't understand the philosophical developments of the Renaissance and

reformation without knowing what happened in the 14th century.

Of course you'd expect me to say this, without any gaps and all that, but it's particularly true in this case.

The word Renaissance suggests a break with what came before, but in fact scholastic philosophy

continued to flourish in the 15th and 16th centuries when we see the emergence of factions or schools following the lead of Skoda's

Occam and others.

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