Best of us all the best he Philosophy Podcast, brought to you with the support of the philosophy department at King's College London and the

LMU in Munich online at history of philosophy.net. Today's episode, Platonic Love,

Gimistos Platon. In the popular imagination, the middle ages were a time of unremitting repression.

The threat of persecution and book burnings ensured that intellectuals would stay well within the bounds of accepted

orthodoxy, which is why medieval philosophers were rather uncreative and tradition-bound in comparison

to the innovative thinkers of the Enlightenment.

Like most cliches, this one is basically wrong, though it contains a grain of truth.

It is least applicable to the Islamic world, where political persecution of philosophy was almost unheard of, in part because there was no obvious institutional framework for enforcing religious orthodoxy.

Things were rather different in the Latin West, where we do see reprimand or imprisonment of philosophers,

including Peter Abilard and Roger Bacon.

Worse was the fate of Marguerite Poretz, who not only saw her writings destroyed, but was ultimately executed for heresy.

But, for the most part, philosophers were not punished for heresy,

for the excellent reason that they were not heretics.

Another popular conception has it that any philosopher worthy of the name

should challenge the beliefs of their society, but in fact the vast majority of philosophers in the

Middle Ages and still today argue in support of widely held beliefs,

seeking to clarify and explore the consequences of commonly accepted doctrines

rather than trying to undermine them.

All this applies to Byzantium too.

As we've seen, there was plenty of creative and sophisticated philosophical reflection

that stayed well within the bounds of religious acceptability,

which is exactly what we should expect.

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