Overview
501 Episodes
La Rochefoucauld and other “moralists” offer a penetrating and witty critique of human pride, selfishness, and hypocrisy. Is this just cynicism, or does it support a positive ethic?
Transcribed - Published: 31 May 2026
How the French formal garden embodied both Cartesian philosophy and the political ideology of the French monarchy.
Transcribed - Published: 17 May 2026
How philosophy at the universities evolved in response to Cartesianism and the “new science.”
Transcribed - Published: 3 May 2026
Arnauld’s attack on Malebranche’s theory of the “vision in God” leads to a nuanced debate over the nature of ideas.
Transcribed - Published: 19 April 2026
What inspired the occasionalist theory embraced by the 17th century Cartesians? We find out from a leading specialist on the topic.
Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2026
What led Malebranche to his notorious view that all bodily motions and thoughts are caused by God, with created things serving only as “occasions” for divine action?
Transcribed - Published: 22 March 2026
We begin to explore Malebranche’s controversial development of Cartesian philosophy by looking at his theodicy.
Transcribed - Published: 8 March 2026
Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole update the study of logic to take account of the ideas of Descartes.
Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2026
Antoine Arnauld combines Cartesian philosophy with Jansenism, one of the most controversial religious movements of the 17th century.
Transcribed - Published: 8 February 2026
An interview on contemporary approaches to Pascal's Wager: where decision theory meets philosophy of religion.
Transcribed - Published: 25 January 2026
Should we gamble on belief in God to have a chance at infinite reward?
Transcribed - Published: 11 January 2026
Blaise Pascal was a pioneering scientist and deeply spiritual religious thinker; what united these two sides of his thought?
Transcribed - Published: 28 December 2025
Why did SĂ©bastian Basso and Pierre Gassendi think ancient atomism was the key to developing a new, modern science?
Transcribed - Published: 14 December 2025
Gassendi’s path from skepticism to “baptized Epicureanism.”
Transcribed - Published: 30 November 2025
So-called “libertines” like Mothe le Vayer revive ancient skepticism, provoking a backlash from Mersenne and Arnauld. Were they right to see the skeptics as anti-religious?
Transcribed - Published: 16 November 2025
An interview exploring Descartes' interest in medicine, how his medical ideas relate to his dualism, and his influence on medical science.
Transcribed - Published: 2 November 2025
From comets to blood transfusions, embryology, and the debate over the pineal gland: Descartes’ impact on science, especially medicine.
Transcribed - Published: 19 October 2025
Why Cartesianism appealed to women and became the inspiration for a pioneering feminist, Poullain de la Barre; and why Cartesianism was not the only option for women philosophers of the age.
Transcribed - Published: 5 October 2025
Early Cartesians including Cordemoy and de La Forge develop but also challenge Descartes’ ideas, defending atomism and occasionalism.
Transcribed - Published: 21 September 2025
We finish our look at Elisabeth of Bohemia and Descartes by talking to Ariane Schneck about their correspondence, focusing on the mind-body problem and the passions.
Transcribed - Published: 7 September 2025
What do emotions reveal about the connection between mind and body? We turn to Descartes’ correspondence with Elisabeth and his On the Passions to find out.
Transcribed - Published: 20 July 2025
A royal scholar and philosopher sets aside the tribulations of her family to debate Descartes over the relation between mind and body and the nature of happiness.
Transcribed - Published: 6 July 2025
Descartes’ “provisional” morality and his views on free will and virtue.
Transcribed - Published: 22 June 2025
Descartes’ Meditations caused controversy as soon as it appeared. In this episode we look at criticisms including the “Cartesian Circle,” and how Descartes answered them.
Transcribed - Published: 8 June 2025
We're joined in this episode by a leading expert on one of the most famous works of philosophy ever written: Descartes' Meditations.
Transcribed - Published: 25 May 2025
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?
Transcribed - Published: 11 May 2025
How Descartes fashioned a “method” to repel even the strongest and most radical forms of doubt, with the cogito argument as its foundation.
Transcribed - Published: 27 April 2025
For Descartes body is purely geometrical. So how does he understand features we can perceive, like color, and causation between bodies?
Transcribed - Published: 13 April 2025
How René Descartes’ understanding of his own intellectual project evolved across his lifetime.
Transcribed - Published: 30 March 2025
A look at the political and religious ferment that made up the historical context of philosophy in 17th century France and the Netherlands.
Transcribed - Published: 16 March 2025
In this interview we learn more about the Republic of Letters: its importance for the history of ideas, it geographic breadth, who was involved, and the contributions of figures including Leibniz and Hartlib.
Transcribed - Published: 2 March 2025
How scholars around Europe created an international network of intellectual exchange. As examples we consider the activities of Mersenne, Peiresc, Leibniz, Calvet, and Hartlib.
Transcribed - Published: 16 February 2025
What is Enlightenment, anyway?
Transcribed - Published: 2 February 2025
We finish our look at philosophy in the Reformation era with an interview about Galileo's use of a revolutionary technology: the telescope.
Transcribed - Published: 19 January 2025
The philosophical issues at the heart of the notorious condemnation of Galileo and Copernican astronomy.
Transcribed - Published: 5 January 2025
Though most famous for his role in persecuting Galileo, Robert Bellarmine was a central figure of the Counter-Reformation, especially in his political thought.
Transcribed - Published: 22 December 2024
Carlo Ginzburg’s innovative historical study The Cheese and the Worms looks at the ideas of an obscure 16th century miller, suggesting how popular culture might be integrated into the history of philosophy.
Transcribed - Published: 8 December 2024
Natural philosophy and medicine in the work of two unorthodox thinkers of the late sixteenth century, both of them women.
Transcribed - Published: 24 November 2024
Why do critics consider Don Quixote the first “modern” novel, and what does it tell us about the aesthetics of fiction?
Transcribed - Published: 10 November 2024
We're joined by Tom Pink, who tells us about Suárez on ethics, law, religion, and the state.
Transcribed - Published: 27 October 2024
Suárez and other Iberian scholastics ask where political power comes from and under what circumstances it is exercised legitimately.
Transcribed - Published: 13 October 2024
Vitoria, Molina, Suárez and others develop the idea of natural law, exploring its relevance for topics including international law, slavery, and the ethics of economic exchange.
Transcribed - Published: 29 September 2024
Did the metaphysics of Francisco Suárez mark a shift from traditional scholasticism to early modern philosophy?
Transcribed - Published: 15 September 2024
What was Luis de Molina trying to say about human free will with his doctrine of “middle knowledge,” and why did it provoke such controversy?
Transcribed - Published: 1 September 2024
To celebrate reaching 450 episodes, Peter looks at the philosophical resonance of two famous artworks from the turn of the 16th century: Dürer’s Self-Portrait and Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel.
Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2024
We learn from Anna Tropia how Jesuit philosophy of mind broke new ground in the scholastic tradition.
Transcribed - Published: 7 July 2024
The “School of Salamanca,” founded by Francisco Vitoria, and the commentators of Coimbra are at the center of a movement sometimes called the “Second Scholastic.”
Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2024
Yes, there were Spanish Protestants! Andrew (Andrés) Messmer joins us to explain how they drew on humanism and philosophy to argue for their religious agenda.
Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2024
Cajetan, Bañez and other thinkers make Aquinas a central figure of Counter-Reformation thought; we focus on their theories about analogy and the soul.
Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2024
Ignatius of Loyola’s movement begins modestly, but winds up having a global impact on education and philosophy.
Transcribed - Published: 12 May 2024
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