• HoP 468 Perchance to Dream: Descartes’ Skeptical Method
    Apr 27 2025

    How Descartes fashioned a “method” to repel even the strongest and most radical forms of doubt, with the cogito argument as its foundation.

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    29 mins
  • HoP 467 Written in Mathematics: Descartes’ Physics
    Apr 13 2025

    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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    28 mins
  • HoP 466 Well Hidden: Descartes’ Life and Works
    Mar 30 2025

    How René Descartes’ understanding of his own intellectual project evolved across his lifetime.

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    20 mins
  • HoP 465 Modern Times: France and the Netherlands in the 17th Century
    Mar 16 2025

    A look at the political and religious ferment that made up the historical context of philosophy in 17th century France and the Netherlands.

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    27 mins
  • HoP 464 Howard Hotson on the Republic of Letters
    Mar 2 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.

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    42 mins
  • HoP 463 Doctors without Borders: the Republic of Letters
    Feb 16 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.

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    24 mins
  • HoP 462 Freedom to Philosophize: Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy
    Feb 2 2025

    What is Enlightenment, anyway?

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    37 mins
  • HoP 461 - Eileen Reeves on Galileo and the Telescope
    Jan 19 2025

    We finish our look at philosophy in the Reformation era with an interview about Galileo's use of a revolutionary technology: the telescope.

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    43 mins