HoP 298 - Renaissance Men - Ramon Llull ...

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. 

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. 

Descartes’ “provisional” morality and his views on free will and virtue. 

A conversation with Ada Palmer (University of Chicago) about the invention of the idea of the Italian Renaissance and the functions that it serves in the western historical imagination. "Byzantium" is a similarly invented category that often works in tandem with "the Renaissance" ... Show More

The European Renaissance provided a transition to the early modern era by looking back to the culture of classical Greece and Rome. It led to a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Latin and a new world view known as humanism. But scholars in England doubted the ability of Engli ... Show More

The simplicity of life back then is appealing today, as long as you don’t mind Church hegemony, the occasional plague, trial by gossip — and the lack of ibuprofen. (Part two of a three-part series, “Cradle to Grave.”) SOURCES:Jordan Cavalier, performer at the New Jersey Renaissan ... Show More

This episode provides a brief sketch of the history of the Greeks. We start with a short discussion on the Minoans and the Mycenaean invasion. We talk about the emergence of a common culture within Homer’s epic of the Iliad and Odyssey while noting that “Greek” was a single, unif ... Show More

“Our Western heritage is reason—reason, analysis, action, progress!” –Settembrini the organ-grinder in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. HIST 271/HUMS 339: European Intellectual History since Nietzsche is a survey course designed to introduce students to the dominant trends in mo ... Show More

Early Modern Italy birthed artistic giants like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, saw architectural marvels like Florence's dome and St. Peter's Basilica, and pushed scientific frontiers in astronomy. This same vibrant era was also home to Bologna's uniquely regulated sex work ... Show More

What does eternal recurrence mean in the historical sense? Nietzsche invites us to explore that question in his raising of the Problem of Science, and the notion of conflict as central to life. Today, in the penultimate episode of the season, we'll take a look into a section from ... Show More

The Friedrich Nietzsche Classics Podcast presents a powerful collection of his works, exploring his revolutionary ideas on free will, ethics, and human potential.