Peter Adamson

Day 5 of #WomenWhoRethoughtTheWorld: philosopher and historian Anna Julia Cooper!

Cooper rethought 19th century ideas of progress to define race and foreground women. To quote bell hooks: “one of the first black activists to urge black women to articulate their own experiences.”

#blackhistory

Ha thanks! I was actually more proud of the title for the episode on the Counter-Reformation: "Don't Give Up Pope"

We warmly welcome Theodore R. Brennan @cornelluniversity.bsky.social as #CASFellow. As a specialist in ancient Greek philosophy, he will collaborate with Peter Adamson @histphilosophy.bsky.social. www.cas.lmu.de/de/personen-...

A student asked me resources to work on a comparison between virtue ethics in Aristotle and in Sanskrit philosophy. Now, let's bracket the problems of comparison in general.
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#Philosophy #philsky #SanskritPhilosophy

LMU Munich's Professor of Late Ancient and Arabic Philosophy, Peter Adamson (@histphilosophy.bsky.social), will give a number of talks in California in March & early April. More info here: www.historyofphilosophy.net/going-to-cal... #philosophy

The Eloquent Peasant & Egyptian Justice The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant is a literary work from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (2040-1782 BCE) which illustrates the value society placed on the concept of justice and equality under the law...

One of the greatest exemplars #MdwNfr was devoted to #MAat (truth, balance, order, law, morality, justice, breath, life): the Sekhti-nefer-medu (#EloquentPeasant).
www.worldhistory.org/article/1127...
www.britishmuseum.org/sites/defaul...

I‘ll ask if the budget will accommodate that. Oh, and the height of the doors.

Here is the poster for my public lecture at Berkeley.

If you're in striking distance, come see me speaking at Berkeley in California in the coming weeks! Info here on the #HoPWaG blog (I will add more links as I get them):

www.historyofphilosophy.net/going-to-cal...

#berkeley #philsky #philosophy

Podcast The New Voices podcast consists of conversations about women philosophers and individuals from other groups who have been underrepresented in the history of European and Western philosophy: their...

New🎙️episode:
Julia Jorati (UMass Amherst) talks about the effects of slavery on enslaved people and the role of those effects in 18th-century antislavery arguments, drawing on voices shaped by lived experience of enslavement and racism #philsky

Listen: www.newnarrativesinphilosophy.net/podcast.html

Yes good question! I think to answer that one needs to turn to other aspects of the Zhuangzi we've discussed: the idea of learning to shift between perspectives (think about the happy fish passage). So the two paths are not just seen from the outside but fully embraced even if they seem to conflict.

Chinese landscape painting with a sage

It's #HoPWaG time again! Today we look at the theme of "wandering" in the Zhuangzi, comparing this to Thomas Nagel's idea of "philosophical absurdity."

www.historyofphilosophy.net/zhuangzi-wan...

#philsky #philosophy #podcasts #daoism #zhuangzi

Portrait of Michel de Montaigne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne#/media/File:Portrait_of_Michel_de_Montaigne,_circa_unknown.jpg

Title page from the first edition of Montaigne's Essais, 1588 Heribert Tenschert Booksellers https://www.heribert-tenschert.com/inventory-printed-books-1/montaigne-essais-first-edition-1588

"The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor causes a war betwixt princes."

A timely quotation from Michel de Montaigne, born #OnThisDay in 1533.

#philosophy #essays
#philsky #booksky

Just recorded two episodes tonight: on the French garden (scientific experiments at the Jardin du Roi and the Cartesian philosophy and political ideology shaping formal gardens like the one at Versailles) and on La Rochefoucauld and other "moralists." These will be episodes 493 and 494.

“According to Ubuntu philosophy, which has its origins in ancient Africa, a newborn baby is not a person. People are born without ‘ena’, or selfhood, and instead must acquire it through interactions and experiences over time.” aeon.co/ideas/descar... #person #identity #philsky #PhilosophySky

Last weekend I enjoyed recording two episodes for @bufordrat.bsky.social's excellent Elucidations podcast (elucidations.vercel.app). One episode was on ideas from my book, Evolution and the Machinery of Chance (press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...). #evosky, #hpbio.

Oh true, that would have been better. I take comfort in the fact that if occasionalism is true, it wasn't me who did it (or in this case, didn't do it).

THE IHISTORY OF PHILISPOHY WITHOUT ANY GAPS QR code linking to the podcast QR code linking to the kindle book series (probably Amazon UK ) Kindle book series description: Classical Philosophy is the first of a series of books in which Peter Adamson aims ultimately to present a complete history of philosophy, more thoroughly but also more enjoyably than ever before. In short, lively chapters, based on the popular History of Philosophy podcast, he offers an accessible, humorous, and detailed look at the emergence of philosophy with the Presocratics, the probing questions of Socrates, and the first full flowering of philosophy with the dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle. The story is told 'without any gaps', discussing not only such major figures but also less commonly discussed topics like the Hippocratic Corpus, the Platonic Academy, and the role of women in ancient philosophy. Within the thought of Plato and Aristotle, the reader will find in-depth introductions to major works, such as the Republic and the Nicomachean Ethics, which are treated in detail that is unusual in an introduction to ancient philosophy. Adamson looks at fascinating but less frequently read Platonic dialogues like the Charmides and Cratylus, and Aristotle's ideas in zoology and poetics. This full coverage allows him to tackle ancient discussions in all areas of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, ethics and politics. Attention is also given to the historical and literary context of classical philosophy, with exploration of how early Greek cosmology responded to the poets Homer and Hesiod, how Socrates was presented by the comic playwright Aristophanes and the historian Xenophon, and how events in Greek history may have influenced Plato's thought. This is a new kind of history which will bring philosophy to life for all readers, including those coming to the subject for the first time.

Here's a couple of QR codes I created for fans of the podcast/book series.

I thought it might seem a bit weird if I asked young female students to give me their phone numbers so I could share philosophy with them. Instead, they can just take a picture of these QR codes.

For example, it formed the basis of the logic curriculum in University of Glasgow when Francis Hutcheson was a student there, albeit "amended by the writings of John Locke and Jean Leclerc".

www.irishphilosophy.com/2016/08/08/h...

Painting of the Port Royal Monastery

On today's new episode we tackle the Port-Royal Logic, the most influential philosophy textbook of early modern Europe, which combines ideas from Descartes with scholasticism:

www.historyofphilosophy.net/port-royal-l...

#logic #podcast #philsky #philosophy #podcast #earlymodern #hopwag

New open access translation of Porphyry, "Letter to Anebo" and "On Oracles":

cswr.hds.harvard.edu/4t/porphyry-...

"Agentic Advances and Annoying Slop: What’s Next for Generative AI?", article by Karen Emslie, and for which I was one of the people interviewed:
cacm.acm.org/news/agentic... #aiethics

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

Well, not *brown* horse.

Oxford University Press is currently offering a 30% discount on my anthology (and the other titles in the excellent Oxford New Histories of Philosophy series)! Quite a good deal. Just use the discount code AUFLY30 when ordering through the OUP website. #philsky #academicsky

No I don't think so: his general tone is witty but clear-eyed and sincere analysis of the faults of human nature, either because he was an outright cynic or because he was trying to show the need for divine grace, depending which interpreter you ask. (I think it's the latter, personally.)

Just reading La Rochefoucauld‘s Maxims for the podcast, which is full of gems, like this one:

“We all have enough strength to bear the troubles of other people.“

We have some reading suggestions here:

www.historyofphilosophy.net/rastafari-re...