

History of Philosophy Audio Archive
William Engels
Curated lectures, interviews, and talks with philosophers, social scientists, and historians together in one place. Each week, we explore brand new research in history, economics, psychology, political science, philosophy, indigenous studies, and human rights while presenting the work of canonical scholars in a way that is accessible to newcomers while retaining interest for students and specialists. If you are an author in nonfiction or a scholar in the humanities/social sciences and are interested in being interviewed for the show please email me at williamengels@substack.com or @Bluesky.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 25, 2025 • 5h 15min
A Skeleton Key to James Joyce: Mythologist Joseph Campbell on Irish Literature and Joyce's Novels: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake (HoPAA #175)
Support the perpetuity and integrity of this work for just $5 per month, or hang out in the Patreon for free.Originally published as "On Wings of Art" (1984)."In this six-part series, renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell introduces and explores the unifying themes and mythological symbolism in James Joyce's three greatest literary works--A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegan's Wake--arguing that these three major works were the precursors to a fourth, even greater novel that Joyce never got to write."From A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916):He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!He halted suddenly and heard his heart in the silence. How far had he walked? What hour was it?There was no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane. He turned landward and ran towards the shore and, running up the sloping beach, reckless of the sharp shingle, found a sandy nook amid a ring of tufted sandknolls and lay down there that the peace and silence of the evening might still the riot of his blood.He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies: and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him, had taken him to her breast.He closed his eyes in the languor of sleep. His eyelids trembled as if they felt the vast cyclic movement of the earth and her watchers, trembled as if they felt the strange light of some new world. His soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings. A world, a glimmer or a flower? Glimmering and trembling, trembling and unfolding, a breaking light, an opening flower, it spread in endless succession to itself, breaking in full crimson and unfolding and fading to palest rose, leaf by leaf and wave of light by wave of light, flooding all the heavens with its soft flushes, every flush deeper than other.----------------------Please consider donating to support humanitarian relief and lifesaving medical care in Gaza. The links below are verified and reputable charities and individuals who are desperate for medical care, asylum, shelter, and safety in Palestine.Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:Amjad Hamad and his FamilyRulin and FamilySammar and her HusbandMSF (Doctors Without Borders)Palestinian Youth Movement

Oct 21, 2025 • 5h 58min
Dante's Divine Comedy: Professor Hubert Dreyfus on the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, Beatrice, Vergil, and the Beatific Vision (HoPAA #173e)
The ultimate theological journey through the midlife crisis, presented by existentialist philosopher Bert Dreyfus in 2006 at UC Berkeley. (REPUPLOAD)Please consider donating to support humanitarian relief and lifesaving medical care in Gaza. The links below are verified and reputable charities and individuals who are desperate for medical care, asylum, shelter, and safety in Palestine.Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:Amjad Hamad and his FamilyRulin and FamilySammar and her HusbandMSF (Doctors Without Borders)Palestinian Youth MovementRead more about Bert Dreyfus

Oct 21, 2025 • 58min
The Practical Value of Philosophy: Will Engels Interviewed by Roubin Thind on Education, Spirituality, Guerilla Media, US-China Relations, Blue Collar Intellectuals, the Origins of HoPAA (Hemlock #34)
Support the show on Patreon!A nice change of pace for me as I am put on the hot-seat and forced to properly explain myself for once. Interview by Roubin Thind, a social media manager and podcast connoisseur, running down topics ranging from diplomacy to education and back.

Oct 20, 2025 • 2h 27min
The Gospel According to John: Hubert Dreyfus on the Logos, the Trinity, and the Ontological Transformations of Christianity (HoPAA #172d)
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.John 1:5, King James VersionThis is Part Four of a multipart series on the Great Books of the Western Tradition by Berkeley Professor of Philosophy Bert Dreyfus, which you can begin here.The source material is found here on Internet Archive.Who is God? What does it mean to be anointed (chrīstós, in Koine Greek), emptied of self (kénōsis), or resurrected? What is the world, seen through the eyes of love? How does philosophy encounter Christianity? In this two-lecture episode, Dreyfus takes these concepts apart and analyzes them in the terms of Heidegger, literary theory, and the hermeneutic approaches of different Continental thinkers.Please consider donating to support humanitarian relief and lifesaving medical care in Gaza. The links below are verified and reputable charities and individuals who are desperate for medical care, asylum, shelter, and safety in Palestine.Fundraisers, Palestine Support, and Good Programs:Amjad Hamad and his FamilyRulin and FamilySammar and her HusbandMSF (Doctors Without Borders)Palestinian Youth Movement

Oct 14, 2025 • 1h 26min
Magnolia (1999): A Love Letter - Paul Thomas Anderson's Greatest Film, Fate, Freemasons, Intergenerational Trauma, Pick Up Artists, Aimee Mann, and Why It's Not Going to Stop (Til' You Wise Up) BRM6b
Paul Thomas Anderson made this when he was 28. So did Richard and Will.A celebration of the greatest movie of our greatest living director. Hats off to you, man.advisory: child abuse, self-harm, suicide.“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”―HafezMusic Credits:Violin version of Habañera by Katy AdelsonAria version of Habañera by Deutsch Opera BerlinTom Cruise Leaked Scientology Interview

Oct 12, 2025 • 1h 27min
Hemlock #32: Machines of Loving Grace - Palantir, Alex Karp, Alchemy and Science, Brute Force Mimetic Objects, Atomic Poetry, the Automation of Violence, and the Endless Empire of Perpetual Advantage
Everything becomes its opposite. cw: animal harm, general doom.If this work is important to you, consider supporting my financial and creative independence on Patreon, for only $5 per month."All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" (1967) by Richard BrautiganI like to think (andthe sooner the better!)of a cybernetic meadowwhere mammals and computerslive together in mutuallyprogramming harmonylike pure watertouching clear sky. I like to think(right now, please!)of a cybernetic forestfilled with pines and electronicswhere deer stroll peacefullypast computersas if they were flowerswith spinning blossoms. I like to think(it has to be!)of a cybernetic ecologywhere we are free of our laborsand joined back to nature,returned to our mammalbrothers and sisters,and all watched overby machines of loving grace.Poem: Batter my heart, three-person'd God by John DonneCredits:Richard Brautigan Reading "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace"Palantir CEO Alex Karp Speaking in February 2025 in New York (End of Episode)Rachmaninoff, Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 in C-sharp Minor performed by Mr. Forte (Creative Commons)George Kennan, Memo PPS23, February 24th 1948. Declassified in June 1974.Books:The Assassination Complex by Jeremy Scahill and the Staff of The InterceptThe Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

Oct 11, 2025 • 20min
#174 - Dealing with Hungry Ghosts: Thích Nhất Hạnh on Healing Intergenerational Trauma, Realizing Emptiness, Self-Compassion, and Living as a Transmission from Ancestors
Times are tough for everyone, but if you can spare $5 per month to support the History of Philosophy, my political writing, open source audiobooks, and simple intellectual entertainment, please consider joining my Patreon and helping me escape my day job.YouTube original video credit (Plum Village). Apparently first delivered in the "late 1980s".Read more about Thích Nhất Hạnh here.Music Credit: Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major, performed by Max John.

Oct 11, 2025 • 59min
#173 - The Myths of Capital: Michael Parenti on Rags to Riches Fables, Pacifying Propaganda, Wealth Pyramids and Perpetual Scarcity, Corporate Power, and the Socialist Response to the Ruling Ideology
The great Michael Parenti returns to HoPAA to enlighten us about capitalism's leading myths and legends. As the man says, 'brothers and sisters, WE own the airwaves'.Times are tough for everyone, but if you can pitch in $5 per month to support this project - a humanity and humanities-focused ad and spook-free education platform since 2023 - it would mean the world to me over on Patreon.This talk was uploaded in 2013, but the date of the lecture itself is unknown.Music Credit: Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major, performed by Max John.Summary (Bot Generated):This podcast episode, featuring political scientist Michael Parenti, offers a critical deconstruction of the self-legitimating myths propagated by "the one percent" and giant corporate capitalism. The central thesis is that no ruling class rules nakedly, and the powerful actively take "strenuous efforts to justify their rule" through themes like the rags-to-riches mythology, fair play, and equal opportunity. The discussion focuses on two core capitalist myths: that the system creates general material prosperity and that it bolsters democracy. Parenti challenges the prosperity myth by citing "consumer realities" such as the corporate-driven replacement of public rail transit with polluting auto systems and the industrialization of food supplies. He concludes that the history of capitalism is one of great wealth and great poverty, which exist in a "dynamic interrelationship," with the wealth of the few resting on the poverty of the masses.Michael John Parenti (born September 30, 1933) is an American political scientist, academic historian, and cultural critic who writes on a wide range of scholarly and popular subjects. Known as a leading intellectual of the American Left, he has taught at numerous universities and is the author of over twenty books, including Democracy for the Few and Blackshirts and Reds. You can find more information about him on his Wikipedia page or his official website: The Michael Parenti Political Archive.Keywords: Corporate Capitalism, Ruling Class, The One Percent, Myths, Prosperity, Democracy, Wealth Inequality, Poverty, Horatio Alger, Transnational Corporations, Public Transit, Pollution, General Motors, Tobacco Industry, Nicotine, Perjury, Corporate Crime, Consumer Realities, Third World.This text was generated from a transcript by Gemini.

Oct 6, 2025 • 2h 49min
BRM7: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - W. B. Yeats, Aleister Crowley, H. P. Blavatsky, Samuel Mathers, Victorian Magick, Theosophy, Kabbalah, Séances, and the Great Occult Poetry Larp
Keep this work free for everyone and unlock my entire corpus for $5 per month on Patreon!Samuel Mathers is Bane, not Wolverine.People Mentioned:Samuel Liddell MacGregor MathersH. P. BlavatskyWilliam Wynn WestcottAleister CrowleyJohn DeeEdward KellyA. E. WaiteErich Fromm and Wilhelm ReichReferences:Douglas Haig, the Battle of the Somme, and Séances"On 20th September 1906, Haig attended a séance with his sister Henrietta where he sought advice as to whether the expansion of the Territorial Army would be more satisfactory on a company or battalions basis. He was advised by the spiritualist a Miss McCreadie to adopt the former rather than the latter. Apparently, when Ms McCreadie gave this advice she was under the control of a native girl called ‘Sunshine’, who had Napoleon by her side. Haig must have found this circumstance most reassuring."Kant's Hilariously Stupid Anthropology of BlacknessCrowley Getting Kicked Down the Stairs by W. B. YeatsVictorian Mummy PowderMahayana BuddhismLawrence v. Texas (2003) Last Repeal of Anti-Sodomy Law in AmericaThe "Lost" Language of Senzar (Blavatsky)Master Hilarion (Also Blavatsky)Nazis Using Pendulums to (Not) Find British ShipsOut of their depth. By 1942, British Navy vessels had begun to shift the tide in the Atlantic battlefront, sinking more German U-boats than Hitler’s army could Allied submarines. Scientific progress proved a major factor in Allied dominance, with the development of Radar and Sonar technology significantly upping the odds of locating German vessels in deep water. But Germany Navy officials had a different strategy in mind: U-boat captain Hans Roeder convinced colleagues in arms the British were using pendulums to predict their boats’ location underwater. As an amateur pendulum dowser himself, the enterprising captain established the Pendulum Institute to pinpoint British ships, enlisting pendulum dowsers and occultists from across the country and tasking them with applying their clairvoyant powers to search for British vessels. Results were, unsurprisingly, not altogether successful.Books Mentioned:Perdurabo by Richard KaczynskiThe Mystical Qabalah by Dion FortuneThe Key to Theosophy by H. P. BlavatskyJohn Dee and the Empire of Angels by Jason LouvThe Golden Dawn by Israel RegardieA New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry By A. E. WaiteEscape From Freedom by Erich FrommThe Mass Psychology of Fascism by Wilhelm ReichThe Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with a Commentary by Sri Swami SatchidanadaAleister Crowley:Liber 777Eight Lectures on YogaKonx Om Pax - Light in Extension

Oct 5, 2025 • 2h 46min
#172c - Vergil and the Roman Tradition: Bert Dreyfus' Complete Course on the Aeneid, Augustus Caesar, Roman Propaganda, The Fall of Troy, Dido and Carthage, the Rise of Empire, and Latin Poetic Myth
The gates of hell are open night and day;Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:But to return, and view the cheerful skies,In this the task and mighty labor lies.-Vergil, AeneidYou can support the continuation of this effort, and get unlimited access to my entire body of work for$5 per month on Patreon.My favorite translation of the Aeneid is the Modern Library edition by Shadi Bartsch, which is richly introduced and essayed/footnoted, although the Fitzgerald and Dryden translations are also classic for their poetry.Read more about the late, great Hubert "Bert" Dreyfus here.Music Credit: (Intro and Outro): Max John, Schubert, Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat Major, Creative Commons (YouTube). Interlude is Peter Bradley-Fulgoni, from Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 4, Movement 2 (IMSLP).This series will have X parts:The Odyssey and the Archaic Greece (Done)Aeschylus and Greek Tragedy (Done)Aeneas and the Roman Tradition (This)Catholic Christianity: The Gospel of John, Dante's Comedy (Upcoming)Protestantism: Pascal's Pensées and Moby Dick (Upcoming)Stay tuned...


