
History of Philosophy Audio Archive
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.
Latest episodes

Nov 15, 2024 • 1h 12min
#137 - Censorship: Ada Palmer on the Spanish Inquisition, Galileo and Descartes, the Renaissance Book Economy, Government Surveillance, and Self-Censorship
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https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon
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Original Video:
https://youtu.be/uMMJb3AxA0s
Original Channel (UChicago Divinity School)
https://www.youtube.com/@uchicagodivinityschool2166

Nov 14, 2024 • 8h 46min
#135b - The Work of John Milton (Part II): John Rogers on Miltonic Power, Satan's Rebellion, Areopagitica, the Blind Prophet, and Justifying the Ways of God to Man
Continuation of 135a

Nov 14, 2024 • 1h 14min
#136 - Carl Jung's Approach to Therapy: Lionel Corbett on Depth Psychology, Mythic Imagery, The Treatment of Psychosis, and the Roots of Magical and Archetypal Thinking
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https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon
“The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.”
-C. G. Jung, Man and His Symbols, 1964
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Original YouTube
https://youtu.be/8Ojpm6G3PYw
Original Channel (The International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis):
https://www.youtube.com/@isps_us
Lionel Corbett
https://www.pacifica.edu/faculty/lionel-corbett/

Nov 14, 2024 • 10h 41min
#135a - The Work of John Milton: Yale's John Rogers on Miltonic Power, Satan's Rebellion, Areopagitica, the Blind Prophet, and Justifying the Ways of God to Man
(00:00:00): Intro
(00:00:52): Milton and Power
(00:45:31): The Infant Cry of God
(01:33:38): Credible Employment
(02:24:03): Poetry and Virginity
(03:15:35): Poetry and Marriage
(04:02:57): Lycidas
(04:55:10): Lycidas Part II
(05:48:09): Areopagitica
(06:35:08): Paradise Lost Book I
(07:26:50): God and Mammon
(08:17:49): Miltonic Smile
(09:03:49): The Blind Prophet
(09:51:35): Paradise Lost Book III
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A study of Milton's poetry, with some attention to his literary sources, his contemporaries, his controversial prose, and his decisive influence on the course of English poetry.
Description courtesy of Yale University, presented Fall 2007, uploaded November 2008. I opted to split this otherwise 19 hour episode into two parts so Spotify can handle it. See 135b.
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Original YouTube Playlist (Milton with John Rogers):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2103FD9F9D0615B7
Original Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@YaleCourses
John Rogers, Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University, retired.
https://english.yale.edu/people/professors-emeritus/john-rogers

Nov 11, 2024 • 1h 54min
#134 - The Forgotten People of History: Roy Casagranda on Racism and Sexism in Western Historiography
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https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon
Talk Originally Titled “Deconstructing Racism and Sexism in the Envisagement of Western Civilization”
The use of the phrase “all men are created equal” was probably not a deliberate attempt to make a statement about women. It was just that women were beyond consideration as worthy of inclusion. They were politically invisible. Though practical needs gave women a certain authority in the home, on the farm, or in occupations like midwifery, they were simply overlooked in any consideration of political rights, any notions of civic equality.-Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, 1980https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_State-//-
Original YouTube:
https://youtu.be/lk4ncpkstAw
Original Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheAustinSchool

Nov 9, 2024 • 2h 49min
#133 - The Philosophy of John Dewey: Progressive Education, Occupational Psychosis, American Pragmatism, and Process Philosophy
Come join my Patreon!
https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon
“On the other hand, if an experience arouses curiosity, strengthens initiative, and sets up desires and purposes that are sufficiently intense to carry a person over dead places in the future, continuity works in a very different way. Every experience is a moving force.”
-John Dewey, Experience and Education, 1938
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_psychosis

Nov 8, 2024 • 48min
#132 - American "Patriots": Michael Parenti on American Exceptionalism, The Jingoist Desire to be Best and First, Opposing Fascism, and What Real Love of Country Looks Like
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https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon
“All conservative ideologies justify existing inequities as the natural order of things, inevitable outcomes of human nature. If the very rich are naturally so much more capable than the rest of us, why must they be provided with so many artificial privileges under the law, so many bailouts, subsidies and other special considerations - at our expense? Their "naturally superior talents" include unprincipled and illegal subterfuge such as price-fixing, stock manipulation, insider training, fraud, tax evasion, the legal enforcement of unfair competition, ecological spoliation, harmful products and unsafe work conditions. One might expect naturally superior people not to act in such rapacious and venal ways. Differences in talent and capacity as might exist between individuals do not excuse the crimes and injustices that are endemic to the corporate business system.”
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds, 1997
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Original YouTube (1988)
https://youtu.be/4vKfejeruhk
Original Channel (AfroMarxist)
https://www.youtube.com/@AfroMarxist

Nov 8, 2024 • 5min
The Great Dictator: Charlie Chaplin in 1940

Nov 2, 2024 • 1h 54min
Hemlock #7 - Zen as a Way of Life: My Interview with Zen Teacher Astika Royal Mason on Meditative Practice, Inner Silence, and Telling Stories about Spiritual Growth
“The Great Way is not difficult, for those who have no preferences"
-Xinxin Ming, Tang Dynasty Chan Buddhist Poem
Check out Astika's Website:
https://www.consciousness-light.com/
Check out Astika's Book:
https://a.co/d/7jXvINK
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinxin_Ming
https://zenmoments.org/hsin-hsin-ming-the-great-way

Nov 2, 2024 • 1h 2min
#131 - Philosophy in Our Age of Imperial Decline: Cornel West on Blues and Jazz, Radical Democracy, and the Consequences of Imperial Hubris
Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon
“The [music of the] Blues is relevant today because when we look down through the corridors of time, the black American interpretation of tragicomic hope in the face of dehumanizing hate and oppression will be seen as the only kind of hope that has any kind of maturity in a world of overwhelming barbarity and bestiality. That barbarity is found not just in the form of terrorism but in the form of the emptiness of our lives - in terms of the wasted human potential that we see around the world. In this sense, the blues is a great democratic contribution of black people to world history.” -Cornel West, Democracy Matters, 2004
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Original YouTube:
https://youtu.be/k5ydesBadno
Published March 2022 by The New School:
https://www.youtube.com/@thenewschool
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