Ok folks, BIG NEWS, volume 4 of the podcast books is now out, this one on Medieval Philosophy. And you don't have to wait long for volume 5 on Indian Philosophy, we already are correcting the page proofs...

"The Dissenter" is a series of videos on philosophical topics by Ricardo Lopes. In this new episode I discuss the origins of philosophy with him, in case anyone needs something to tide them over while the podcast is on summer break!

Here is my latest column for the magazine "Philosophy Now," about Aquinas and the Indian philosopher Shankara, and how both thought philosophy could be pursued while presupposing principles of religious belief. So this is part, like, five hundred of my attempt to show that religion and philosophy are not mutually exclusive (see also "rule 14" of my 20 rules for history of philosophy).

Here is a blog post I have just done for the New Statesman, on representations of women in ancient philosophical text. Focuses on Plato's Menexenus and the dialogue starring Macrina, by her brother Gregory of Nyssa. Of course it is a much bigger topic! For the whole story (or at least, more of the story) you could check out the series of videos I did on women thinkers in antiquity and the middle ages.

Chike and I are planning ahead concerning the book version of the podcast series on Africana philosophy and have to decide between publishing it as one volume or two. If one volume it would be quite long, probably around 100 chapters, but all in one place so to speak. If we split the material into two volumes they will obviously be shorter, about the length of "Classical Philosophy," one on Africana philosophy before the 20th century, one on Africana philosophy in the 20th century. This would mean the first volume's worth of material could come out sooner.

I came across this lovely quote re-reading a piece by Elisa Freschi on Mimamsa philosophy:

"The probability that a theory is preposterous and naive is lower than the probability that we do not fully understand it."

Words to live by.

Jonardon and I have now been given a specific date for the publication of Classical Indian Philosophy, the book based on the podcast series we did on Indian thought: if all goes well it will come out in March 2020! And before that Medieval Philosophy should appear in September, I have already seen the page proofs.

This coming Sunday (May 26, 2019) Chike and I will be launching part two of the series on Africana philosophy; the overview page for these episodes is already up and has general further reading suggestions. To whet your appetite here is our current thinking on what will be covered. Note that some topics/figures will probably get more than one episode (e.g. Douglass) and that this is a tentative list that may change as we go along.

Hey North Americans! You should now being able to listen to both feeds of the podcast on Google Play (service not available outside N America). Here are the links:

https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/Irbqpnsan4fafpi6zp6blpmddty

One of the leading figures in the story we've been telling about Africana Philosophy has been Kwame Gyekye; recently the sad news of his passing has been announced. For me learning about his work in the field of African thought was a revelation because I knew him previously only as the author of some important works on the reception of Aristotelian logic in Arabic.

Since the series on Byzantine philosophy is drawing to a close (it will end with episode 327), it's time to look forward to the series on Renaissance philosophy! It will launch June 30. I have already been reading up for it and consulted some expert advice, plus received lots of great suggestions from listeners here on the website and on social media. So here is the tentative list of episodes not including interviews.