Questions please!

Hi Peter Adamson,

Im a big fan of your podcast and  thank you very much for your enourmous effort! (fortunately I found a wise solution of the "I-already-caught-up-your-podcast-problem"- I restarted listening!). I look highly exited to your 250th podcast and wanted to contribute with a question.

Since you do the whole history of philosophy you are comparing construct of ideas and usually assess the argumentations. Do you know think,  the philosophy made a progress? On which degree? Which new challenges arose since Platon and Aristoteles? Is a more sophisticated argumentation the better one?

Kind regards and please keep on podcasting!

  Gabriel Kurz

Hi Peter Adamson,

I was wondering about ancient and medieval philosophy, and how it applies to us today. Namely, how do you think that a thinker such as Aristotle should be read in light of modern science. Although I am very far from being able to call myself a philosopher, it seems to me that Aristotle's four causes aren't something that can't be tossed away lightly, although I'm not exactly knowledgeable on the matter. Do you think it is still justified to think it can be proved that everything is born for a purpose?

I was also wondering whether or not you would eventually move into Eastern philosophy. There were quite a number of great philosophers and philosophical movements over there. Along with well-known giants like Confucius and Laozi, there are also less appreciated thinkers (at least in the west) like Kukai.

Hello Peter

Arrian is said to have written eight volumes of Epcitetus' discourses, but only four survive. The works of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, I think have all been lost. Sapho is said to be one the "nine lyric poets" of ancient Greece, but only fragments survive and only the work of two of those nine poets has been passed down to us in any great quantity. Livy is supposed to have written well over a hundred volumes about Rome, but all we have now are about thirty.

So, my question is, which missing work of philosophy is the biggest loss to us? To put it another way, if a new batch of scrolls were found, which work would be most exciting to discover? The same question too for missing works of literature, which is most regretable loss?

Hello Peter

Just looking through a few of the blog posts, I see you're learning Persian and it also appears you already know Greek and Arabic. Not only that but you can be seen on telly speaking German. Plus English!

How many languages do you speak and could you say a little about your experience of learning languages? Whether you've found a technique that works for you? If it becomes easier the more languages someone already knows? Is it especially tough with a different script? Are their any phonemes you find just impossible to pronounce?

Love the podcast.

Hello,

One question I had (sorry if this is already on the list) was: in the past 3.5 period-regions, are there any figures/topics you didn't cover that you regret not covering?  If so, who/what are they and why didn't you cover them?

Howdy,
At an AT&T hackathon a fortnight ago, I created an internet connected doorbell. Inspired by this podcast, it does not play chimes, but plays a random bit of stoic philosophy and sends you a microblog notification. I call it my Stoic doorbell. I'd like to make variants with other themes and I am looking for categories with a number of nice, short quotes. Do you have any suggestions? Note that this is not a commercial product, although I might try kickstarter if it works out well.