Eternity of the Universe
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Peter discusses the Presocratic philosopher Empedocles and his principles: Love, Strife, and the four “roots,” or elements.
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Peter looks at Plato's Timaeus, focusing on the divine craftsman or demiurge, the receptacle, and the geometrical atomism of Plato's elemental theory.
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Proclus’ system, presented in original works and in commentaries on Plato and Euclid, integrates Neoplatonic philosophy with pagan religious belief and practice.
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John Philoponus refutes Aristotle’s and Proclus’ arguments for the eternity of the universe, and develops new ideas in physics.
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Sir Richard Sorabji, founder of the Ancient Commentators Project, joins Peter to discuss the history of ancient commentary on Aristotle.
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Al-Kindī uses Hellenic materials to discuss the eternity of the world, divine attributes, and the nature of the soul.
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Saadia Gaon draws on philosophy and Islamic theology to provide a rational account of Jewish belief.
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Avicenna’s proof of the Necessary Existent is ingenious and influential; but does it amount to a proof of God’s existence?
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In his Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazālī attacks Avicenna’s theories about the eternity of the universe and insists on the possibility of miracles.
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Peter tests different approaches to interpreting Maimonides, focusing on his discussion of the eternity of the world, which tries to settle the debate by declaring a draw.
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Kātib Çelebi defends cigarettes and coffee and Khojozāda wins a prize for evaluating the Incoherence of the Philosophers, along with several other philosophical and religious debates in the Ottoman empire.
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Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the so-called “Latin Averroists” take up the question of whether the universe has always existed, and settle once and for all which comes first, the chicken or the egg.
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The Renaissance ideals of humanism and universal science flourish already in the medieval period, in the works of Petrarch and Ramon Llull.
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The trial of John Italos and other signs of Byzantine disquiet with the pagan philosophical tradition.
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Giordano Bruno’s stunning vision of an infinite universe with infinite worlds, and his own untimely end.
