We could all use some philosophy right about now
Five reasons to subscribe to the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast
The podcast marketplace is a hot, crowded bazaar that offers insights, conversations, and commentary on every subject imaginable. There are celebrities hawking their wares, true crime, politics, fiction, improv, round tables, watchalongs — literally, hundreds of thousands of shows. Meanwhile, off in a cool, quiet, corner of the podcast-o-sphere, one man has been turning every major idea in human history into a short, easily digestible, 20-minute podcast in plain English.
And he’s determined not to leave anything out.
Dr. Peter Adamson has been producing “The History of Philosophy without Any Gaps” since 2010. It’s a chronological history of philosophy that started out as a weekly podcast but has now gone bi-weekly. (On alternate weeks, his other podcast, co-written with another philosopher, looks at the History of Africana Philosophy). Starting with fourteen episodes on the philosophers who pre-dated Plato and Socrates (the aptly-named Pre-Socratics), he has made his way through Plato and Socrates (18 episodes), done an incredible 17 episodes just on Aristotle, and has gone from there into Late Antiquity, Ancient Christianity, and on to the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire, and into his current series on the Italian Renaissance.
Philosophy is the software of human civilization. Free will, the nature of reality, what constitutes “good” behavior or a “bad” government — the way we see the world today is the product of thousands of years of thought and debate. But if you need a little more convincing, here are five reasons you MUST listen to this show.
5. You didn’t cover this in Philosophy 101
Dr. Adamson doesn’t harp on this much, but the show’s title suggests his mission: he wants to do a history of philosophical thought that doesn’t leave any major school or any major writer out. If that means spending three episodes (#208 — #210) on medieval thinker Peter Abelard, why not? So unless you yourself have a PhD in philosophy, it’s unlikely that you already know all this.
4. Episodes 120–195: History of Philosophy in the Islamic World
“So what?”, you’re saying. “If anything, this is MORE boring.” And that’s where you’d be wrong. Ask yourself this: where have you ever learned anything about philosophy in the Islamic world? If you’re an average Westerner, even if you’ve been to university, it’s unusual to get an introduction to anything beyond the Quran. Dr. Adamson does a deep dive into what is, for most of us, a totally new world of thought.
3. Hiawatha the Hypothetical Giraffe
Dr. Adamson frequently adds humorous bits, or at least attempts at humor, to help explain a specific philosophical concept. Often, he turns to hypotheticals that involve giraffes and when he wants to invoke a specific giraffe, he invokes Hiawatha the Giraffe. Is this a real animal he’s thinking of? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, it lightens up subject matter that would, otherwise, be dense.
2. It’s 10,000 times easier than teaching yourself philosophy
For the average schlub, tackling any one philosophical work or school of thought is a major undertaking. More to the point, most of us don’t know which schools of thought to study, which works to read, or how to put them in context. Personally, I’ve wanted to learn something about philosophy for years, but where to begin? I picked up Alfred North Whitehead’s Modes of Thought in the philosophy section of a bookstore years ago and I’ve never regretted it — but only because it was the perfect size to stop an end-table I had from wobbling. The content itself was incomprehensible to me. I bought that book because I didn’t know where to start or what to learn about. Since then, I’ve learned that I’d much rather read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations or Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. Plus, you can get them for free (or cheap) online.
1. It’s a podcast!
There are several elegant things about using the podcast format to trace the history of philosophy. For one thing, like any other podcast, you can listen to it while you cook, while you drive, while you wash the dishes — whatever. So the time investment for the listener is pretty minimal — like an audiobook. But unlike an audiobook, the weekly podcast format comes in shorter “bites” and it can continue for as long as its producer wants to do it. And, judging by his progress so far, Dr. Adamson in on track to reach Nietzsche by 2030.
The point is not that listening to a podcast like this is going to turn you into Descartes. It’s that it gives you a framework for understanding where Descartes fits in the big picture. (Incidentally, the podcast hasn’t gotten to him yet, so I’m speculating.) It’s like touring a huge museum of ideas with a friendly docent.
