In this interview we learn about the main issues in modern-day philosophy of disability, and the relevance of this topic for the European encounter with the Americas.
Bartholomé De las Casas argues against opponents, like Sepúlveda, who believed that Europeans had a legal and moral right to rule over and exploit the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Iberian expeditions to the Americas inspire scientists, and Matteo Ricci’s religious mission to Asia becomes an encounter between European and Chinese philosophy.
Our last figure of the English Renaissance undertakes daring investigations of chemistry, medicine, agriculture, and cosmology – and gets accused of magic and Rosicrucianism.
How women’s writing in England changed from the early fifteenth century, the time of Margery Kempe, to the late sixteenth century, the time of Anne Lock.
How should we approach Shakespeare’s plays as philosophical texts? We take as examples skepticism and politics in Othello, King Lear, and Julius Caesar.
We begin to look at Elizabethan literature, as Sidney argues that poetry is superior to philosophy, and philosophy is put to use in Spenser’s "Fairie Queene".
The evolution of ideas about kingship and the role of the “three estates” in 15th and 16th century England, with a focus on John Fortescue and Thomas Starkey.