Molière’s famous comedies scandalize Paris and dramatize themes from French moralism, especially the danger of hypocrisy.
HoP 494 Tell the Truth While Laughing: The French Moralists
05/31/2026 | 23 mins.
La Rochefoucauld and other “moralists” offer a penetrating and witty critique of human pride, selfishness, and hypocrisy. Is this just cynicism, or does it support a positive ethic?
HoP 493 Better Nature: The French Garden
05/17/2026 | 21 mins.
How the French formal garden embodied both Cartesian philosophy and the political ideology of the French monarchy.
HoP 492 Changing By Degrees: French Scholasticism
05/03/2026 | 21 mins.
How philosophy at the universities evolved in response to Cartesianism and the “new science.”
HoP 491 Image Problems: Arnauld vs Malebranche on Ideas
04/19/2026 | 19 mins.
Arnauld’s attack on Malebranche’s theory of the “vision in God” leads to a nuanced debate over the nature of ideas.
Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King's College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, "without any gaps". www.historyofphilosophy.net