William Engels

History of Philosophy Audio Archive

Education EN ↓ 244 episodes

Curated lectures, interviews, and talks with philosophers, social scientists, and historians together in one place. Each week, we explore brand new research in history, economics, psychology, political science, philosophy, indigenous studies, and human rights while presenting the work of canonical scholars in a way that is accessible to newcomers while retaining interest for students and specialists. If you are an author in nonfiction or a scholar in the humanities/social sciences and are interested in being interviewed for the show please email me at williamengels@substack.com or @Bluesky.

Author

William Engels

Episodes

Consolation #1: 100 Reviewers Special! The Consolation of Philosophy - An Experiment in Reading Boethius, Part 1: Introduction 24.02.2025 23:13

We did it! 100 reviews on Spotify! To celebrate, we are kicking off an open-source audiobook project celebrating Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy , a deathbed prose poem written at the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the birth of what is (somewhat unfortunately, but not for no reason called) the Dark Ages. 00:00:00 Announcement 00:08:36 Scholarly Introduction to the Consolation This i...

Hemlock #11 - Call Your Friends (or, Unhinged Volume II) 23.02.2025 41:25

We must needs densify the social fabric, compadres... https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon

#156 - Sartre: Robert C. Solomon on Existential Philosophy, Responsibility, Sartre's Experience as a POW, Being and Nothingness, No Exit, Phenomenology, Bad Faith, and Why We Are Doomed to Be Free 20.02.2025 3:01:53

“This is what I thought: for the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell.” -Jean-Paul Sartre , Nausea, 1938. -//- 00:00:00 Intro 00:...

Hemlock #10 - Capital (Kapital) Volume 1: Interview with Yale's Paul North & OSU's Paul Reitter on Karl Marx's Theory of Commodification, Communism, Property Rights, Value Theory, Worker Alienation 18.02.2025 1:36:10

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon Buy Paul Reitter and Paul North's Scholarly Edition of Marx's Capital Volume 1: https://a.co/d/3dMYjCw (Untracked Link) "In the realm of religion, people are ruled by a product of their own heads, and it is just so in capitalist production, except that here people are ruled by the products of their own hands." Karl Marx, &...

#155 - Speaking Peace: Marshall Rosenberg on Conflict Resolution, Giraffe and Jackal Language, Nonviolent Communication, Expressing Needs and Desires, and Articulating a More Peaceful World 09.02.2025 3:06:14

Come join my Patreon! https://Patreon.com/HemlockPatreon Leave a review! Once we get to 100 I'll record and release (completely gratis) an outstanding philosophy audiobook from the public domain. Original Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7TONauJGfc&t=22s

#154 - The Philosopher's Stone: Terence McKenna on Hermeticism, Renaissance Magic, the Hidden History of Alchemy, the Catharites, Giordano Bruno, Rosicrucians, and the Rise of the Invisible College 07.02.2025 4:05:20

One of my favorite things ever recorded - if you haven't already, prepare for a wild, wild, ride. Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do by printing in the infernal method by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the...

#153 - A Process Perspective on Human Life: John Dupré on Panpsychism, Holobionts, the Paradoxes of Speciation, Dynamics of Human Evolution, Theseus's Ship, and Processual Mechanics 04.02.2025 5:11:35

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon “Change’ is the description of the adventures of eternal objects in the evolving universe of actual things.” ― Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality Table of Contents: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:06:05) - Why All Life is Process (00:57:00) - Evolution (01:50:03) - Humans and their Fellow Travelers (02:40:55) - Personal Identity (03:29:03...

Hemlock #9 - An Unhinged Rant About What Our Government Likes to Call "Detention Centers" 31.01.2025 40:27

Update/Correction: I misstated the executive order number (it's 9066 not 9006) and stated that Korematsu v. United States still technically had legal precedence - in fact it lost legal precedence in 2018 with Trump v. Hawaii. Links below. Photos: https://www.desertsun.com/picture-gallery/news/2020/01/28/photos-take-look-inside-adelanto-ice-detention-center/4602066002/ Stephen Miller Stovepipin...

#151 - The British Romantic Poets: Adam Potkay on How Blake, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Burns Worshiped Nature, Sought Transcendence, Defied Authority, and created Modern Love 28.01.2025 8:00:49

Come join my Patreon! ⁠https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon⁠ “Worlds on worlds are rolling ever from creation to decay - Like the bubbles on a river: Sparkling, bursting, borne away.” Percy Shelley, Hellas, 1822 ⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellas_(poem)⁠ -//- (00:00:00) - Intro (00:00:35) - What is Romanticism? (00:33:33) - Folk Culture, the Ballad Tradition, and Robert Burns (01:11:53) - Wordswo...

#150 - The Government of the Future: Noam Chomsky on Libertarianism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, Political Implications of Marxism, Individualism v Collectivism, and Prospects for Democracy and Survival 21.01.2025 57:38

“As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, and diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.” Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World? , 2017. Recorded at the New York YM Poetry Center, Broadcast YWHA, February 1970 Come join my Patreon! ⁠https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon⁠ Text...

#149 - My Interview with Professor Michael Albertus on his New Book “Land Power”: Indigenous Rights, Climate Change, Land Theft and Restitution, the Great Reshuffle, and the Chinese Sparrow Massacre 17.01.2025 1:16:00

Buy Michael's Book on Amazon (Untracked Link): https://www.amazon.com/Land-Power-Doesnt-Determines-Societies/dp/1541604814/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/212924049-land-power Author's Website: https://www.michaelalbertus.com/ Come join my Patreon! ⁠https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon⁠ Guest Bio: Michael Albertus is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chica...

#148 - The Grail Quest: Joseph Campbell on the Arthurian Legends, the Adventure of Gawain, Parsifal's Quest for the Holy Grail, the Three Ages of the Church, and the Elementary Ideas of Mythology 13.01.2025 4:58:06

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon “The agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy, and ascetic disciplines are instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realization. As he crosses threshold after threshold, conquering dragon after dragon, the st...

#147 - Dzogchen: James Low on Tibetan Buddhism, the Uncontaminated Mind, Developing Clarity and Insight, Overcoming Ego, and Riding the Wave that Never Breaks 20.12.2024 36:27

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon -//- James Low's YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@jameslow Video Source: https://youtu.be/gf51n8V8vII

#146 - Moby Dick: Bert Dreyfus on the White Whale, the Origins of American Literature, Ahab's Madness, and Existentialist Themes in the 19th Century 19.12.2024 8:23:40

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon This is an eight lecture series, delivered in 2010 at UC Berkeley by the philosophy professor and overall great human being Hubert "Bert" Dreyfus as part of a Great Books course. Enjoy.

Letter to the Shareholders 2025 13.12.2024 8:36

Reach out and share your thoughts! williamengels@substack.com Congratulations on a great 2024 - a couple of channel-exclusive messages and announcements as we take the podcast into 2025. Cheers to a great year. References: The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes , Jonathan Rose.

#145 - Wittgenstein: Norman Malcom on Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language, Analytic Philosophy, the Vienna Circle, Bertrand Russell, and Language Games 11.12.2024 1:14:41

Come join my Patreon! ⁠https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon⁠ “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent” -Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus Original Video: https://youtu.be/371LobXpUlo

#144 - The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche: Rick Roderick on Postmodernism, the Eternal Recurrence, Ressentiment, Master & Slave Morality, the Übermensch, and the Last Man 10.12.2024 5:25:41

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon "The philosopher as we understand him, we free spirits - as the man of the most comprehensive responsibility who has the conscience for the collective evolution of mankind: this philosopher will make use of the religions for his work of education and breeding, just as he will make use of existing political and economic conditions….the will t...

Hemlock #8 - Rituals of Fire: Astika Royal Mason on Symbols of Spiritual Transformation, the Internalization of Religious Ceremonies, Developing Spiritual Maturity, and Buddhism's Reaction to Hinduism 08.12.2024 1:52:18

Buy Astika's book while you still can! https://a.co/d/bggZEtW Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon “He no longer cared to live in a house, and he rose once more into the air, this time on the breath of a breeze so sheer and transparent not even the gods felt it. This is the wind that further frees even the free. As his soul rose on that wind, it seemed to expand and flow out in...

#143 - The End of Empire: Chris Hedges on Gaza Genocide, US Complicity, and the Fate of Conquerors 04.12.2024 49:01

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon Original YouTube: https://youtu.be/fO0OkdUuvDk

#142 - Aristotle: Thomas Brickhouse on the Golden Mean, Virtue Ethics, the Prime Mover, the Athenian Constitution, and Why Aristotle was Dante's "Master of Those Who Know" 03.12.2024 2:39:47

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon -//- Professor Thomas C. Brickhouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_C._Brickhouse

#141 - Out of Your Mind: Alan Watts on Exploring Consciousness, The Illusion of Self, Practical Meditation Advice, the Difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, and the Wisdom of Insecurity 03.12.2024 2:07:10

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon “Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing t...

#140 - Albert Camus: Robert C. Solomon on the Absurd Hero, The Stranger, The Plague, Existentialism in Literature, and the Benign Indifference of the Universe 23.11.2024 2:26:51

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon “And he knew, also, what the old man was thinking as his tears flowed, and he, Rieux, thought it too: that a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.” -Albert Camus, The...

#139 - Machiavelli Double Episode: Michael Sugrue & Quentin Skinner on Renaissance Politics, the Philosophy of Ruthlessness, Nihilsm, and Why It Is a Double Pleasure to Deceive the Deceiver 23.11.2024 1:15:25

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon -//- Original Sugrue Video: https://youtu.be/mU7hdGKOGyk Original Skinner Video: https://youtu.be/CKGuzJ6GwHM Enjoy.

#138 - The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Michael Sugrue on the Stoic Ideal, Absolute Power, Resistance to Temptation, and Who Writes a Book to Themself? 23.11.2024 43:28

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon Original Video: https://youtu.be/Auuk1y4DRgk Enjoy.

#137 - Censorship: Ada Palmer on the Spanish Inquisition, Galileo and Descartes, the Renaissance Book Economy, Government Surveillance, and Self-Censorship 15.11.2024 1:11:57

Come join my Patreon! https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon -//- Original Video: https://youtu.be/uMMJb3AxA0s Original Channel (UChicago Divinity School) https://www.youtube.com/@uchicagodivinityschool2166