I Take History With My Coffee
A historical journey through the Early Modern period
Recent Episodes
Episode 19: Rinascita
March 21, 2023
The Italian poet Petrarch is the paradigm of Renaissance humanism. He espoused the revival of classical learning and the study of Roman literature as a way to morally improve humanity. He criticized his scholastic contempo…
Episode 18: The House of Wisdom
March 7, 2023
The House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) was a translation center, a library, and a research institute. It represented the cultural and intellectual efflorescence under the Abbasid Caliphate during the 8th and 9th centuries. It…
Episode 17: The Scholastic Method
Feb. 21, 2023
In this episode, we explore the scholastic method of the 13th and 14th centuries as it developed from the rediscovery of Aristotle's complete works on logic, known as the Organon . Scholasticism, at its height, emphasized l…
Episode 16: The New Logic
Feb. 7, 2023
Pierre Abelard was one of the great thinkers of the Medieval period. He was, in many ways, an iconoclast, unafraid to challenge the establishment of the early 12th-century church. He was brilliant, and he knew it. His arroga…
Episode 15: The Old Logic
Jan. 23, 2023
In this episode, I look broadly at the development of Medieval thought and learning since the end of the Roman Empire in the West. The philosopher Boethius in the early 6th century CE, would undertake the task of translatin…
Episode 14: The Medieval University
Jan. 8, 2023
The university as an educational institution appeared in the 12th century CE. The Universities of Paris and Bologna became models of higher education right up to the present day. The emergence of the university as an urban…
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