In this episode, Nan Lin speaks with Ruth Boeker, Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin, about Catharine Trotter Cockburn, an influential moral philosopher from the early modern period. Boeker introduces Cockburn’s life and work, discussing her own interest in Cockburn and what makes her a key figure in early modern philosophy. The discussion explores Cockburn’s views on human nature, moral motivation, morality’s ties to religion, and her thoughts on education. Boeker also addresses current scholarship on Cockburn, highlighting both well-studied and under-explored areas. Finally, Boeker leads us through Cockburn’s views on education and moral philosophy. This conversation offers a chance to appreciate the depth and lasting relevance of Cockburn’s philosophy.
 
To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

References
 
Works by Cockburn
Cockburn, Catharine Trotter. Philosophical Writings. Edited by Patricia Sheridan. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2006.
—————. The Works of Mrs. Catharine Cockburn. Edited by Thomas Birch. 2 vols. London: Printed for J. and P. Knapton, 1751.

The podcast also mentions the following other writings by Cockburn:

• “On the Usefulness of Schools and Universities, for the Improvement of the Mind, in Right Notions of God."
  
• “Letter of Advice to her Son."
  

Both are included in Birch’s edition of Cockburn’s Works (1751).
 
Works by Boeker
Boeker, Ruth. Catharine Trotter Cockburn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
—————. “Catharine Trotter Cockburn against Theological Voluntarism." In Varieties of Voluntarism in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Sonja Schierbaum and Jörn Müller, 251–270. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2024.
—————. “Watts and Trotter Cockburn on the Power of Thinking." In Powers and Abilities in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Sebastian Bender and Dominik Perler, 286–304. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2024.

For additional literature on Catharine Trotter Cockburn, please see PhilPapers:
https://philpapers.org/browse/catharine-trotter-cockburn

In this episode, Jacinta speaks with Aminah Hasan-Birdwell, Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Emory University, about 18th-century Fante-British abolitionist and philosopher Ottobah Cugoano. We focus on his essay Thoughts and Sentiments, discussing its broad-ranging and interconnected critique of slavery, law, labor, and colonization. Hasan-Birdwell considers the breadth of Cugoano’s perspective, explaining that he takes into account not only the suffering of the individual, but also the health of society, examining not just British society but the morality of nations across the globe. Hasan-Birdwell concludes the episode by offering advice to early-career scholars commencing research on similarly marginalized philosophers.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page. 
 
References

Works by Cugoano
Cugoano, Olaudah Ottobah. Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Other Writings. Edited by Vincent Carretta. New York: Penguin, 1999.
 
Works by Hasan-Birdwell
Hasan-Birdwell, Aminah. “Ottobah Cugoano on Chattel Slavery and the Moral Limitations of Ius Gentium.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 32, no. 3 (2024): 473–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2024.2307338.

Hasan-Birdwell, Aminah. “‘That Sottish and Selfish principle': Cugoano on Self-Interest, Imagination, and Moral Wrongdoing." Journal of Modern Philosophy (forthcoming).

Other works mentioned
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Cicero: On Moral Ends. Edited by Julia Annas. Translated by Raphael Woolf. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
 
Clarkson, Thomas. An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African. 2nd ed., considerably enlarged. London: J. Phillips, 1788.
 
Hindle, Steve. “Work, Reward and Labour Discipline in Late Seventeenth-Century England.” Chapter. In Remaking English Society: Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England, edited by Steve Hindle, Alexandra Shepard, and John Walter, 255–80. Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social History. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2013.
 
Ramsay, James. An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. Cambridge Library Collection – Slavery and Abolition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Tobin, James. Cursory Remarks upon the Reverend Mr. Ramsay’s Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the Sugar Colonies. By a Friend to the West India Colonies, and Their Inhabitants. London: G. and T. Wilkie, 1785.

In this episode Nan Lin speaks with Dr. Elena Gordon, a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at McGill University, about 18th century philosopher Catharine Macaulay. We principally focus on her philosophy of education and explore Macaulay’s dual role as a historian and philosopher, her views on reason, sympathy, and the relationship between humans and animals, as well as her unique stance on educational reform. Dr. Gordon also reflects on Macaulay’s feminist perspective and offers advice for young researchers interested in reviving the voices of forgotten thinkers.
 
References

Works by Macaulay:
Macaulay, Catharine. The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay, K. Green (ed.), New York:
Oxford University Press, 2019.

— Letters on Education with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects(1790), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
— A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth, London: A. Hamilton, 1783.

— Observations on a pamphlet entitled ‘Thoughts on the cause of the present discontents’” 2nd ed., corrected. London: Dilly, 1770.

— The history of England from the accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line, 8 vols. London, 1763–1783.

— Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be found in Mr. Hobbes Rudiments of Government and Society. London: T. Davies, 1767.
 
Other works mentioned:
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, or On Education, The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 13, (ed. and trans.) C. Kelly and A. Bloom (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992).

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed., edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
        --The History of Great Britain. Vol. I. Containing the Reigns of James I and Charles I. Edinburgh, Printed by Hamilton, Balfour, and                  Neill, 1754.
​
Cobbe, Frances Power. Essays on the Pursuits of Women. Also, a Paper on Female Education. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Coffee, Alan. “Catharine Macaulay” in S. Bergès, E. Hunt Botting, A. Coffee (ed.) The Wollstonecraftian Mind, (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 198-210.

Frazer, Elizabeth., “Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay on education”, Oxford Review of Education, 37:5, 603-617, 2011.
Green, Karen. Catharine Macaulay’s Republican Enlightenment, New York: Routledge, 2020.

Greentree, Shane. “The “Equal Eye” of Compassion: Reading Sympathy in Catharine Macaulay’s History of England” Eighteenth-Century Studies 52 (2019), pp. 299-318.

Hill, Bridget. The republican virago: the life and times of Catharine Macaulay, historian, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Hutton, Sarah. “Virtue, God, and Stoicism in the Thought of Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay” in J. Broad, and K. Green (ed.) Virtue, Liberty and Toleration: Political ideas of European Women 1400-1800, Springer 2007, pp. 137-148.

Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Edited by John W. Yolton and Jean S. Yolton. A Clarendon Press Publication. 2000.

Reuter, Martina. “Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Will”, in J. Broad, and K. Green (ed.) Virtue, Liberty and Toleration: Political ideas of European Women 1400-1800, Springer, 2007, pp. 149-169.
​
Titone, Connie. Gender Equality in the Philosophy of Education: Catharine Macaulay’s Forgotten Contribution, Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2004.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page. 
 

In this episode, Jacinta Shrimpton speaks with Kristin Gjesdal, Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, about 19th century philosopher Germaine de Staël. We discuss Staël’s account of the passions, with a focused look at fanaticism and happiness, followed by a discussion of her abolitionism, and whether Staël could be classified as the first existentialist. The episode concludes with Gjesdal’s reflections on how to include Staël in history of philosophy courses, together with her advice to scholars (particularly early career scholars) who are interested in beginning to research understudied figures.

Bibliography
​
Listed chronologically, by publishing date
 
1788 - Letters on the works and character of J.J. Rousseau
1795 – Essay on Fictions
           Three abolitionist novellas: 1) Mirza or letter from a traveller (written 9 years earlier)      
                                                           2) Adelaide and Theodore
                                                           3) The story of Pauline
1796 - Treatise on the Influence of the Passions upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations
1800 – ‘On Women Writers’, a chapter from The Influence of Literature on Society
1807 – Corinne or Italy
1813 – Reflections on Suicide
 
Other Works Mentioned
 
Beauvoir, Simone de, Constance. Borde, and Sheila. Malovany-Chevallier. The Second Sex. 1st American ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. “Germaine de Staël on Passions, Politics, and Fanaticism.” In Fanaticism and the History of Philosophy, 1st ed., 143–60. Routledge, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032128207-13.
 
Ibsen, Henrik, and E. (Emanuel) Haldeman-Julius. A Doll’s House. 1st ed. Waiheke Island: The Floating Press, 1923.
 
Jameson-Cemper, K, George Solovieff, and Anne Louise Germaine de Stael. “Letter to Jefferson.” Selected Correspondence. 368. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4283-0.
 
Forthcoming
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. Germaine de Staël (under contract with CUP)
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. How to be a Self. Four Lessons from Germaine de Staël (under contract with OUP)
 
Further Reading
 
Gjesdal, Kristin. “When Henrik Ibsen put ‘philosophers in skirts’ into his plays, he demonstrated a different way of thinking about the world.” Psyche. Published 9 November 2022. https://psyche.co/ideas/why-did-ibsen-put-philosophers-in-skirts-up-on-the-stage
 
Nassar, Dalia, and Kristin Gjesdal, eds. Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century : The German Tradition. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press, 2021.
 
 
To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.
 

​In this episode, Haley speaks with Shuchen Xiang, professor of philosophy at Xidian University, about her new book, “Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea”. In discussing the book, we talk about historical Chinese accounts of a metaphysics of harmony, and how that metaphysics of harmony informs thinking about social identity and difference. We also discuss the aims and process of comparative philosophy. 

You can listen to the podcast episode here.
 
Bibliography 
Alcoff, Linda Martín. “Philosophy and Philosophical Practice: Eurocentrism as an Epistemology 
of Ignorance.” In The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, edited by Ian James Kidd,
José Medina, and Gaile Pohlhaus Jr., 397–408. London: Routledge, 2017.
 
Ames, Roger T., and David L. Hall. Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical
Interpretation of the Zhongyong. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001.
 
Baldwin, James. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. New York: Library of America, 1998.
 
Hanke, Lewis. Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern 
World. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1959.
 
Isaac, Benjamin. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2004.
 
Kang, David C. East Asia before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute. New York 
Columbia University Press, 2010.
 
Lovejoy, Arthur O. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1964.
 
Xiang, Shuchen. A Philosophical Defense of Culture: Perspectives from Confucianism and Cassirer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021.
 
Xiang, Shuchen. Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea. Princeton: Princeton 
University Press, 2023.  


To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

​In this episode, Haley speaks with Huaping Lu-Adler, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, about her new book titled Kant, Race, and Racism: Views from Somewhere. In the course of our conversation about the book, we discuss what it means to philosophize from a particular perspective, the compatibility of Kant's moral theory and his racist claims, the ways that our contemporary philosophical canon has its origins in Kant's writings, and the importance of community for philosophical work. 

Allais, Lucy. 2016. “Kant’s Racism.” Philosophical Papers 45 (1–2): 1–36.
Bernasconi, Robert. 2001. “Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race.” Race, edited by Robert Bernasconi, 11–36. Oxford: Blackwell. 
Bernasconi, Robert. 2002. “Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism.” In Philosophers on Race: Critical Essays, edited by Julie Ward and Tommy Lott, 145–66. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mills, Charles. 2005. “Kant’s Untermenschen.” In Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, edited by Andrew Valls, 169–93. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Mills, Charles. 2014. “Kant and Race, Redux.” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 35 (1–2): 125–57.
Park, Peter. 2013. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830. Albany: SUNY Press.
Lu-Adler, Huaping. 2022. “Kant on Lazy Savagery, Racialized.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 60 (2): 253–75.
Lu-Adler, Huaping. 2023. Kant, Race, and Racism: Views from Somewhere. New York & London: Oxford University Press. 

To list to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

In this episode, Olivia speaks with Allauren Samantha Forbes, an assistant professor in philosophy and gender and social justice at McMaster University. We discuss the thought of the French philosopher and novelist Madeleine de Scudéry, who lived from 1607 to 1701. Though most historians of philosophy know Scudéry for her later philosophical dialogues, our conversation focuses on an earlier publication: 1642’s Illustrious Women or Heroic Harangues. Allauren argues that this collection of fictional speeches by real women from antiquity – all of whom are limited in some way by hierarchical power structures – is an educational philosophical text that articulates various manifestations of patriarchal power and exemplifies ways of subverting it. We also talk about ideas for teaching Scudéry and Allauren’s own background as a philosopher working in the history of feminism. 

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

Bibliography

Selected texts by Scudéry

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Les femmes illustres, ou Les harangues héroïques, 2 vols., Paris: Quiney et de Sercy, 1644. (French edition)

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Les femmes illustres or The heroick harangues of the illustrious women written in French by the exquisite pen of Monsieur de Scuddery governour of Nostre Dam. Translated by James Innes. Edinburgh: printed by Thomas Brown James Glen and John Weir book sellers, anno Adom. 1681. Available at http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A58878.0001.001. (17th-century partial English translation)

Scudéry, Madeleine de. Selected Letters, Orations, and Rhetorical Dialogues, edited and translated by Jane Donawerth and Julie Strongson. In The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. (21st-century scholarly partial translation)

Early Modern Philosophy: An Anthology, edited by Lisa Shapiro and Marcy P. Lascano. Broadview Press, 2021. (Textbook that contains translated excerpts of some of Scudéry’s works)


Other texts mentioned

Astell, Mary. Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke & Duchess of Mazarine’s Case; which is also consider’d. London: Printed for John Nutt near Stationers-Hall, 1700.

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

In this episode, Haley speaks with Dwight K. Lewis Jr., assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of Minnesota. We talk about the life and works of the 18th century philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo, including his account of kinds of prejudice, and his views on justice as a tool and paradigm for reasoning. We also talk about the different contexts and manifestations of political resistance, and the need for varied mediums for philosophical ideas. 
 
Bibliography 

• Anton Wilhelm Amo, Inaugural Dissertation on the Impassivity of the Human Mind (1734). 
• Anton Wilhelm Amo, Philosophical Disputation Containing a Distinct Idea of those Things that Pertain either to the Mind or to Our Living and Organic Body (1734).  

*Both the original Latin and English translations of both texts are available in 

• Anton Wilhelm Amo’s Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body, edited and translated by Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith. Oxford University Press: 2020. 
• Allauren Forbes, “Prejudice as Viciousness: Marie de Gournay and Anton Wilhelm Amo”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2023).
• Justin E.H. Smith, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy. Princeton University Press: 2015. 

 
To listen to this podcast episode, please visit the podcast page.

In this episode, Olivia speaks with Jorge Sanchez-Perez, a former post-doctoral fellow in the Extending New Narratives in the History of Philosophy project who is currently an assistant professor in philosophy at the University of Alberta. We discuss Jorge’s post-doctoral research on the Huarochirí manuscript, which is one of the few surviving records of indigenous Andean philosophy in the Quechua language, and talk about the metaphysical ideas Jorge has worked to uncover in the text. Jorge also offers some advice for people interested in studying indigenous philosophy in an academic context that can sometimes be hostile to indigenous methodologies and traditions.

Notes and Further Reading
Primary Text 
Huarochirí Manuscript – available in the original Quechua and English and Spanish translations

​Figures Discussed
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala – a Quechua nobleman known for chronicling Andean culture and history from the Incan Imperial perspective
Francisco de Ávila – the “extirpator of idolatries” who commissioned the Huarochirí manuscript to help him fight against local indigenous beliefs, and in doing so inadvertently created a record of those same indigenous traditions
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega – a half-Incan, half-Spanish author known for his accounts of Inca history and culture
Vine Deloria Jr. – a twentieth-century Native American philosopher of education

​To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.

In this episode, Olivia speaks with Phil Yaure – assistant professor of philosophy at Virginia Tech University – about the political philosophy of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born into slavery, but eventually became one of the most influential black abolitionists of the 19th century after escaping his enslaved condition and learning to read and write. Phil’s research focuses on Douglass as a political philosopher, with special concern for Douglass’s conception of the US constitution as an anti-slavery document and his belief that citizenship is a function of one’s contribution to a polity (in contrast to thinking of citizenship as a status that is conferred upon someone by the powers of the state). Phil argues that Douglass considers abolitionist resistance itself to be a way of contributing to American society, which leads to the conclusion that enslaved people fighting against the injustice of slavery make themselves American citizens in doing so. We also discuss the philosophical value of the autobiography genre, and Phil offers listeners some recommendations for where to begin if they want to incorporate Frederick Douglass into their history of philosophy courses. 

Further Reading
Autobiographies:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (by Douglass, originally published 1845)
My Bondage and My Freedom (by Douglass, originally published 1855)
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (by Douglass, originally published 1881 and revised 1892)
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (by Harriet Jacobs, originally published 1861)

Select Speeches by Douglass:
“The Free Negro’s Place is in America” (delivered 1851)
“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (July 5 Speech) (delivered 1852)
“Claims of our Common Cause: Address of the Colored Convention held in Rochester, July 6-8, 1853” (delivered 1853)
Other Sources Mentioned:
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
Birthright Citizens, Martha S. Jones (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
Immigrants and the Right to Stay, Joseph H. Carens with Deborah Chasman (MIT Press, 2018)
Immigration and Democracy, Sarah Song (Oxford University Press, 2019) 

​To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.