Xunzi, a thinker who shaped the course of Confucian philosophy by showing how deliberate effort can overcome our wicked natural tendencies.

Several ancient Chinese texts speak of an egoist and hedonist known as Yang Zhu: did he pose a coherent challenge to the Confucians and other ethicists?

In the Mengzi, the text that bears his name, Mengzi ("Mencius") holds that the human heart-mind is the wellspring of goodness.

Should the remarkable parallels between Aristotelian and Confucian ethics lead us to classify Confucianism as a type of “virtue ethics”?

In this interview, we learn how Kongzi become the pivotal sage of early Chinese history, and what new discoveries teach us about the Confucian tradition.

What does the Analects say about living as a human being? How are individuals embedded in society, and how do they develop their unique identities?

Confucianism puts relationships with family members at the core of their ethical thinking. Is this a strength or a weakness?

Lessons we can take from the teachings of Kongzi (Confucius) in the Analects: challenging authorities, adhering to “benevolence (ren),” and practicing “propriety (li)” in ritual and everyday life.

An introduction to Kongzi, the founder of Confucianism, and to the text that has come to represent his thought, the Lunyu (Analects).

In this interview, we learn how newly discovered texts are changing our understanding of Warring States period philosophy.

What were ancient Chinese philosophical texts written on? How did writing relate to orally transmitted wisdom? How were texts read and used? And what even counted as a “text” in ancient China?

The historical context of classical Chinese philosophy, and how ancient Chinese historical works themselves became works of philosophy.

Co-host Karyn introduces herself to the listeners and talks about the challenges of tackling classical Chinese philosophical texts.

Early Chinese philosophers were deeply aware of a world that is constantly changing: we look at how Confucians, Legalists, and Daoists responded to this challenge.

Introducing Chinese philosophy through the concept of "dao," a fundamental word in classical Chinese philosophy, with a range of meanings across its different traditions.

How Africana philosophy looked to a young Chike Jeffers, coming into the field in the early 21st century.

The key events and figures in philosophy as an academic discipline, in both Africa and the diaspora.

Cornel West joins us to look back on the development of his thought and the many authors who have inspired him.

An introduction to Cornel West, focusing on his early essay “Philosophy and the Afro-American Experience.”

A movement of legal scholars diagnoses the limitations of merely “formal” measures against discrimination, a point they connect to issues like affirmative action, democratic process, and intersectionality.

What inspired Asante's controversial philosophy of Afrocentricity, and its relationship to religion, nationalism, and feminism.

How writers like George G.M. James, John Henrik Clarke, Cheikh Anta Diop, Yosef ben-Jochannan, and Chancellor Williams prepared the way for the Afrocentricity of Molefi Asante and captured the imaginations of hip hop artists and intellectuals like Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Sylvia Wynter offers a bold and provocative assessment of the role of the humanities in understanding humankind.

Cedric J. Robinson reflects on the power and limitations of Marxism while charting the past and prospects of black radical thought.

The author of an important book on Glissant joins us to talk about his approach to this major Caribbean thinker.

Poet, novelist, playwright and philosopher Edouard Glissant, his theory of "creolization", and the Creolists who were influence by him. 

Stuart Hall pioneers “cultural studies,” offering tools for analysis of films, television, fiction and music that were put to use by followers like Paul Gilroy and Hazel Carby.

The great Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o joins us to speak about his career, his influences, and the power and politics of language.

How one of Kenya's greatest writers came to argue that African literature should be written in African languages.

We bring the story of black feminism up to the turn of the century with the incisive works of bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins.

In poetry and prose, especially her collection "Sister Outsider," Audre Lorde explores ideas of difference, eroticism, and feminist theory.

The eventful life and penetrating philosophy of Angela Davis, an icon of resistance deeply informed by Marxism and influential on black feminist thought.

Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker explore the themes of black feminism (or “womanism”) in their fiction. Warning: this episode contains discussion of sexual violence and suicide.

1970s black feminists like Toni Cade Bambara, the Combahee River Collective, and Awa Thiam critique white feminist and black nationalist failures to recognize the unique struggle of the black woman.

Another Caribbean thinker, Walter Rodney of Guyana, explores Africana history from a Marxist perspective. 

Famous for his killing at the hands of the Apartheid government in South Africa, Steve Biko was also a deep thinker, who introduced the notion of Black Consciousness.

The political and musical revolution of Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat, and the social critique of his cousin, the playwright Wole Soyinka.

How the Rastafari movement grew from trends within Africana philosophy, and then passed into global popular culture in the music of Bob Marley and other reggae artists.

Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic return to claim the pyramids, and Octavia Butler uses science fiction to confront the brutal past of slavery.

Abdias do Nascimento, a leader in Brazilian theater and politics, and his theory of Qilombismo.

The career and ideas of Nelson Mandela up to the time of his imprisonment, in the context of the founding of the African National Congress.

Two scholars of the same name join us to shed further light on Amílcar Cabral.

Amílcar Cabral, leader of a revolution against colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, rethinks culture and Marxist theory as bases for his struggle.

The first leader of independent Tanzania grounds his socialist ideas in traditional African values.

After Albert Cleage and James Cone propose a liberatory interpretation of Christianity, William R. Jones wonders whether God is a white racist. We also follow Black Theology among “Womanist” authors and in South Africa.

African American literature of the late 1960s reflects the Black Power movement, in the works of such authors as Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Haki Madhubuti, Larry Neal, and Sonia Sanchez.

The controversial career of the Pan-Africanist philosopher Maulana Karenga, inventor of the holiday Kwanzaa.

The philosophical underpinnings of a “vanguard of revolution” led by Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver: the Black Panther Party.

How the controversial slogan “black power,” used by activists like Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, relates to ideas of militancy, separatism, and the power of language.

The underestimated radicalism of Lorraine Hansberry, author of the famous play "A Raisin in the Sun".

We're joined by a leading Fanon expert to talk about a range of themes in his work: Negritude, psychiatry, and violence.

Fanon’s incendiary final work explores the violent process of decolonization.

Frantz Fanon combines existentialist philosophy and psychiatry to diagnose the condition of the colonialized target of racism.

The first leader of independent Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, writes against neocolonialism and in favor of socialism and Pan-Africanism.

Two Nigerian activists lead the struggle for independence, and clash over the competing values of national unity and ethnic diversity.

The Cuban activist and author Juan Rene Betancourt urges racial solidarity and reckons with the revolution under Castro and the island’s turn towards Communism.

After 1963, the views of Malcolm X and MLK came closer together, on topics including internationalism, political engagement, and economics.

Chike joins Peter to look back at our coverage of Africana philosophy in the first half of the 20th century.

The life and career of Malcolm X up to 1963, with a focus on his separatist black nationalism and his critique of non-violent protest.

An interview about the role of the emotions, including anger and feelings of dignity, with MLK expert Meena Krishnamurthy.

The story of Martin Luther King Jr. up to 1963, focusing on the development of his philosophy of nonviolence.

In "The Fire Next Time" and other writings, the essayist and novelist James Baldwin seeks to dispel the illusions surrounding racial and sexual difference.

Ralph Ellison provides a new metaphor for the experience of racism in his Invisible Man and tackles topics of art and identity in his essays.

Famous for his incendiary novel Native Son, Richard Wright responds in his multifaceted writings to sociology, communism, colonialism, and existentialism.

Interview guest Carole Boyce Davies joins us to talk about the radical ideas of Claudia Jones. 

Claudia Jones argues that Communism provides the remedy for racism and imperialism.

Two Trinidadian political thinkers: sociologist Oliver Cox analyzes the nature of racial prejudice, and historian Eric Williams connects capitalism to slavery.

The Trinidadian historian and cultural critic C.L.R. James applies Marxist analysis to the Haitian Revolution, American cinema, and Shakespeare.

Sociologist E. Franklin Frazier critiques the Harlem Renaissance and the “black bourgeoisie” for failing to embrace values that will empower black Americans.

Negritude thinkers Aimé and Suzanne Césaire embrace surrealism and reflect on the relationships between poetry, knowledge, and identity.

Leopold Senghor compares different ways of knowing while developing his theory of Negritude and combining the roles of poet and politician.  

Our first look at the emergence of the Negritude movement in Paris in the 1930s, with a focus on the early leadership of the Nardal sisters and Leon Damas.

Guest Liam Kofi Bright discusses Du Bois' ideal of value-free science and the place of science within his wider thought.

Du Bois moves to the left, and revisits and refines older positions during the latter half of his very long life.

The career of the multi-talented activist and performer Paul Robeson, and the place of the Negro spiritual in the Harlem Renaissance.

Zora Neale Hurston’s interest in Africana folklore feeds into her great novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Pioneering historian Carter G. Woodson argues for a new approach to education and economic uplift.

From the latter half of the nineteenth century to the 1970s, African Americans only rarely obtain jobs as philosophy professors but bring distinctive perspectives to the profession.

Leonard Harris explains how Locke's value theory was the basis for his aesthetics and theories of democracy and race. 

The aesthetics of Alain Locke and its basis in his theory of value judgments.

The artistic flowering of the 1920s known as the Harlem Renaissance raises important questions about identity and the purpose of art.

An interview with Michael Dawson, who explains Marcus Garvey's black nationalism and how this and other political ideologies, like socialism and liberalism, have fared from the time of Garvey down to the present day.

Marcus Garvey’s two wives, Amy Ashwood Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey, establish themselves as activists in their own right and bring feminism into the Pan-African movement.

Marcus Garvey leads a powerful movement, inspires racial pride, and feuds with other thinkers like Du Bois.

Vanessa Wills speaks  to us about Marx and his Africana legacy, with a special focus on black women Marxists.

Around the time of World War One, Hubert Harrison, A. Philip Randolph, and other black socialists argue that racial oppression is caused by capitalism.

West African intellectuals like J.E. Casely-Hayford and Mojola Agbebi build upon Edward Blyden’s ideas at the dawn of the twentieth century.

We chat with Tommy Curry about African-American thought between the turn of the century and the Harlem Renaissance.

The ANA unites leading African American scholars of the early 20th century, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, William Ferris, Archibald Grimké, and Kelly Miller.

By exploring the work and activities of W.E.B. Du Bois around the turn of the twentieth century, we introduce some of the themes of our coverage of that century.

Co-host Chike joins Peter to look back at series 2 and ahead to series 3.

W.E.B. Du Bois emerges as a historian, sociologist, and innovative philosophical thinker in the 1890s, and introduces his famous idea of "double consciousness."

Was Booker T. Washington’s “accomodationist” approach to race relations a failure to stand up to injustice or a cunning strategy for incremental change?

A late 19th-century churchman tries to explain how slavery fit into God’s plan, and decide whether the future for African-Americans lies in Africa or America.

Brittney Cooper on activists connected to the National Association of Colored Women, including Fannie Barrier Williams, Mary Church Terrell, and Ida B. Wells.

Ida B. Wells, her tireless crusade against lynching, and her analysis of the underlying purpose of racial violence.

Anna Julia Cooper’s "A Voice from the South", an unprecedented contribution to black feminist theory. 

Abolitionists Luiz Gama and Joaquim Nabuco, and the great novelist Machado de Assis, react to the injustices of slaveholding in Brazil.

John Jacob Thomas argues for self-government in the English colonies of the Caribbean but his fellow Trinidadian Frederick Alexander Durham recommends repatriation to Africa instead.

Haitian anthropologist Anténor Firmin debunks racist pseudo-science and argues that inequalities among humans are caused by social, not biological, factors.

T. Thomas Fortune uses newspaper editorials to put forth a theory of civil rights and set out a plan of political action for protecting them.

Edward Blyden gains appreciation for Islam in West Africa and gradually moves from political nationalism to cultural nationalism.

Africanus Horton looks toward a future of self-government for West Africa beyond slavery and colonialism.

Wilson Moses speaks to us about his research into early black notionalism, as represented by Crummell, Douglass, and others.

Alexander Crummell moves from pan-Africanism to reform of African American culture, identifying progressive “civilization” as a means of liberation.

Mary Ann Shadd and Samuel Ringgold Ward reflect on what Canada can offer African Americans, differing on the problem of racism.

The moral crusades of Sojourner Truth and Frances Harper, activists against racial and gender oppression.

He is called a “father of black nationalism,” but Martin Delany also promoted integration in American society. Can the apparent tension be resolved?

Henry Highland Garnet encourages, or actually demands, that enslaved Americans throw off their chains and debates Douglass over how best to resist slavery.

In two speeches marking holidays, Frederick Douglass champions the idea of world citizenship, the power of appeals to conscience to bring change, and the role of violence.

Frederick Douglass' journey from slave to leading figure of 19th century American thought.

Melvin Rogers joins us to discuss Hosea Walker, Maria Stewart, and Hosea Easton.

Hosea Easton’s Treatise provides an overlooked but fascinating theory of race and racism.

Maria W. Stewart’s public addresses bring the concerns of African American women into the struggle against racial prejudice.

David Walker defends violent resistance and encourages self-improvement in his incendiary and influential Appeal.

An interview with James Sidbury about the emergence of a self-conscious African identity in the diaspora.

Questions of political autonomy and group identity in the emigration movement led by Paul Cuffe, Daniel Coker, John Russwurm and others.

Building black institutions in early American history, with Prince Hall and the Masons in Boston, and Richard Allen and the Methodists in Philadelphia.

An interview with Doris Garraway on the background, intellectual basis, and legacy of the Haitian Revolution.

The Baron de Vastey unveils the horror of colonialism as a system and defends the monarchy of King Christophe in the tense early years of Haiti’s independence.

In an age of revolutions and revolutionary ideas, the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804 stands out as the most radical of them all.

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano advance the goals of the abolitionist movement through a groundbreaking political treatise and an influential autobiography.

Ignatius Sancho and Benjamin Banneker make their mark on the history of Africana thought through letters that reflect on the power of sentiment.

Preacher and Revolutionary War soldier Lemuel Haynes argues that the principles of the American Revolution demand the abolition of slavery.

Phillis Wheatley astonishes colonial Americans with her exquisite and precocious poetry and reflects on the liberating power of the imagination.

18th century black authors touch on philosophical themes in autobiographical narratives, poetry, and other literary genres.

Justin E.H. Smith joins us to discuss Anton Wilhelm Amo against the background of ideas about race in early modern philosophy, including Leibniz.

Anton Wilhelm Amo, brought to Germany from his native Ghana, defends a rigorous dualism of mind and body. Was this philosophy connected to his African origins?

An introduction to Africana philosophical thought as it emerged from the modern experience of slavery and colonization by Europeans.

Co-host Chike Jeffers and Peter chat about the themes and questions raised by the podcast so far.

As the twentieth century draws to a close, the critique of ethnophilosophy gives way to approaches that continue to privilege the study of precolonial traditions.

An interview with Kai Kresse who discusses his efforts to do "anthropology of philosophy" on the Swahili Coast.

Henry Odera Oruka’s new method for exploring philosophy in Africa, based on interviews with wise individuals.

Paulin Hountondji and other African philosophers criticize ethnophilosophy and advocate a universalist approach.

An interview with Nkiru Nzegwu on matriarchy and gender fluidity in Africa.

What archeology and ethnography tell us about the diverse and often ambiguous roles of men and women in traditional African societies.

Special forms of knowledge and the explanation of misfortunes in African tradition.

Emphasis on the value of community as a major theme in African philosophy.

Traditional African ideas about personhood, which challenge assumptions about the relation between mind and body, self and other.

John Mbiti’s influential and controversial claim that traditional Africans experience time as having “a long past, a present, and virtually no future.”

A conversation with Sam Imbo on approaching oral traditions as philosophy and the Ugandan thinker and poet Okot p'Bitek.

An introduction to the “ethnophilosophy” approach inaugurated by Placide Tempels, its promises and potential pitfalls.

Peter speaks to Souleymane Bachir Diagne about Islamic scholars in West Africa.

Uthman Dan Fodio and his family were scholars, poets, and warriors whose jihad in 19th century Nigeria created the Sokoto Caliphate.

The spread of Islamic scholarship in subsaharan Africa, focusing on intellectuals of the Songhay empire around the Niger River in the 15th-17th centuries.

Teodros Kiros discusses the history of Ethiopian thought and how it has influenced his own work in political philosophy.

Walda Heywat’s reaction to the thought of his teacher Zera Yacob, and the dispute over the authenticity of these two Ethiopian philosophers.

The 17th century Ethiopian rationalist Zera Yacob, hailed as the first modern Africana philosopher.

Philosophy in Ethiopia, with translations of religious and philosophical texts into Ge’ez and a national epic called the Kebra Nagast.

Egyptioogist Richard Parkinson joins us to talk about the context and meaning of the Eloquent Peasant and other literary works of ancient Egypt.

Demands for ma’at (justice or truth) and a confrontation with the soul, in the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant and Dispute Between a Man and his Ba.

Ethical reflection in ancient Egyptian grave inscriptions and in works of instruction, such as the Maxims of Ptahhotep and the Instructions named for Amenemope, Ani, and Merikare.

Ancient Egyptian figures and writings including the Pyramid Texts, Imhotep, and the "first monotheist" Akhenaten reflect on the nature of things and questions of morality.

Do the cuneiform writings of Babylonian culture show that it had its own philosophy?

Might philosophy be as old as humankind as we know it? We investigate the implications of findings concerning the origins of humankind in Africa.

Chike Jeffers and Peter Adamson kick off the new series by explaining the scope and meaning of "Africana philosophy".

The host of the History of India podcast joins us for the final episode on India. Coming next: Africana philosophy!

A whirlwind tour of developments in Indian philosophy after Dignāga and a few words about the contemporary relevance of the tradition.

The impact of ancient Indian thought upon the Muslim scholar al-Bīrūnī and upon European thinkers like Hume, Hegel, and Schopenhauer.

Did Indian ideas play a role in shaping ancient Greek philosophy?

An interview with Amber Carpenter about the status of nonhuman animals in ancient Indian philosophy and literature.

Philosophy is put into practice in Kashmir Śaivite Tantra and Buddhist Tantra.

Buddhaghosa, a major figure in the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, argues against the need for a self to control and coordinate mental activities.

Dignāga argues that all perception is accompanied by self-awareness.

Graham Priest joins Peter to discuss non-classical logic and its connections with Buddhist patterns of reasoning.

Dignāga’s trairūpya theory, which sets out the three conditions required for making reliable inferences.

The great Buddhist thinker Dignāga argues that general concepts and language are mere constructions superimposed on perception.

Vasubandhu’s path to Yogācāra Buddhism, a form of idealism which holds that nothing can be mind-independent.

We're joined by Marie-Hélène Gorisse for a look at the Jain theory of knowledge.

Does the Jain theory of seven predications (saptabhaṇgī) land them in self-contradiction, or help them to avoid it?

The Jain theory of standpoints or non-onesidedness (anekāntavāda) makes truth a matter of perspective.

A discussion with Jan Westerhoff, an expert on the great Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna.

Nāgārjuna’s four-fold argument scheme, the tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi).

Nāgārjuna applies his emptiness theory to motion, change, and cognition.

Nāgārjuna founds the Madhyāmaka (“middle way”) Buddhist tradition by “relinquishing all views” and arguing that everything is “empty.”

An introduction to philosophical developments in Buddhism and Jainism up to the time of Dignāga in the sixth century AD.

Bharata’s Nāṭya-Śāstra and later works from Kashmir explore the idea of rasa, an emotional response to drama, music, and poetry.

Monima Chadha takes Peter through Buddhist-Hindu debates over mind and self.

Pāyasi and the Cārvāka anticipate modern-day theories of mind by arguing that there is no independent soul; rather thought emerges from the body.

The Cārvāka or Lokāyata tradition rejects the efficacy of ritual and belief in the afterlife, and restricts knowledge to the realm of sense-perception.

Ancient Indian cosmology and the Vaiśeṣika defense of the reality of time and space.

The Vaiśeṣika response to Buddhist skepticism about wholes made up of parts.

The Vaiśeṣika school offers a metaphysical analysis of the world and an atomistic physics.

Prof Jha and Prof Jha discuss the theories and later influence of the Nyāya school.

Nyāya proposes that each of us has both a self and a mind, in addition to the body.

Gautama and his commentators tell us how to separate good inferences from bad ones.

Nyāya philosophers explain how perception can bring us knowledge.

The Nyāya-Sūtra inaugurates a tradition of logical and epistemological analysis.

A leading expert on the founding text of Yoga tells us why, when, and by whom it was written.

Yoga as presented by Patañjali offers a practical complement to the Sāṃkhya theory of the cosmos and the self.

Philosophical aspects of Ayurveda, focusing on the oldest surviving medical treatise, the Caraka-Samhita.

The oldest treatise of Sāṃkhya enumerates the principles of the cosmos and of the human mind.

Francis Clooney joins us to discuss the religious and philosophical aspects of Vedānta.

The grammarian Bhartṛhari argues that the study of language is the path to liberation, because the undivided reality underlying language is brahman.

Śaṅkara and his “non-dual” (Advaita) Vedānta, which teaches that only brahman is real, and the world of experience and individual self are mere illusion.

How to fill the month of August while the podcast is on summer break. Buy the book versions of the podcast at Oxford University Press.

The founding text of the Vedānta school, the Vedānta- or Brahma-Sūtra, interprets the Upaniṣads as teaching that all things derive from brahman.

Mīmāṃsā expert Elisa Freschi speaks to Peter about philosophical issues arising from the interpretation of the Veda.

The Mīmāṃsā school put their faith in sense experience, and argue that the Veda, and hence language itself, had no beginning.

In the Mīmāṃsā school’s founding text, Jaimini systematizes Vedic ritual and explores its theoretical basis.

Skeptical tendences in Indian thought and responses to skepticism from the Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta schools.

Rival philosophical schools proliferate and subdivide in our second major historical period, the “age of the sūtra.”

An interview with Jessica Frazier about philosophical ideas and arguments in the Vedas, Upanisads and later Hindu texts.

Women philosophers and ideas about women in Buddhism, the Upanisads, and the Mahabharata.

Vegetarianism and non-violence (ahimsa) in ancient Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

The Bhagavad-Gītā or “Song of the Lord” from the Mahābhārata ties its theory of detached action to an innovative conception of the divine.

The great Hindu epic Mahābhārata explores moral dilemmas and the permissibilty of lying, against the background of the ethical concept of dharma.

Peter speaks to Rupert Gethin about the no-self theory, and its implications for Buddhist ethics and meditation practices.

Two figures from the Mauryan dynasty, Kautilya and the king Ashoka, set out contrasting ideas about the ideal political rule.

The Buddha offers two parables to explain the purpose of his philosophical teaching.

The Four Noble Truths of the Buddha, and the function they are supposed to play in our lives.

The pioneering Sanskrit grammar of Pāṇini and its implications for philosophy of language.

An interview with Brian Black about the philosophical and social aspects of the Upanisads.

The origins of the idea of karma, its moral significance in the Upanisads, and an alternative conception in the Bhagavad Gita.

The god Indra learns patience and something about the self in a famous passage from the Upanisads.

The ancient texts known as the Upanisads claim to expose the hidden connections between things, including the self and the world.

The Vedic period sets the context of the Upanisads, Buddhism and Jainism.

A whirlwind tour of philosophical literature in India.

In this introduction to the series, Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri propose that Indian philosophy was primarily a way of life and search for the highest good.