Interventions | The Intellectual History Podcast

• Slavery, Empire, and John Locke (with Mark Goldie)

  John Locke continues to excite controversy. For American liberals, he is an honorary Founding Father, one of the architects of modern democracy. In their view, as Allan Bloom put it, ‘the whole world is divided into two parts, one of which traces its intellectual lineage back to Locke and the other to Marx’. For his critics on the left, by contrast, he is an apologist for slavery and European imperialism, his thought a reminder that liberalism and empire were born twins. But is either of these views really true? Perhaps if we look at Locke’s practical engagement with English colonialism, a more complicated picture will emerge.  Join Mark Goldie, one of the preeminent historians of seventeenth century political thought, as he sheds light on Locke’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, his relationship with England’s American colonies, and his views on empire and enslavement, asking how it was that the so-called father of liberalism could have accepted the absolute subjugation of other human beings. 

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• Francis Bacon: A Lion under the Throne (with Richard Serjeantson)

  According to some, Francis Bacon accomplished nothing less than a scientific revolution. Some even say he was the founder of modern science itself. Born into a world where natural magic, astrology, alchemy, and the wisdom of the Ancients were all accepted as authentic sciences, he left behind a body of work expressing a new and strange idea. In this radical vision, humanity was destined to free itself from its mundane misery by investigating nature and discovering its laws. It was a vision of collective action and incremental progress that sustains scientific practice to this day. Yet Bacon was also a deeply paradoxical figure. A lover of humanity and believer in progress, he was also a Machiavellian statesman committed to advancing the interests of the English state, as well as a self-seeking loner who married for money and disinherited his wife.  Richard Serjeantson, Cambridge’s foremost authority on Bacon’s life and legacy, tells us the intellectually exhilarating story of the man who ushered in our modern age of science. This episode is hosted by Sam Tchorek-Bentall

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• Big States, Small States, and the End of Enlightenment (Prof. Richard Whatmore)

  What lessons can we draw from eighteenth-century thought about the relationship of big and small states? What are the limits of intellectual history? How and why did the Enlightenment end? Richard Whatmore, Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews, joins us to discuss these questions and more.

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  39:10
• Equality, Intellectual Traditions, and the Seventeenth Century (Prof. Teresa Bejan)

  What can the seventeenth century teach us about equality? Why do philosophers construct intellectual traditions and how do we use them? In what ways is political theory an educative endeavour? These are some of the questions we asked Teresa Bejan, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford. Publications mentioned in this episode include: First Among Equals: The Practice and Theory of Early Modern Equality. Under contract with Harvard University Press. Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration (Harvard University Press, 2017) “The Historical Rawls,” Special Forum for Modern Intellectual History, co-edited with Sophie Smith and Annette Zimmermann (2021). “Rawls’s Teaching and the ‘Tradition’ of Political Philosophy,” Modern Intellectual History (2021).  “‘Since all the World is Mad, Why should not I be so?’ Equality, Hierarchy, and Ambition in the Thought of Mary Astell.” Political Theory (online first May 2019). “The Two Clashing Meanings of Free Speech,” The Atlantic (2 Dec. 2017).  “Teaching the Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Education,” Oxford Review of Education 36:5 (2010).

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• Hume, the History of Philosophy, and the Concept of the People (Prof. James Harris)

  How can we understand thinkers in their own terms? Why is such an approach particularly fruitful to understanding Hume? What can philosophy and the history of political thought learn from one another? What can Hobbes's conception of the people teach us about populism? James Harris, professor of the history of philosophy at the University of St Andrews, joins us to discuss these questions and more in this episode. This episode's hosts: Zack Rauwald & Elena Yi-Jia Zeng.

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