Peter Adamson (philosopher)

Adamson lives in Munich with his wife (who is Bavarian) and children. He is fluent in English and German and can also work with texts in Ancient Greek, Arabic, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and more recently Persian.[4] He advocates respecting religion as inseparable from philosophy, seeing religious thought as "philosophically fascinating and fruitful".[2] In a 2019 interview, Adamson stated: "If I could live ten times, I’d like to spend nine of those lives specializing in different areas of the history of philosophy."[2]

Adamson is the host of History of Philosophy without any gaps podcasts, which started in 2010[5] and is ongoing as of 2020 and examines philosophers and philosophical traditions throughout history. By 2014, the podcasts had more than four million downloads and thousands of followers.[3] The podcasts led to the publication of a series of book adaptations.[3] The first installment was titled Classical Philosophy: A history of philosophy without any gaps and published in 2014.[6][7] The second volume, Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, was published in 2015 and covered the period after Aristotle up to the death of St. Augustine.[8][9] The third installment Philosophy in the Islamic World: History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps covered the philosophical traditions in the Islamic world, including Muslim, Jewish and Christian philosophers.[10][11]

Adamson said that the goal of the series was to tell the history of philosophy in "an entertaining but not overly-simplified way".[6] The Times of Israel contributor Daniel J. Levy described the podcasts as "popular", "fun" and "easy to listen to".[10] Levy also reviewed the third book Philosophy in the Islamic World, and praised it for its presentation and wide coverage.[10] Bruce Fleming, reviewing Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds for The Washington Free Beacon, praised the book for being "full of clear summaries" of the subjects as well as for using "groan-inducing puns" and "cute allusions to our day".[8] Malcolm Thorndike Nicholson of Prospect, reviewing the first book Classical Philosophy criticised the puns as "a problem", and in general criticised the book for its "painful prose" and for having chapters that are "less comprehensive and less interesting" than the corresponding Wikipedia article.[6]

Other than the History of Philosophy series, Adamson wrote The Arabic Plotinus: a Philosophical Study of the 'Theology of Aristotle', focusing on the so-called Theology of Aristotle in 2002 and Great Medieval Thinkers: al-Kindi on the Islamic philosopher Al-Kindi in 2007.[3] As of 2014, he has published at least 40 articles and edited or co-edited at least nine books, mostly on philosophy in the Islamic world and on ancient philosophy.[3] He and Richard C. Taylor co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy.[3]

He has also appeared on BBC Radio, including several In Our Time programmes, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, to discuss his areas of work in history of philosophy.[3]