Books of Titans Podcast

Erik Rostad
  • 4.3 (104)
  • BOOKS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Welcome to the Books of Titans Podcast where I (Erik Rostad) seek truth & beauty in the Immortal Books. My goal is to read the Great Books written by 200 authors over the next 15 years and share what I’m learning. I’ll talk a bit about each book, tie ideas together from a variety of genres, and share the one thing I always hope to remember from each of the Immortal Books. www.booksoftitans.com

  1. 5D AGO

    #289 - Parmenides

    In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Parmenides of Elea. Robin Waterfield calls him “the single most important Pre-socratic thinker.” He introduced a puzzle about Being that required a response by philosophers who followed him. From that puzzle, we have the Atom / Void idea from Democritus and the Forms / Shadows idea from Plato. Plato even has a dialogue named after this influential philosopher who lived from 515 - 450BC. Books Referenced: * Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics * The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics * Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    20 min

  2. APR 24

    #288 - Gorgias

    In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Gorgias, the father of the Sophistic Movement. We can pinpoint a shift from philosophy to sophism in the life of Gorgias. Each of the early Greek philosophers had a First Principle, an arche they considered to be the foundation of everything else. That stops with the Sophists. Instead of a love of wisdom using speech to seek after truth, the Sophists value persuasion and the ability to get results irrespective of truth. The work of most early Greek philosophers only survives in minor fragments. With Gorgias, we have some surviving full works that are simply delightful. I talk about the life of Gorgias, these surviving works, and the one thing the stuck out to me the most about this early Sophist. Books Referenced: * The Greek Sophists - Translation by John Dillon and Tania Gergel - Penguin Classics * The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics * Lives of the Sophists - Philostratus - Loeb Classical Library 134 Show Notes: * Encomium of Helen This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    31 min

  3. APR 17

    #287 - Democritus

    In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Democritus of Abdera. He is one of my favorite early Greek philosophers, mainly because of his wisdom/ethical sayings. He barely made the Presocratic cut, being just 1 - 10 years before Socrates. However, his ideas, way ahead of their time, were picked up by Aristotle and Epicurus and have influenced humankind to our time. A true Renaissance Man before it was popular 😉, Democritus is worthy of study. His First Principle(s) of Atoms and the Void are revolutionary and are great responses to the ideas of earlier philosophers. Books Referenced: * Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics * The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics * Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    27 min

  4. APR 10

    #286 - Anaxagoras

    In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. His first principle, the thing that organized everything else, was the nous or the mind. He thought that in the beginning, there was an original mixture of unchanging seeds that a mind set in motion and began to organize. Anaxagoras was born in Asia Minor and moved to Athens, becoming one of the first philosophers to establish Athens as a hub of philosophy. In fact, Anaxagoras is a philosophical grandfather to Socrates through his student Archelaus. Socrates learned from Archelaus who learned from Anaxagoras. Books Referenced: * Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics * The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics * Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    21 min

  5. APR 3

    #285 - Empedocles

    In this podcast episode, I cover the life and ideas of Empedocles of Acragas. He lived from 495 - 435 BC before dramatically diving into the volcano at Mt. Etna to prove he was immortal. As we find out in this episode, the accounts of the life and death of Empedocles are varied and contradictory and contain an element of myth, which is appropriate given his use of epic poetry to present his ideas. With Empedocles, we have the largest stash of fragments of any of the early Greek Philosophers. Books Referenced: * Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics * The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics * Lives of the Eminent Philosophers - Diogenes Laertius - Loeb Classical Library This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    29 min

  6. MAR 27

    #284 - Thales of Miletus

    Aristotle called Thales the Father of Natural Philosophy. At a very high level, he’s credited with shifting from mythos to logos, from a mythological explanation of the world to one based upon natural observation. Thales believed that water was the underlying principle of everything, that an immortal soul existed, and that earthquakes were caused by waves underneath a flat earth instead of by the gods. Thales of Miletus is one of the earliest Greek philosophers (625 - 545 BC) and in this podcast episode, I look at his life, his ideas, and his impact both now and then. Books Referenced: * Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics * The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    29 min

  7. MAR 20

    #283 - The Logos of Heraclitus by Eva Brann

    Last week, I talked about the life and philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus. A number of his surviving fragments deal with the concept of Logos, what Eva Brann calls “the order that is the cosmos.” This week, I’m taking a deeper look into what Heraclitus meant by Logos and how that might help us better understand John’s use of it in the New Testament Gospel, where he writes, “In the beginning was the Logos…” In The Logos of Heraclitus, Eva Brann considers the fragments of Heraclitus in order to arrange a cohesive philosophy containing Logos, fire, and flux. I share what I learned from this short book and how it expanded my understanding of the Logos. Show Notes: * March 13, 2026 Episode about Heraclitus * Purchase The Logos of Heraclitus by Eva Brann This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    19 min

  8. MAR 13

    #282 - Heraclitus

    For the next month or so, I’m going to highlight different early Greek Philosophers on the podcast and in my Substack articles. Last year, I started reading Plato’s dialogues and realized that I didn’t know the philosophers or their ideas that he was referencing. I stopped reading the dialogues in order to get to know these Greek Philosophers. In this episode, I cover Heraclitus, a philosopher famous for his ideas on flux, fire, and the logos. While we don’t have his complete work On Nature, we do have fragments that provide an understanding of his main ideas. This will be a two-part episode with this first one focusing on the life and ideas of Heraclitus and the second one focusing on Heraclitus’ idea of the logos. Here are the books I referenced for this podcast episode: * Early Greek Philosophy - Translation by Jonathan Barnes - Penguin Classics * Heraclitus Fragments - Translation by Brooks Haxton - Penguin Classics * The First Philosophers - Translation by Robin Waterfield - Oxford World’s Classics * Heraclitean Fire - Erwin Chargaff - Book 20 in 2017 * Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogene Laertius - Vol 2 of Loeb. * Major Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Oxford University Press This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.booksoftitans.com/subscribe

    40 min
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About

Welcome to the Books of Titans Podcast where I (Erik Rostad) seek truth & beauty in the Immortal Books. My goal is to read the Great Books written by 200 authors over the next 15 years and share what I’m learning. I’ll talk a bit about each book, tie ideas together from a variety of genres, and share the one thing I always hope to remember from each of the Immortal Books. www.booksoftitans.com

Information

  • Creator
    Erik Rostad
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    345
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Erik Rostad
  • Show Website
    Books of Titans Podcast

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