Rhetoric
In Our Time14 Okt 2004

Rhetoric

Melvyn Bragg and guests discusses rhetoric. Gorgias, the great sophist philosopher and master of rhetoric said, "Speech is a powerful lord that with the smallest and most invisible body accomplished most godlike works. It can banish fear and remove grief, and instil pleasure and enhance pity. Divine sweetness transmitted through words is inductive of pleasure and reductive of pain". But for Plato it was a vice, and those like Gorgias who taught rhetoric were teaching the skills of lying in return for money and were a great danger. He warned "this device - be it which it may, art or mere artless empirical knack - must not, if we can help it, strike root in our society".But strike root it did, and there is a rich tradition of philosophers and theologians who have attempted to make sense of it.How did the art of rhetoric develop? What part has it played in philosophy and literature? And does it still deserve the health warning applied so unambiguously by Plato?With Angie Hobbs, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick; Thomas Healy, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London; Ceri Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Wales, Bangor.

Episoder(1087)

Modern Culture

Modern Culture

Melvyn Bragg and guests debate the state of Modern Culture in the 20th century. Culture used to be a word we mocked, a concept too foreign for the stout empiricists of Britain, a species of foreign fl...

28 Jan 199927min

Genetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the implications of the developments in genetic engineering. Out of the city of Cambridge in the mid century came DNA and out of Edinburgh at the end of the century cam...

14 Jan 199927min

Feminism

Feminism

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most important events of the 20th century - the rise of Feminism and the subsequent empowerment of women. What have been the most important and lasting chang...

7 Jan 199928min

The British Empire's Legacy

The British Empire's Legacy

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Britain's colonial legacy. The 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th centuries were times of colonial conquest for this country but the abiding image of empire (true or...

31 Des 199828min

Neuroscience in the 20th century

Neuroscience in the 20th century

Melvyn Bragg and guests marvel at our brains and discuss how at the end of a century of research we still understand so little about how they work.Developments in the understanding of the brain repres...

24 Des 199828min

The American Century

The American Century

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how legitimate it is to call the 20th century the American century. Just how benevolent has America’s impact on the world been? And how durable has American’s initial i...

17 Des 199827min

Cultural Rights in the 20th Century

Cultural Rights in the 20th Century

On the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations in New York, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the current status of that original declaration. Is it ...

10 Des 199828min

History's relevance in the 20th century

History's relevance in the 20th century

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the study of history this century. One of the debates raging in the practice of history is between the history of facts versus the imagination - a debate raised again b...

3 Des 199828min

Populært innen Historie

med-egne-oyne
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
historier-som-endret-norge
henrettelsespodden
rss-benadet
sektledere
rss-nadelose-nordmenn-gestapo
aftenposten-historie
historier-som-endret-verden
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
rss-katastrofe
rss-bisarr-historie
rss-gamle-greier
rss-frontkjemperne
liberal-halvtime
rss-historiske-romanser-svik-drap-og-kjarlighet
historiepodden
historiepodden-ww2
rss-historiepodden-ww2
vare-historier