The Social Contract
In Our Time7 Feb 2008

The Social Contract

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Social Contract and ask a foundational question of political philosophy – by what authority does a government govern? “Man was born free and he is everywhere in chains”. So begins Jean Jacques Rousseau’s great work on the Social Contract. Rousseau was trying to understand why a man would give up his natural freedoms and bind himself to the rule of a prince or a government. But the idea of the social contract - that political authority is held through a contract with those to be ruled - began before Rousseau with the work of John Locke, Hugo Grotius and even Plato. We explore how an idea that burgeoned among the 17th century upheavals of the English civil war and then withered in the face of modern capitalist society still influences our attitude to government today. With Melissa Lane, Senior University Lecturer in History at Cambridge University; Susan James, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London; Karen O’Brien, Professor of English Literature at the University of Warwick.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(1093)

The Garamantes

The Garamantes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss an ancient civilisation who lived over 2000 years ago in the southwest of modern-day Libya. During prehistoric times, the Sahara Desert was greener and even had large l...

11 Juni 57min

Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the great writers on Central Europe after the first world war and on the dying of the old orders with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As a German s...

4 Juni 55min

Cybernetics

Cybernetics

Misha Glenny and guests discuss cybernetics – the field of study which gave us the prefix ‘cyber’ and helped lay the foundations for the information age. After the Second World War, cybernetics emerge...

28 Maj 52min

Indian Indentured Labour

Indian Indentured Labour

Misha Glenny and guests discuss how, after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, sugar planters recruited workers from India to replace or compete with their formerly enslaved labour...

21 Maj 51min

M.C. Escher

M.C. Escher

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the work of Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), the graphic artist and printmaker best known for his impossible buildings, paradoxical perspectives, and repeating geom...

14 Maj 55min

Handel's Messiah

Handel's Messiah

Misha Glenny and his guests discuss the most famous oratorio of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and his librettist Charles Jennens (1700-1773). For his libretto, Jennens drew from Old and New Test...

7 Maj 54min

The Spanish-American War 1898

The Spanish-American War 1898

Misha Glenny and guests discuss a turning point in world affairs in 1898 that left Spain greatly reduced as an imperial power and the US the owner of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, with a sign...

30 Apr 55min

Silicon

Silicon

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the physics, biology and chemistry of the element silicon which is at the heart of some of the most useful and beautiful objects on the planet. While it is still being...

23 Apr 52min

Populärt inom Historia

motiv
kod-katastrof
historiska-brott
massmordarpodden
historiepodden-se
rss-historien-om-2
p3-historia
olosta-mord
historianu-med-urban-lindstedt
rss-brottsligt
rss-massmordarpodden
konspirationsteorier
krigshistoriepodden
militarhistoriepodden
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
rss-folkets-historia
nu-blir-det-historia
bedragare
rss-konspirationsteorier
rss-historiens-mysterier