Historian Simon Schaffer on Beauty and Evolution

In 416BC the Greek playwright Aristophanes went to a drinking party. The guests included many famous Athenians, including Socrates, and all of them delivered a speech about love. Aristophanes' speech,...

28 Juli 201513min

A history of ideas. Presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices.Each week Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking 'What...

27 Juli 201512min

If we're to live well together we must first learn to live well with the dead, says Timothy Secret.At traditional Chinese funerals money, and sometimes paper effigies of goods like washing machines an...

24 Juli 201513min

Professor Angie Hobbs asks if the key to harmonious living could be found in Plato's Republic where he proposes that the ideal state be run by philosophers and not by those who seek power for their ow...

23 Juli 201513min

Is a Free Market the vital foundation of a fair, dynamic and creative society? The father of economics, Adam Smith certainly thought so. Since the publication of 'The Wealth of Nations' in 1776 Smith'...

22 Juli 201512min

Professor Justin Champion examines Locke's theory of Toleration through the inhabitants of Spitalfields past and present. He goes to Brick Lane whose famous mosque was built as a Huguenot Church and b...

21 Juli 201513min

A history of ideas. Presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices. Each week Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking 'How...

20 Juli 201512min

Rene Descartes, one of the most influential philosophers ever, thought the mind was like an open book that could be read by the light of reason. So there was nothing that we could not access or examin...

17 Apr 201512min