GWF Hegel is one of the most difficult philosophers in the western canon, but today we’ attempt to demystify him. In this episode, we’ll break down Hegel’s phenomenology, the dialectic, and the Hegelian understanding of desire. Our concrete entrypoint into the thought of Hegel is his famous chapter, The Master-Slave Dialectic. Deleuze argued that Nietzsche’s ... Show More
Aug 19
The Gay Science #16 (IV.276-288)
Continuing with The Gay Science, and beginning with book IV, "Sanctus Januarius". Here, we encounter some of the most famous aphorisms: For the New Year, Preparatory Men ("Live Dangerously!") and Excelsior. Exciting times!Episode art: View of Genoa under the Snow - Eugenio Olivar ... Show More
1h 56m
Aug 12
120: Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind, pt 2 - Burckhardt, Nietzsche & History
The conclusion of our two-parter on Erich Heller, and the conclusion to season five! We discuss Nietzsche's friendship with Jacob Burckhardt, and how Burckhardt's view of history can inform our understanding of Nietzsche's divergence from him. We also consider Goethe's four ages ... Show More
1h 44m
Aug 5
119: Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind, pt 1 - Goethe, Schiller & The Symbol
Something happened to the human mind around the birth of modernity: the divorce of reality and the symbol. Once unified in eucharist, the symbolic and the real are now separate spheres of the human mind, and while it initially seemed that art and science might benefit by this sep ... Show More
1h 39m
Dec 2020
Hegel's Philosophy of Right
What links Beethoven & Hegel's philosophy of freedom? Anne McElvoy talks to New Generation Thinker Seán Williams, Christoph Schuringa, Gary Browning, and Alison Stone about Hegel's discussion of freedom, law, family, markets and the state in his Principles of the Philosophy of Ri ... Show More
44m 8s
Jun 2022
Hegel's Philosophy of History
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) on history. Hegel, one of the most influential of the modern philosophers, described history as the progress in the consciousness of freedom, asking whether we enjoy more freedom now than those w ... Show More
52m 25s
Jun 2022
Hegel's Philosophy of History
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) on history. Hegel, one of the most influential of the modern philosophers, described history as the progress in the consciousness of freedom, asking whether we enjoy more freedom now than those w ... Show More
52m 25s
Feb 2022
Dialectics: From Hegel To Marx
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was one of the greatest minds that humanity has ever known. His development of the dialectic, placed on a materialist basis by Marx, provides key insights into the logic of all change, development and transformation in nature, society and the human m ... Show More
38m 22s
Jan 2009
The Consolations of Philosophy
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the consolation of Philosophy. In the 6th century AD, a successful and intelligent Roman politician called Boethius found himself unjustly accused of treason. Trapped in his prison cell, awaiting a brutal execution, he found solace in philosophical ... Show More
42m 20s
Nov 2020
Genealogy of Morals | Friedrich Nietzsche
This episode summarises Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals in 10 minutes. It is among Nietzsche’s most sustained and cohesive works consisting of three essays: “Good and Evil, Good and Bad”, “Guilt, Bad Conscience and the Like” and “What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?”
In ... Show More
9m 59s
Aug 2022
Simon Truwant, "Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos: The Philosophical Arguments" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
The 1929 encounter between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger in Davos, Switzerland is considered one of the most important intellectual debates of the twentieth century and a founding moment of continental philosophy. At the same time, many commentators have questioned the phil ... Show More
1 h