Agnes Callard on Lessons from Socrates

Can a work of art be immoral? What does that mean? Daisy Dixon, author of Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art discusses this question with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. 

Which physical characteristics does a woman have to have to be considered beautiful? Are there many different cultural variations on this? Heather Widdows, author of Perfect Me, thinks that today there is a single set of charactestics and that pressure to conform with these has p ... Show More

We blame people, and sometimes we blame institutions. Miranda Fricker investigates the nature of blame and its functions, draws some important distinctions, and considers the metaphysical implications of this practice. 

Where did Socrates' wisdom actually come from? It was not raw intellect alone. In this conversation, Donald Robertson and I look at the daily habits, the charisma, and the genuine love of people that made Socrates the figure everyone after him kept arguing with.Donald reaches for ... Show More

Socrates had a strange idea: that another person can act as a mirror for your own mind, showing you the thoughts you cannot see on your own. In this conversation with philosopher Donald Robertson, we follow that thread through Socrates on wisdom, self-awareness, and the art of as ... Show More

The Greek thinker Socrates was put to death for encouraging his students to question everything - from their own beliefs to the laws and customs of Athenian society. But his ideas didn't die with him.  Here's a chance to hear two episodes from our archive examining the legacy of ... Show More

The oldest self-help tool might also be the best one, and it fits on a single sheet of paper. I asked Stoic author Donald Robertson to walk me through Socrates' two-column method: a simple way to question your own assumptions, pressure-test a belief, and make a clearer decision.W ... Show More

<p>Humans have wrestled with questions about identity and purpose for millennia. So it’s no surprise that the insights of people who lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago have stood the test of time. This week, philosopher Tamar Gendler explores how three great thinkers f ... Show More

This week we talk about the prosperity of athens and how it led to the rise and ideas of a group of philosopher teachers called the Sophists, we tied up some loose ends and helped put all that we've learned in the last two episodes into context with a graph of the presocratics, a ... Show More

In this podcast Eckhart talks with a live audience in Greece. He kicks off the session discussing the spiritual wisdom of ancient Greek philosophers. Among the most renowned was Socrates who humbly said, “I am the only one who knows that he knows nothing.” Eckhart believes Socrat ... Show More

Raphael Woolf discusses Socrates as presented by Plato 

I sat down with Donald Robertson, author and psychotherapist, for a proper conversation about Socrates: his life, his methods, and why a man who wrote nothing down still shapes how we think two and a half thousand years later.Donald blends cognitive behavioural therapy with ancie ... Show More