Plato's Atlantis

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), who was part of the movement known as phenomenology. While less well-known than his contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, his popularity has increased among philosophers in ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's Crito and Phaedo, his accounts of the last days of Socrates in prison in 399 BC as he waited to be executed by drinking hemlock. Both works show Socrates preparing to die in the way he had lived: doing philosophy. In the Crito, Plato shows ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's account of the once great island of Atlantis out to the west, beyond the world known to his fellow Athenians, and why it disappeared many thousands of years before his time. There are no sources for this story other than Plato, and he tells ...  Show more

Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Stephen Kershaw and comedian Sophie Duker to dive into the myth of Atlantis. The Atlantean story has its origins in the writings of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. And literally nowhere else. Yet the enduring appeal of this mythical city and a sop ...  Show more

Unravel History's Greatest Mystery

People the world over have grappled with the story of Atlantis for millennia. But how much is fact? How much is fiction? How much is something else, filtered through the obscuring lens of time?

Clairvoyant impressions from ...  Show more

The story of Atlantis has fascinated the world for centuries... But how many of us know where the story came from, or what is actually included in the original source? Episode one of Deconstructing Atlantis dives into the story of Atlantis as it exists in the Timaeus and Critias. ...  Show more