Thoreau and the American Idyll

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

Rajan Datar and guests explore the life and legacy of the American thinker Henry David Thoreau and his famous work 'Walden', which describes the young writer's experiment in living simply at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, for two years, two months and two days in the 1840s. A land ...  Show more

The evidence is clear: Henry David Thoreau was an industrious person who worked hard throughout his life. And yet, he's often viewed as a kind of dreamy layabout who dropped out of society so he could sit by his pond and think his thoughts. Can we reconcile these two figures? Wha ...  Show more

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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Let's journey to sleep with Henry David Thoreau as he explores the back of beyond in Maine, ponders the fate of forests, visits some barely-there towns, and…gets acc ...

Today we take a look at Henry David Thoreau's views on the individual, society and civil disobedience. Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help. Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philosophizethis Social: Inst ...  Show more