HoP 045 - The Second Self - Aristotle On Plea...

La Rochefoucauld and other “moralists” offer a penetrating and witty critique of human pride, selfishness, and hypocrisy. Is this just cynicism, or does it support a positive ethic? 

How the French formal garden embodied both Cartesian philosophy and the political ideology of the French monarchy. 

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the concept of friendship. In Greek and Roman times, friendship was thought of as being an essential constituent of both a good society and a good life; a good society because it lay at the heart of participative civic democracy; a good life becaus ...  Show more

How should we live? This is the basic question for all of us. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Edith Hall, author of the book Aristotle's Way, gives a sympathetic answer to Aristotle's take on this question.  

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

On essays from Lear's Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul (1988): "Inside and Outside the Republic," "Eros and Unknowing: The Psychoanalytic Significance of Plato's Symposium," and "An Interpretation of Transference," which compares Socrates' questioning wi ...