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Rhetoric wins arguments, but it is philosophy that shows us the way to our humanity.

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The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition - Season 1

S01 E012004-01-01

From the Upanishads to HomerBefore ancient Greek civilization, the world hosted deep insights into the human condition but offered little critical reflection. Homer planted the seeds of this reflection.

S01 E022004-01-01

Philosophy—Did the Greeks Invent It?The ancient Greeks were the first to objectify the products of their own thought and feeling and be willing to subject both to critical scrutiny. Why?

S01 E032004-01-01

Pythagoras and the Divinity of NumberHow can we comprehend the very integrity of the universe and our place within it, if not by way of the most abstract relations?

S01 E042004-01-01

What Is There?How many kinds of stuff make up the cosmos? Might everything, in fact, be reducible to one kind of thing?

S01 E052004-01-01

The Greek Tragedians on Man’s FateThe ancient philosophers were only part of the rich community of thought and wonder that surrounded the world's first great dramatists and their landmark depth psychologies.

S01 E062004-01-01

Herodotus and the Lamp of HistoryCan history actually teach us? Herodotus looked at what he took to be certain universal human aspirations and deficiencies and concluded that indeed history could.

S01 E072004-01-01

Socrates on the Examined LifeRhetoric wins arguments, but it is philosophy that shows us the way to our humanity.

S01 E082004-01-01

Plato's Search For TruthIf one knows what one is looking for, why is a search necessary? And if one doesn't know, how is that search even possible? Socrates versus the Sophists.

S01 E092004-01-01

Can Virtue Be Taught?If virtue can be taught, whose virtue will it be? A look at the Socratic recognition of multiculturalism and moral relativism.

S01 E102004-01-01

Plato's Republic—Man Writ LargeThis most famous of Plato's dialogues begins with the metaphor—or perhaps the reality—of the polis (community) as the expanded version of the person, with the fate of each inextricably bound to that of the other.

S01 E112004-01-01

Hippocrates and the Science of LifeHippocratic medicine did much to demystify the human condition and the natural factors that affect it.

S01 E122004-01-01

Aristotle on the KnowableSmith knows that a particular triangle contains 180 degrees because he has measured it, while Jones knows it by definition. But do they know the same thing?

S01 E132004-01-01

Aristotle on FriendshipIf true friendship is possible only between equals, how equal must they be—and with respect to what?

S01 E142004-01-01

Aristotle on the Perfect LifeWhat sort of life is right for humankind, and what is it about us that makes this so?

S01 E152004-01-01

Rome, the Stoics, and the Rule of LawThe Stoics found in language something that would separate humanity from the animate realm, and that gave Rome a philosophy to civilize the world.

S01 E162004-01-01

The Stoic Bridge to ChristianityThe Jewish Christians, Hellenized or Orthodox, defended a monotheistic source of law.

S01 E172004-01-01

Roman Law—Making a City of the Once-Wide WorldRoman development of law based on a conception of nature, and of human nature, is one of the signal achievements in the history of civilization.

S01 E182004-01-01

The Light Within—Augustine on Human NatureThoughts and ideas from the fathers of the early Christian Church culminated in St. Augustine, who explores humanity's capacity for good and evil.

S01 E192004-01-01

IslamWhat did the Prophet teach that so moved the masses? And how did the Western world come to understand the threat embodied in these Eastern "heresies"?

S01 E202004-01-01

Secular Knowledge—The Idea of UniversityApart from trade schools devoted to medicine and law, the university as we know it did not come into being until 12th-century Paris.

S01 E212004-01-01

The Reappearance of Experimental ScienceThere were really two great renaissances. The first occurred at Oxford in the 13th century: the recovery of experimental inquiry by Roger Bacon and others.

S01 E222004-01-01

Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural LawThomas Aquinas's treatises on law would stand for centuries as the foundation of critical inquiry in jurisprudence.

S01 E232004-01-01

The Renaissance—Was There One?From Petrarch in the south to Erasmus in the north, Humanistic thought collided with those seeking to defend faith.

S01 E242004-01-01

Let Us Burn the Witches to Save ThemEven in the time we honor with the title of Renaissance ran an undercurrent of a heady and ominous mixture of natural magic, natural science, and cruel superstition.

S01 E252004-01-01

Francis Bacon and the Authority of ExperienceFrancis Bacon would come to be regarded as the prophet of Newton and originator of modern experimental science.

S01 E262004-01-01

Descartes and the Authority of ReasonDescartes is remembered for "I think, therefore I am." With his work, the authority of revelation, history, and title was replaced by the weight of reason itself.

S01 E272004-01-01

Newton—The Saint of ScienceIn the century after Newton's death, the Enlightenment's major architects of reform and revolution defended their ideas in terms of Newtonian science and its implications.

S01 E282004-01-01

Hobbes and the Social MachineAs the idea of social science gained force, Hobbes's controversial treatise helped to naturalize the civil realm, readying it for scientific explanation.

S01 E292004-01-01

Locke’s Newtonian Science of the MindIf all of physical reality can be reduced to elementary corpuscular entities, is the mind nothing more than comparable elements held together by something akin to gravity?

S01 E302004-01-01

No matter? The Challenge of MaterialismWhen Berkeley reacted to Locke with an extravagant critique of materialism, he unwittingly reinforced claims of skeptics he meant to defeat.

S01 E312004-01-01

Hume and the Pursuit of HappinessDavid Hume was perhaps the most influential philosopher to write in English, carrying empiricism to its logical end and thus grounding morality, truth, causation, and governance in experience.

S01 E322004-01-01

Thomas Reid and the Scottish SchoolThomas Reid was Hume's most successful and influential critic, with a common sense psychology that was both naturalistic and compatible with religious teaching and which reached America's founders.

S01 E332004-01-01

France and the PhilosophesThe leading French thinkers of the 18th century—Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and Diderot—appealed directly to the ordinary citizen, encouraging skepticism toward traditional authority.

S01 E342004-01-01

The Federalist Papers and the Great ExperimentThe extraordinary documents written in support of the proposed constitution represent a profound legacy in political philosophy.

S01 E352004-01-01

What Is Enlightenment? Kant on FreedomHere the limits of reason and the very framework of thought complete—and in another respect undermine—the very project of the Enlightenment.

S01 E362004-01-01

Moral Science and the Natural WorldKant traced the implications of a human life as lived in both the natural world of causality and the intelligible world of reason (where morality arises).

S01 E372004-01-01

Phrenology—A Science of the MindIn founding the now-discredited theory of phrenology, Franz Gall nevertheless helped define today's brain sciences.

S01 E382004-01-01

The Idea of FreedomThe idea of freedom developed by Goethe, Schiller, and other romantic idealists forms a central chapter in the Long Debate over whether or not science has overstepped its bounds.

S01 E392004-01-01

The Hegelians and HistoryHegel's Reason in History and other works inspired a transcendentalist movement that spanned Europe, Great Britain, and the United States.

S01 E402004-01-01

The Aesthetic Movement—GeniusBy the second half of the 19th century, the House of Intellect was divided between two competing perspectives: the growing aesthetic concept of reality and the narrowing scientific view.

S01 E412004-01-01

Nietzsche at the TwilightA student of the classics, Nietzsche came to regard the human condition as fatally tied to needs and motives that operate at the most powerful levels of existence.

S01 E422004-01-01

The Liberal Tradition—J. S. MillWhen can the state or the majority legitimately exercise power over the actions of individuals? The modern liberal answer is set forth in the work of Mill, an almost unchallenged authority for more than a century.

S01 E432004-01-01

Darwin and Nature’s “Purposes”From social Darwinism to sociobiology, the evolutionary science of the late 18th and 19th centuries dominates social thought and political initiatives.

S01 E442004-01-01

Marxism—Dead But Not ForgottenAfter years of influence, the Marxist critique of society is now more a subtext than a guiding bible of reform.

S01 E452004-01-01

The Freudian WorldMarx, Darwin, and Freud are the chief 19th-century architects of modern thought about society and self—each was nominally "scientific" in approach and believed their theories to be grounded in the realm of observable facts.

S01 E462004-01-01

The Radical William JamesMortally opposed to all "block universes" of certainty and theoretical hubris, James offered a quintessentially home-grown psychology of experience.

S01 E472004-01-01

William James's PragmatismWorking in the realm of common sense, James directed the attention of philosophy and science to that ultimate arena of confirmation in which our deepest and most enduring interests are found.

S01 E482004-01-01

Wittgenstein and the Discursive TurnMeaning arises from conventions that presuppose not only a social world but a world in which we share the interests and aspirations of others.

S01 E492004-01-01

Alan Turing in the Forest of WisdomTuring is famous for breaking Germany's famed World War II Enigma code, but, as a founder of modern computational science, he also wrote influentially about the possibilities of breaking the mind's code.

S01 E502004-01-01

Four Theories of the Good LifeThe contemplative. The active. The fatalistic. The hedonistic. There are good but limited arguments for each of these.

S01 E512004-01-01

Ontology—What There "Really" IsFrom the Greek ontos, there is a branch of metaphysics referred to as ontology, devoted to the question of "real being." Ontological controversies have broad ethical and social implications.

S01 E522004-01-01

Philosophy of Science—The Last Word?Should fundamental questions, if they are to be answered with precision and objectivity, be answered by science? We consider Thomas Kuhn's influential treatise on scientific revolutions.

S01 E532004-01-01

Philosophy of Psychology and Related ConfusionsPsychology is a subject of many and varied interests but narrow modes of inquiry. Today cognitive neuroscience is the dominant approach, but other schools have reappeared.

S01 E542004-01-01

Philosophy of Mind, If There Is OneThe principal grounds of disagreement within the wide-ranging subject of philosophy of mind center on whether the right framework for considering issues is provided by developed sciences or humanistic frameworks.

S01 E552004-01-01

What makes a Problem “Moral”Is there a “moral reality”? We examine especially David Hume’s rejection of the idea that there is anything “moral” in the external world.

S01 E562004-01-01

Medicine and the Value of LifeWhat guidance does moral philosophy provide in the domain of medicine, where life-and-death decisions are made daily?

S01 E572004-01-01

On the Nature of LawPhilosophy of law is an ancient subject, developed by Aristotle and elaborated by Cicero. We see how natural law theory has evolved through the Enlightenment and the writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin.

S01 E582004-01-01

Justice and Just WarsTheories of the “just war,” beginning with St. Augustine and including St. Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vittoria, and Francisco Suarez, set forth principles by which engaging in and conducting war are justified.

S01 E592004-01-01

Aesthetics—Beauty Without ObserversThe subject of beauty is among the oldest in philosophy, treated at length in several of the dialogues of Plato and in his Symposium, and redefined through history. What is beauty? Is there anything “rational” about it?

S01 E602004-01-01

God—Really?We consider various theological arguments for and against belief in God, including those of Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Reid, and William James.

The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition - Seasons

Season 1

The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition - Cast & Crew

Daniel Nicholas Robinson

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