Skip to main content

Free Thinking - Philosophy: Bryan Magee

This is a late bounce on the radio podcast commented by Claudia. A radio program from BBC Radio 3. The show is called Free Thinking but I have little experience with it apart from this particular podcast I want to share with you. Here you have a very interesting debate on the role Philosophy as a discipline, its life in and outside academia, the possibility of vulgarizing and/or disseminating it, etc. The interviewees (highly accomplish philosophers: MM McCabe, Lucy O'Brian, Nigel Warburton and Constantine Sandis) question whether Philosophy is the History of Philosophy and the incorporation of established philosophical thinking, or the mental engine a philosopher put at work when formulating and discussing any philosophical issue, as well as many other subjects universal or contingent in current times. They even discuss at some point the role of Bryan Magee and his attempts to put Philosophy on prime time TV (BBC).

Enjoy!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Slow science/publishing and educational system

Guys, I don't know if you already know about the ''Slow science movement'' or not, well this is a wiki definition for it: Slow science  is part of the broader  slow movement . It is based on the belief that  science  should be a slow, steady, methodical process, and that scientists should not be expected to provide "quick fixes" to society's problems. Slow science supports  curiosity -driven  scientific research  and opposes  performance targets . I'm personally interested in it if you remember Gabriel once we had a discussion on the waste of energy and resources to produce junk science and the fact that scientists are losing balance on looking into science.  Sometimes people do not know why they publish and for the sake of what?! it's become a tradition or kinda religion.  I'm most agreed with the directed scientific activities, slowly going ahead and touching the problem, whenever you can swallow the problem with...

Of Beauty and Consolation

Van de Schoonheid en de Troost or Of Beauty and Consolation is Dutch TV program hosted by Wim Kayzer and broadcasted in 2000. There are several reasons for me to recomend this tv series. First of all I like the title very much. The title is in itself consoling, says that there is somewhere or somehow the possibility of consolation (that for some reason I feel the need). The second reason is the music of the beginning of each episode. Then, of course, the interviews themselves, since they are long enough and free enough to allow these brilliant people to show a little bit of their work, of their personality, of their idiosyncrasies. And probably the nicest thing of the series is the diversity of the people interviewed, scientists, writers, philosophers, painters, some incredibly shy, some the opposite, some believe in ghosts, most don't, all in all an interesting catalog of the human species. The tv series ends with a show in which they gather many of the guests to discuss the...

Omar Khayyam; an outstanding intellectual

Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, philosopher, poet and astronomer born in 1048 in Nishapur (modern day Iran). He obtained his early education from a scholar named Sheikh Mohammad Mansuri and later from one of the most renowned scholars of khorasan province. Mathematical Works Khayyam’s most famous works include his highly influential mathematical treatise called ‘Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra’ which he completed in 1070. This treatise highlighted the basic algebraic principles that were ultimately shifted to Europe. He laid the foundation of the Pascal’s triangle with his work on triangular array of binomial coefficients. In 1077 another major work was written by Khayyam namely ‘Sharh ma ashkala min musadarat kitab Uqlidis’ meaning ‘Explanations of the Difficulties in the Postulates of Euclid ’. It was published in English as “On the Difficulties of Euclid’s Definitions. In this book he contributed to non-euclidean geometry even though this was no...