Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
In 1963, Martin Heidegger sat down for an interview with Bhikku Maha Mani, a Vietnamese-born Buddhist monk, radio presenter and great admirer of the reclusive and influential German philosopher. In their wide-ranging conversation, Maha Mani poses broad questions to Heidegger, yielding an illuminating exchange of ideas between two distinct schools of thought – and some characteristically enigmatic answers. Heidegger shows a sincere appreciation of aspects of Buddhism, such as its rejection of materialism and the compatibility of non-theism and religion. Some of the considerable differences between Buddhist thought and his own emerge as well, including his notion that, among living things, only humans possess the burden of ‘Being’. Their discussions of these timeless questions also open the way for fascinating glimpses into Heidegger’s views in the wake of the Second World War, including his call for a new age of thought and self-reflection amidst the ceaselessly rising tide of technology, and the enduring need for philosophy despite its historical shortcomings.
Reporter: Bhikku Maha Mani
video
History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
video
Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
video
Art
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes
video
Metaphysics
What do past, present and future mean to a philosopher of time?
55 minutes
video
Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
video
Ethics
Plato saw little value in privacy. How do his ideas hold up in the information age?
5 minutes
video
Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
video
Beauty and aesthetics
In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us
9 minutes
video
Political philosophy
Beyond the veil – what rules would govern John Rawls’s ‘realistic Utopia’?
6 minutes