In his landmark works Discourse on the Method (1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), René Descartes tackled a simple yet imposing question: how can one know anything for certain? Laid out in methodical detail, his answers would provide the foundation for modern philosophy and science. In this video from 1987, the celebrated UK broadcaster and philosophy populariser Bryan Magee (1930-2019) dissects Descartes’s world-changing writings alongside the UK philosopher and Descartes scholar Bernard Williams (1929-2003). In doing so, the pair touches on how the existence of God was fundamental to Descartes’s construction of the Universe, what precisely he meant in proclaiming ‘I think, therefore I am’, and which of his ideas have fallen out of fashion in contemporary philosophy.
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Ethics
For Iris Murdoch, selfishness is a fault that can be solved by reframing the world
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Death
A hunter’s lyrical reflection on the humbling business of being mortal
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Love and friendship
After his son’s terrorist attack, Azdyne seeks healing – and his granddaughter
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Art
More than breathtaking, ‘The Birth of Venus’ signalled an aesthetic revolution
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Values and beliefs
A Zen Buddhist priest voices the deep matters he usually ponders in silence
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Thinkers and theories
‘My art is oratory, Socrates.’ An ancient warning on the power and peril of rhetoric
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Meaning and the good life
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Human rights and justice
‘I know that change is possible’ – a Deaf prison chaplain’s gospel of hope
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Art
The overlooked polymath whose theatrical oeuvre made all of Rome a stage
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