In Our Time: Philosophy

Latest episodes

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A Message from Misha

This podcast collection is now unavailable. To continue listening, search for and follow the main In Our Time podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you find your podcasts. Ne

Oct 12
1 min

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), who was part of the movement known as phenomenology. While less well-known than

Apr 24 2025
59 min

Socrates in Prison

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's Crito and Phaedo, his accounts of the last days of Socrates in prison in 399 BC as he waited to be executed by drinking hemlock. B

Feb 20 2025
50 min

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Austrian-British economist Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944) in which Hayek (1899-1992) warned that the way Britain was run

Nov 14 2024
53 min

Philippa Foot

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century, Philippa Foot (1920 - 2010). Her central question was, “Why be moral?”

Jun 13 2024
58 min

Panpsychism

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that some kind of consciousness is present not just in our human brains but throughout the universe, right down to cells or even

Feb 22 2024
53 min

Condorcet

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-94), known as the Last of the Philosophes, the intellectuals in the French Enlightenment who sought to apply th

Feb 8 2024
50 min

The Theory of the Leisure Class

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Cl

Dec 14 2023
55 min

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's ideas on what happiness means and how to live a good life. Aristotle (384-322BC) explored these almost two and a half thousand

Nov 30 2023
52 min

Elizabeth Anscombe

In 1956 Oxford University awarded an honorary degree to the former US president Harry S. Truman for his role in ending the Second World War. One philosopher, Elizabeth An

Jul 20 2023
54 min

Solon the Lawgiver

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Solon, who was elected archon or chief magistrate of Athens in 594 BC: some see him as the father of Athenian democracy. In the first ye

Apr 20 2023
51 min

Mercantilism

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, between the 16th and 18th centuries, Europe was dominated by an economic way of thinking called mercantilism. The key idea was that e

Apr 13 2023
57 min

Tycho Brahe

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) whose charts offered an unprecedented level of accuracy. In 1572 Brahe's obser

Mar 2 2023
53 min

Rawls' Theory of Justice

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss A Theory of Justice by John Rawls (1921 - 2002) which has been called the most influential book in twentieth century political philosophy.

Feb 16 2023
1 h 00 min

Plato's Atlantis

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Plato's account of the once great island of Atlantis out to the west, beyond the world known to his fellow Athenians, and why it disappear

Oct 20 2022
54 min

Hegel's Philosophy of History

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) on history. Hegel, one of the most influential of the modern philosophers, described

Jun 23 2022
52 min

Comenius

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Czech educator Jan Amos Komenský (1592-1670) known throughout Europe in his lifetime under the Latin version of his name, Comenius. A

Jun 16 2022
56 min

Charisma

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea of charismatic authority developed by Max Weber (1864-1920) to explain why people welcome some as their legitimate rulers and fol

Apr 14 2022
52 min

The Arthashastra

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit text the Arthashastra, regarded as one of the major works of Indian literature. Written in the style of a scientific

Mar 31 2022
56 min

Walter Benjamin

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most celebrated thinkers of the twentieth century. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, critic, histori

Feb 10 2022
50 min

Chart trend

Position in the History chart (US), last 90 days.

#1#100#199AugSepOct

#42

all-time peak

days in the top 50 since Nov 2024

Chart positions

Where In Our Time: Philosophy ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Oct 14, 2026).

#156 ▲ 43 History US

What listeners say

A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.

Overall a very interesting series of discussions. What’s strange is that Melvyn Bragg knows nothing about philosophy. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It lets the guests speak in much longer, more insightful discourses. With hosts who know the topic they tend to burst in a lot to show their bona fides. Melvyn does the opposite, which makes for a better conversation. The one big drawback is that the guests are often lost as to how to answer his leads. He’ll say something like “tell me about Plato”, which is ridiculously broad in what is meant to be a much narrower topic. Once they regain their composure they do a good job of turning the conversation back to the topic.

Thaiboxer63 · Jan 2024

I’ve been scrolling through the old episodes and listening to the ones that stand out to me. I like the format and I like the Tid-bit approach to topics. It’s not overpowering and they don’t go deep down in rabbit holes. Just enough to give you the gist of it.

Tyson621 · Jul 2023

Most of the programs and conversations are very good. The guests and Melvynn usually have a great chemistry. I do have a criticism, which is that Melvynn tends to interrupt guests during inopportune times, just as they are getting to share a relevant or important point. Other than that, the conversations are usually very interesting, and flow quite well.

VK5183A · Apr 2023

This show provides a rigorous introduction to a variety of philosophies, making for an easy listen. It provides a great refresher for those with some previous knowledge of the subject(s) but it might move too fast for the uninitiated. My only complaint is that frequently the main host moves too quickly through points, particularly during his introductions to the subject of the day. But the rewind button exists, so I can’t really complain.

Reverend Colonel · Jul 2022

Rather than discussing feminism writ large, this episode uncritically accepted gender essentialism. Dr. Helena Cronin’s theories are insidious, and she argues them as if gender essentialism is a spicy new theory rather than the justification of misogynistic oppression for millennia. Her pontification about the myriad ways in which men are superior to women (e.g. that they “persevere” and are “more ambitious”) went utterly unchallenged by the host or fellow guest Germaine Greer. It was stunning to hear an academic so committed to making sweeping generalizations like this. Why was nobody invited on who might challenge such potentially harmful normative statements, the critique of which is part of the intellectual gift of feminist tradition? Dr. Cronin’s belief in a society that should be arranged based on “good Darwinian science” seems to feel no obligation towards women and girls who have been oppressed for centuries based on alleged biological differences, which have usually been seen as inferiorities. A very disappointing episode for anyone hoping for sophisticated feminist argument.

CubsfanCA · Jun 2026

I cannot stand how frequently this man interrupts and speaks over women in this podcast. It is distracting, especially when this behavior isn’t mirrored with male guests. Lovely subject matter and guests, however, I can’t stand the host.

Benji X. · Nov 2023

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