Best Sun Iris Podcasts (2025)

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Maurice Merleau-Ponty 59:02

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8M ago59:02

59:02

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 his contemporaries Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, his popularity has increased among philosophers in recent years. Merleau-Ponty rejected Rene Descartes’ division between…

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Socrates in Prison 50:50

10M ago50:50

50:50

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. Both works show Socrates preparing to die in the way he had lived: doing philosophy. In the Crito, Plato shows Socrates arguing that he is duty bound not to escape from prison even …

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Sick Hobbies: Enriching Our Enclosures 1:14:03

1y ago1:14:03

1:14:03

In this episode we talk about how our hobbies and interests have shifted since becoming chronically ill, the simultaneous joy and grief tied to them, and the important role they play in our disabled lives. Support us by sharing with a friend, joining our Patreon, or by sending us tips on Ko-fi! https://linktr.ee/fromthesickbed…

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Hayek's The Road to Serfdom 53:16

1y ago53:16

53:16

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 running its wartime economy would not work in peacetime and could lead to tyranny. His target was centralised planning, arguing this disempowered individuals and wasted their knowledg…

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A Nugget of Goodness 1:22:42

1y ago1:22:42

1:22:42

In this episode, Sun and Lavender talk about their disabilities and interests, how they became friends, and why they decided to start a podcast. They also ask each other some questions so listeners can get to know them a bit better. Support us by sending us tips on Ko-fi! https://linktr.ee/fromthesickbed…

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Shame Is the Devil on Your Shoulder 1:16:53

1y ago1:16:53

1:16:53

Sun and Lavender discuss some of the ways disabled people are made to feel inherently shameful, how they’ve been affected by these societal biases, and how they try to deal with it. Support us by joining our Patreon and sending us tips on Ko-fi! https://linktr.ee/fromthesickbedBy Becca (Lavender) Thomas and Sun Iris

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Finding Comfort in Horror 1:28:58

1y ago1:28:58

1:28:58

Happy Halloween!! In this episode Sun and Lavender discuss how they rely on distraction as a major coping mechanism, and how the horror genre is a special source of comfort for them amidst all the hardships of life. Support us by joining our Patreon, or by sending us tips on Ko-fi! https://linktr.ee/fromthesickbed…

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There’s No Cosmic Reason: Disability Is a Fact of Life 1:21:47

1y ago1:21:47

1:21:47

In this episode, Lavender and Sun expand on the topic of disability and shame from the last episode, diving deeper into the systemic forces of ableism and how they contribute to the shaming of disabled people.By Becca (Lavender) Thomas and Sun Iris

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Philippa Foot 58:12

1+ y ago58:12

58:12

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?” Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Foot spent her life working through her instinct that there was something lacking in the prevailing philosophy of the 1950s and 1960s which held t…

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Panpsychism 53:59

2y ago53:59

53:59

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 electrons. This is panpsychism and its proponents argue it offers a compelling alternative to those who say we are nothing but matter, like machines, and to those who say we are bo…

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Condorcet 50:31

2y ago50:31

50:31

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 their learning to solving the problems of their world. He became a passionate believer in the progress of society, an advocate for equal rights for women and the abolition of the sla…

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The Theory of the Leisure Class 55:32

2y ago55:32

55:32

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 Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways th…

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Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics 52:01

2y ago52:01

52:01

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 years ago in what became known as his Nicomachean Ethics. His audience then were the elite in Athens as, he argued, if they knew how to live their lives well then they could bette…

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Elizabeth Anscombe 54:45

2+ y ago54:45

54:45

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 Anscombe (1919 – 2001), objected strongly. She argued that although dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have ended the fighting, it amounted to the murder of tens of…

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Solon the Lawgiver 51:20

2+ y ago51:20

51:20

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 years of the 6th century BC, the city state of Athens was in crisis. The lower orders of society were ravaged by debt, to the point where some were being forced into slavery. An oppres…

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Mercantilism 57:33

2+ y ago57:33

57:33

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 exports should be as high as possible and imports minimised. For more than 300 years, almost every ruler and political thinker was a mercantilist. Eventually, economists including A…

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Tycho Brahe 53:35

3y ago53:35

53:35

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 observations of a new star challenged the idea, inherited from Aristotle, that the heavens were unchanging. He went on to create his own observatory complex on the Danish island of Hven,…

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Rawls' Theory of Justice 1:00:39

3y ago1:00:39

1:00:39

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. It was first published in 1971. Rawls (pictured above) drew on his own experience in WW2 and saw the chance in its aftermath to build a new society, one founded on personal libert…

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Plato's Atlantis 54:15

3y ago54:15

54:15

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 disappeared many thousands of years before his time. There are no sources for this story other than Plato, and he tells it across two of his works, the Timaeus and the Critias, tantalizing …

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Hegel's Philosophy of History 52:25

3+ y ago52:25

52:25

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 history as the progress in the consciousness of freedom, asking whether we enjoy more freedom now than those who came before us. To explore this, he looked into the past to identif…

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Comenius 56:32

3+ y ago56:32

56:32

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 Protestant and member of the Unity of Brethren, he lived much of his life in exile, expelled from his homeland under the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and he wanted to address the …

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Charisma 52:38

3+ y ago52:38

52:38

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 follow them loyally, for better or worse, while following others only dutifully or grudgingly. Weber was fascinated by those such as Napoleon (above) and Washington who achieved power…

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The Arthashastra 56:09

4y ago56:09

56:09

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 treatise, it provides rulers with a guide on how to govern their territory and sets out what the structure, economic policy and foreign affairs of the ideal state should be. Accord…

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Walter Benjamin 50:32

4y ago50:32

50:32

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, historian, an investigator of culture, a maker of radio programmes and more. Notably, in his Arcades Project, he looked into the past of Paris to understand the modern age and, in The Wor…

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Plato's Gorgias 50:03

4y ago50:03

50:03

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Plato's most striking dialogues, in which he addresses the real nature of power and freedom, and the relationship between pleasure and true self-interest. As he tests these ideas, Plato creates powerful speeches, notably from Callicles who claims that laws of nature trump man-made laws, that might is right, an…

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Iris Murdoch 54:25

4y ago54:25

54:25

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999). In her lifetime she was most celebrated for her novels such as The Bell and The Black Prince, but these are now sharing the spotlight with her philosophy. Responding to the horrors of the Second World War, she argued that morality was not subjective or a matter o…

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Kant's Copernican Revolution 53:17

4+ y ago53:17

53:17

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the insight into our relationship with the world that Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) shared in his book The Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. It was as revolutionary, in his view, as when the Polish astronomer Copernicus realised that Earth revolves around the Sun rather than the Sun around Earth. Kant's was an insight int…

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Marcus Aurelius 52:36

5y ago52:36

52:36

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the man who, according to Machiavelli, was the last of the Five Good Emperors. Marcus Aurelius, 121 to 180 AD, has long been known as a model of the philosopher king, a Stoic who, while on military campaigns, compiled ideas on how best to live his life, and how best to rule. These ideas became known as his Meditation…

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Mary Astell 51:34

5y ago51:34

51:34

The philosopher Mary Astell (1666 – 1731) has been described as “the first English feminist”. Born in Newcastle in relatively poor circumstances in the aftermath of the upheaval of the English Civil War and the restoration of the monarchy, she moved to London as a young woman and became part of an extraordinary circle of intellectual and aristocrat…

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Deism 48:17

5y ago48:17

48:17

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that God created the universe and then left it for humans to understand by reason not revelation. Edward Herbert, 1583-1648 (pictured above) held that there were five religious truths: belief in a Supreme Being, the need to worship him, the pursuit of a virtuous life as the best form of worship, repentance, …

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Rousseau on Education 51:41

6y ago51:41

51:41

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) on the education of children, as set out in his novel or treatise Emile, published in 1762. He held that children are born with natural goodness, which he sought to protect as they developed, allowing each to form their own conclusions from experience, avoiding the domin…

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Bergson and Time 51:20

6+ y ago51:20

51:20

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941) and his ideas about human experience of time passing and how that differs from a scientific measurement of time, set out in his thesis on 'Time and Free Will' in 1889. He became famous in France and abroad for decades, rivalled only by Einstein and, in the years after …

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Authenticity 50:33

7y ago50:33

50:33

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what it means to be oneself, a question explored by philosophers from Aristotle to the present day, including St Augustine, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Sartre. In Hamlet, Polonius said 'To thine own self be true', but what is the self, and what does it mean to be true to it, and why should you be true? To Polonius, if…

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Aristotle's Biology 50:10

7y ago50:10

50:10

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable achievement of Aristotle (384-322BC) in the realm of biological investigation, for which he has been called the originator of the scientific study of life. Known mainly as a philosopher and the tutor for Alexander the Great, who reportedly sent him animal specimens from his conquests, Aristotle examine…

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Hope 53:01

7y ago53:01

53:01

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of hope. To the ancient Greeks, hope was closer to self-deception, one of the evils left in Pandora's box or jar, in Hesiod's story. In Christian tradition, hope became one of the theological virtues, the desire for divine union and the expectation of receiving it, an action of the will rather than the…

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The Fable of the Bees 50:42

7y ago50:42

50:42

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) and his critique of the economy as he found it in London, where private vices were condemned without acknowledging their public benefit. In his poem The Grumbling Hive (1705), he presented an allegory in which the economy collapsed once knavish bees turned honest. When republished with …

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Montesquieu 49:59

7+ y ago49:59

49:59

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas of Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755) whose works on liberty, monarchism, despotism, republicanism and the separation of powers were devoured by intellectuals across Europe and New England in the eighteenth century, transforming political philosophy and influencing th…

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Tocqueville: Democracy in America 50:51

8y ago50:51

50:51

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) and his examination of the American democratic system. He wrote De La Démocratie en Amérique in two parts, published in 1835 and 1840, when France was ruled by the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe. Tocqueville was interested in how aspects of American democracy, in the age of Presiden…

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Augustine's Confessions 47:55

8y ago47:55

47:55

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss St Augustine of Hippo's account of his conversion to Christianity and his life up to that point. Written c397AD, it has many elements of autobiography with his scrutiny of his earlier life, his long relationship with a concubine, his theft of pears as a child, his work as an orator and his embrace of other philosophi…

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Sun Tzu and The Art of War 48:23

8y ago48:23

48:23

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas attributed to Sun Tzu (544-496BC, according to tradition), a legendary figure from the beginning of the Iron Age in China, around the time of Confucius. He may have been the historical figure Sun Wu, a military adviser at the court of King Helu of Wu (who reigned between about 514 and 496 BC), one of the ki…

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Cicero 49:16

8y ago49:16

49:16

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas developed by Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) to support and reinvigorate the Roman Republic when, as it transpired, it was in its final years, threatened by civil wars, the rule of Julius Caesar and the triumvirates that followed. As Consul he had suppressed a revolt by Catiline, putting the conspirators t…

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Kant's Categorical Imperative 49:29

8+ y ago49:29

49:29

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how, in the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) sought to define the difference between right and wrong by applying reason, looking at the intention behind actions rather than at consequences. He was inspired to find moral laws by natural philosophers such as Newton and Leibniz, who had used reason rather than e…

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Plato's Republic 48:43

8+ y ago48:43

48:43

Is it always better to be just than unjust? That is the central question of Plato's Republic, discussed here by Melvyn Bragg and guests. Writing in c380BC, Plato applied this question both to the individual and the city-state, considering earlier and current forms of government in Athens and potential forms, in which the ideal city might be ruled b…

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Roger Bacon 50:33

8+ y ago50:33

50:33

The 13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon is perhaps best known for his major work the Opus Maius. Commissioned by Pope Clement IV, this extensive text covered a multitude of topics from mathematics and optics to religion and moral philosophy. He is also regarded by some as an early pioneer of the modern scientific method. Bacon's erudition …

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Seneca the Younger 51:25

9y ago51:25

51:25

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca the Younger, who was one of the first great writers to live his entire life in the world of the new Roman empire, after the fall of the Republic. He was a Stoic philosopher, he wrote blood-soaked tragedies, he was an orator, and he navigated his way through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero, sometimes …

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Hannah Arendt 47:17

9y ago47:17

47:17

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. She developed many of her ideas in response to the rise of totalitarianism in the C20th, partly informed by her own experience as a Jew in Nazi Germany before her escape to France and then America. She wanted to understand how politics…

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Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality 48:03

9y ago48:03

48:03

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nietzsche's On The Genealogy of Morality - A Polemic, which he published in 1887 towards the end of his working life and in which he considered the price humans have paid, and were still paying, to become civilised. In three essays, he argued that having a guilty conscience was the price of living in society with oth…

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Zeno's Paradoxes 46:30

9+ y ago46:30

46:30

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has selected just six that capture the huge range and depth of the subjects he and his experts have tackled. In this third of his choices, we hear Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Greek philosophy. Their …

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Sovereignty 47:21

9+ y ago47:21

47:21

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the idea of Sovereignty, the authority of a state to govern itself and the relationship between the sovereign and the people. These ideas of external and internal sovereignty were imagined in various ways in ancient Greece and Rome, and given a name in 16th Century France by the philosopher and jurist …

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The Muses 45:29

9+ y ago45:29

45:29

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Muses and their role in Greek mythology, when they were goddesses of poetry, song, music and dance: what the Greeks called mousike, 'the art of the Muses' from which we derive our word 'music.' While the number of Muses, their origin and their roles varied in different accounts and at different times, they were c…