Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Writing in the 5th century BC, Heraclitus believed that everything is constantly changing or, as he put it, in flux. He expressed this thought in a famous epigram: "No man ever steps into the same river twice." Heraclitus is often considered an enigmatic thinker, and much of his work is complex and puzzling. He was critical of the poets Homer and Hesiod, whom he considered to be ignorant, and accused the mathematician Pythagoras (who may have been his contemporary) of making things up. Heraclitus despaired of men's folly, and in his work constantly strove to encourage people to consider matters from alternative perspectives. Donkeys prefer rubbish to gold, he observed, pointing out that the same thing can have different meanings to different people.Unlike most of his contemporaries he was not associated with a particular school or disciplinary approach, although he did have his followers. At times a rationalist, at others a mystic, Heraclitus is an intriguing figure who influenced major later philosophers and movements such as Plato and the Stoics.With:Angie HobbsAssociate Professor of Philosophy and Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of WarwickPeter AdamsonProfessor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at King's College LondonJames WarrenSenior Lecturer in Classics and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, University of CambridgeProducer: Natalia Fernandez.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast. |
| 0:39.0 | For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy |
| 0:46.5 | the program. Hello thought to have lived about 500 BC. Heraclitus is one the most important and certainly the most |
| 0:55.4 | intriguing of the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. He is well known in antiquity for |
| 0:59.9 | cryptic utterances such as you can never step into the same river twice, which earned him a reputation for |
| 1:05.5 | obscurity. Another of his celebrated epigrams is, if you don't expect the unexpected, you won't |
| 1:11.1 | find it out, since it's not to be found out and pathless. |
| 1:15.2 | Heraclitus Heraclitus was known as the weeping philosopher supposedly because of |
| 1:19.2 | his melancholic view of life. |
| 1:20.8 | His philosophy is enigmatic, succinct, surprising and profound. |
| 1:24.0 | We need to discuss Heraclitus at Angie Hobbs, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Senior |
| 1:29.4 | Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Warwick, |
| 1:33.0 | Peter Adamson, Professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at Kings College, |
| 1:37.0 | and James Warren, Senior Lecturer in Classics of the Fellow of Corpus Christi College, |
| 1:41.0 | the University of Cambridge. |
| 1:42.0 | Angi-Hovs, what do we actually know about Heraclitus? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.