Marx

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2005

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Karl Marx. "Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains", "Religion is the opium of the people", and "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". That should be enough for most of you to work out whom Radio 4 listeners have voted as their favourite philosopher: the winner of the In Our Time Greatest Philosopher Vote, chosen from 20 philosophers nominated by listeners and carried through on an electoral tidal wave of 28% of our 'first-past-the-post' vote is the communist theoretician, Karl Marx.So, when you strip away the Marxist-Leninism, the Soviet era and later Marxist theory, who was Karl Marx? Where does he stand in the history of philosophy? He wrote in his Theses on Feuerbach, "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it" - which begs the question, is he really a philosopher at all?With Anthony Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London; Francis Wheen, journalist and author of a biography of Karl Marx; Gareth Stedman Jones, Professor of Political Science at Cambridge University.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for down learning the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.uk.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the programme.
0:12.0	Hello, Workers of the World Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains and from each
0:17.0	according to his abilities to each according to his needs no further clues
0:21.2	needed the winner of the In Our Time favorite philosopher vote
0:23.8	chosen from 20 philosophers nominated by listeners and carried through on an
0:27.8	electoral tidal wave of 28% is the communist theoretician Karl Marx.
0:33.0	So when you strip away the Marxist Leninism, the Soviet era and later Marxist theory,
0:37.0	who was Karl Marx? Where does he stand in history philosophy?
0:41.0	He wrote in his thesis on Foyabakh, philosophers have only interpreted the world
0:45.4	in various ways. The point, however, is to change it, which begs the question, is he really
0:50.4	a philosopher? And did he change the world? With me to discuss Marx
0:54.0	are Gareth Stedman Jones professor of political science at Cambridge University
0:58.3	Francis Ween journalists and author of a biography of Karl Marx and A.C. Graling, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College University of London.
1:07.0	Before we talk about Mark's Anthony Graling, could you just say a quick word about the, as it were, the list and particularly the top
1:13.6	ten? What does a professional philosopher make of it?
1:15.6	Well it's a very interesting list actually because it has on it all the people who should be on it.
1:19.8	It's got the great names, it's got Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche and Hume.
1:26.8	And it's also got a couple of names who are there very probably because we're in the historical
1:31.8	period that we're in. So names like
1:33.6	Vicin Stein, Popper, and perhaps Aquinas too is rather odd that he's in the
1:37.9	top ten but that may be because the Catholic vote had something to do with it.
	...

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