Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Scepticism, the idea that it may be impossible to know anything with complete certainty. Scepticism was first outlined by ancient Greek philosophers: Socrates is reported to have said that the only thing he knew for certain was that he knew nothing. Later, Scepticism was taught at the Academy founded by Plato, and learnt by students who included the Roman statesman Cicero. The central ideas of Scepticism were taken up by later philosophers and came to the fore during the Renaissance, when thinkers including Rene Descartes and Michel de Montaigne took up its challenge. A central plank of the philosophical system of David Hume, Scepticism had a powerful influence on the religious and scientific debates of the Enlightenment.
With:
Peter Millican Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford
Melissa Lane Professor of Politics at Princeton University
Jill Kraye Professor of the History of Renaissance Philosophy and Librarian at the Warburg Institute, University of London.
Producer: Thomas Morris.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
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| 0:46.5 | the program. Hello in one of his earliest works the Ponsef philosophic of 1746, the French philosopher Dennis Diderot wrote, |
| 0:57.0 | A thing not proved just because no one... |
| 1:00.0 | A thing is not proved just because no one has ever questioned it. |
| 1:03.4 | Something that has never been examined dispassionately has never been properly examined. |
| 1:07.6 | Hence, skepticism is the first step towards truth. |
| 1:11.4 | Didere was writing about a philosophical tradition which emerged in ancient Greece |
| 1:15.3 | and which has been important ever since. Skepticism is the idea that it may be impossible to know anything |
| 1:20.8 | with complete certainty. One early Greek skeptic claimed that nothing |
| 1:24.6 | can be known, not even this. Skepticism was rediscovered during the Middle Ages and |
| 1:29.3 | it's been of key importance to scientific, religious and political thoughts since the Renaissance. |
| 1:34.0 | We'd me to discuss the philosophy of skepticism are Melissa Lane, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, |
| 1:40.5 | Jill Craig, Professor of the History of Renaissance Philosophy and Librarian at the Warburg Institute |
| 1:45.8 | University of London, and Peter Milliken, Gilbert Rilefellow and Professor of Philosophy at |
| 1:50.8 | Hartford College, Oxford. |
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