The 1920s - Philosophy's Golden Age
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2020
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Wittgenstein changed his mind, Heidegger revolutionised philosophy (and the German language), and both the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Circle were in full swing. Matthew Sweet is joined by Wolfram Eilenberger, David Edmonds and Esther Leslie. Plus, a report on the plight of the Lukacs Archive in Budapest.
Wolfram Eilenberger's book Time of the Magicians, translated by Shaun Whiteside, is a group portrait of four young philosophers in the aftermath of World War I. He is the founding editor of Philosophie Magazin and broadcasts regularly in Germany.
David Edmonds is co-author with John Eidinow of Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. He produces the podcast series Philosophy Bites with Nigel Warburton
Esther Leslie is the author of Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism. Her translations include Georg Lukacs, A Defence of History and Class Consciousness. She is Professor in Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck University of London.
You can find conversations about Mary Midgely, Boethius, French philosophy and spies and Kierkegaard if you delve into our playlist of Free Thinking on Philosophy:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx
Producer: Luke Mulhall
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.2 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:37.5 | Whose philosophical gang do you want to be in? |
| 0:40.1 | The Frankfurt School? The Budapest School? |
| 0:42.6 | Or the Vienna Circle? |
| 0:44.1 | They're all pretty cool and pretty tough, I can tell you. |
| 0:47.2 | My name is Matthew Sweet. |
| 0:48.4 | This is the Arts and Ideas podcast, |
| 0:50.3 | and you can find out how to join after this message. |
| 0:53.3 | Classical Fix, the show from Radio 3, |
| 0:55.9 | which opens up the incredible world of classical music |
| 0:58.5 | to people who don't know where to start. |
| 1:01.1 | I'm Jules Buckley, and each week I make a playlist for a special guest, |
| 1:05.5 | a DJ, pop musician, writer, |
| 1:07.9 | and they give me their honest reactions. |
| 1:10.1 | I really loved this piece of music. |
| 1:11.9 | Really stunning. |
| 1:13.2 | I was so distracted by this horns. |
| 1:16.0 | I just got really annoyed and switched it off. |
| 1:19.0 | Pick one out of the six. This is tough. |
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