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Hello in the sixth century AD a successful and intelligent Roman politician called Boethius found

himself unjustly accused of treason.

Trapped in his prison cell awaiting a brutal execution, he found solace in philosophical

ideas about the true nature of reality, about

injustice and evil and the meaning of living a moral life. His thoughts didn't

save him from death, but his ideas lived on because he wrote about them. He called the book The

Consolation of Philosophy. The Consolation of Philosophy was read widely and

the sense of consolation is woven into many philosophical ideas, but what for

Beethius were the consolations of philosophy?

What are they more generally?

And should philosophy lead us to consolation or lead us from it?

We'd me to discuss the consolation of philosophy are Roger Scrutin, research professor at the Institute for the

Psychological Sciences, Melissa Lane, Senior University Lecture in History at the University of Cambridge,

...