The Philosophy of Solitude

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2014

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosophy of solitude. The state of being alone can arise for many different reasons: imprisonment, exile or personal choice. It can be prompted by religious belief, personal necessity or a philosophical need for solitary contemplation. Many thinkers have dealt with the subject, from Plato and Aristotle to Hannah Arendt. It's a philosophical tradition that takes in medieval religious mystics, the work of Montaigne and Adam Smith, and the great American poets of solitude Thoreau and Emerson.

With:

Melissa Lane Professor of Politics at Princeton University

Simon Blackburn Professor of Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

John Haldane Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:45.9	the program. Hello in 1845 the American writer Henry David Thoreau moved into a
0:51.7	small log cabinet built in the woods of Concord, Massachusetts.
0:55.5	He remained there for two years living simply and in close proximity to nature, but his
0:59.4	remote existence had another advantage, as he wrote in his his masterpiece Walden, I never found the companion
1:05.7	that was so companionable as solitude.
1:09.3	Thoreau is one of a long line of thinkers who have sought solitude from Christian
1:12.3	hermits to romantic poets.
1:14.0	For some it's been a place of refuge from the world, for others, an absolute necessity for deep
1:19.1	contemplation or self-examination.
1:21.2	Alders successfully suggested that solitude might offer greater moral benefits than organized
1:25.8	religion.
1:26.8	But some philosophers have seen solitude as self-indulgent or actively dangerous.
1:31.6	With me to discuss the philosophy of solitude are Melissa Lane, professor of politics
1:36.1	at Princeton University. Simon Blackburn, professor of philosophy at the New College of the
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