You can't know exactly what it is like to be another person or experience things from their perspective.  Wittgenstein had an analogy for this.  Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Wittgenstein's Beetle in a Box Analogy

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Esse est Percipi - ('To be is to be perceived')

Science is based on fact. Isn't it?  Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Karl Popper's Falsification

Philosopher David Hume thought you should look at the evidence. We've employed a Time Lord to investigate.  Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Should You Believe in Miracles?

For Jean-Paul Sartre, freedom was everything. Real freedom means freedom to change your mind and freedom to fall out of love. Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Jean Paul Sartre on Love

Why do people do good deeds? Are they being selfless or is there something else going on?  Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Is Selfless Love Possible?

In Plato’s dialogue The Symposium, Aristophanes presented a light-hearted creation myth that attempted to explain the human search for love. Narrated by Aidan Turner.

The Myth of the Missing Half

The Oedipus Complex explained in under 2 minutes. Narrated by Aidan Turner.

The Oedipus Complex and the Westermarck Effect

The family is at the heart of Confucian philosophy. Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Confucian Ancestor Worship

Plato thought leaders should be specially trained philosophers chosen because they were incorruptible and had a deeper knowledge of reality. Narrated by Aidan Turner.

Plato's Philosopher Kings

Big questions and theories explained in under 2 minutes from A History of Ideas on BBC Radio 4. Animations voiced by Harry Shearer, Gillian Anderson, Stephen Fry and Aidan Turner.  Scripted by Nigel Warburton. This project is made in collaboration with The Open University and the animations were created by Cognitive.

Grunewald guild

Learn something important in a minute - there about

Well done - a concise education

A History of Ideas animations

How to live a good life? Aristotle’s answer was live virtuously: do what a virtuous person would do.

Aristotle on 'Flourishing'

How did a strange lump of bronze and decayed wood discovered in a shipwreck reveal the first ever computer? Narrated by Gillian Anderson.

The Antikythera Mechanism

The Golden Ratio: Possibly the best rectangle in the world

Marx believed work is what makes us human, but a factory labourer under capitalism is no more than a cog in a gigantic machine.  Gillian Anderson explains.

Karl Marx on Alienation

Is the form by which you receive a message as significant as the message itself? Gillian Anderson investigates.

The Medium Is The Message

What happened 13.8 billion years ago? The Big Bang. Perhaps. Gillian Anderson explains.

The Big Bang

Do you worry that screen-based devices are rewiring your brain? Perhaps you should, because they certainly are. Gillian Anderson explains.

Rewiring the Brain

According to Hinduism, there is no single creation, but cycles of creation. Get to grips with the basics.

Hindu Creation Stories

Is it ever morally acceptable to tell a lie?

Kant's Axe

Do you draw conclusions from how things are to think about how things should be?

The Is / Ought Problem

Noam Chomsky

Is language structure hard-wired into our brain? Noam Chomsky thinks so.

Noam Chomsky on Language Aquisition

Does the Fourth Revolution signify that it's no longer possible to hold to the view that humans are better at thinking than everything else.

The Fourth Revolution

Simone de Beauvoir: Resistance to male stereotypes of beauty can mean greater equality.

Feminine Beauty: A social construct?

John Locke

How do we learn to think and write in language so quickly? Gillian Anderson has a clue.

John Locke on Personal Identity

Edmund Burke

Some things that move us are beautiful, others are sublime. But what is the difference?

Edmund Burke on the sublime

Are our 'conscious decisions' just reports on what is already happening?

The Libet Experiment: Is free will just an illusion?

We live in a world festering with evil. How could a good God allow this problem of evil?

The Free Will Defence: A Good God vs The Problem of Evil

Is lust just one rung on the ladder to a higher appreciation of beauty?

Diotima's Ladder: From Lust to Morality

Thomas Aquinas

Gillian Anderson explains St. Thomas Aquinas' First Mover argument for God as the first cause of everything.

Thomas Aquinas and the First Mover Argument

John Stuart Mill argues the case for being able to live your life the way you want to.

The Harm Principle: How to live your life the way you want to

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The best podcast episodes on Startups. For anyone working in a startup, or anyone interested in the incredible stories behind how people built companies like Instagram, and Facebook. Offering both practical advice and insights, as well as the stories for how many of the biggest startups got to where they are today. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!