The Philosophy of Solitude
19 Jun, 2014
120 Epistemology
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.
Guests
- Melissa Lane
10 episodes
Professor of Politics at Princeton University - Simon Blackburn
4 episodes
Professor of Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge - John Haldane
8 episodes
Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews
Reading list
-
St Augustine
Confessions (Penguin, 2002) -
Boethius
The Consolation of Philosophy (Penguin, 1999) -
Susan Cain
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking (Broadway Books, 2013) -
Albert Camus (trans. Carol Cosman)
Exile and the Kingdom (Penguin, 2006) -
Daniel Defoe (ed. John Richetti)
Robinson Crusoe (Penguin, 2003) -
Philip Koch
Solitude: A Philosophical Encounter (Open Court Publishing Company, 1994) -
Jon Krakauer
Into the Wild (Villard Books, 1996) -
Brother Lawrence
The Practice of the Presence of God (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010) Google Books → -
Michel de Montaigne (trans. M.A. Screech)
The Complete Essays (Penguin, 2013) -
Anthony Storr
Solitude: A Return to the Self (Free Press, 1988) -
Henry David Thoreau (ed. J. Lyndon Shanley)
Walden (Princeton University Press, 2004)
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Programme ID: b046ntnz
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b046ntnz
Auto-category: 128 (The Human Condition)