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A BRIEF HISTORY OF 20TH CENTURY WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

A BRIEF HISTORY OF 20^TH CENTURY WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

by Garrett Thomson

Read by James Gillies
11 hours 12 minutes

During the 20th century, our understanding of the world was transformed thanks to the likes of relativity, quantum physics, molecular biology, chaos theory and computer science. Likewise, our comprehension of ourselves developed dramatically courtesy of theories such as behaviourism, structuralism and cognitive science. Continue Reading →

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOANALYSIS

By Sigmund Freud
Read by Nigel Carrington
17 hours 36 minutes

This series of 28 lectures was given by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, during the First World War, and first published in English in 1920. The purpose of this ‘General Introduction’ was to present his work and ideas – as they had matured at that point – to a general public; and even though there was to be considerable development and change over the ensuing years, these talks still offer a valuable and remarkably approachable entry point to his revolutionary concepts. Continue Reading →

A PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY ON PROBABILITIES

By Pierre-Simon Laplace
Read by Charles Armstrong
5 hours 03 minutes

Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (1749-1827) is often described as the ‘French Newton’, though he lived a century later.His working life took him through the French Revolution, the Napoleonic era – during which he enjoyed various political positions – and afterwards, to the Bourbon Restoration. Continue Reading →

A THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL TREATISE

By BARUCH SPINOZA
Read by Leighton Pugh
16 hours 4 minutes

Though it first aroused anger and controversy rather than admiration and acceptance, A Theologico-Political Treatise was a landmark in the analysis of theology (with particular reference to the Bible and its Jewish and Christian interpretations) and its relationship to philosophy and politics. Spinoza’s scholarly analysis, based on careful study, demonstrated that the Bible was composed by many writers over the centuries – and that even the Pentateuch, the first five books, were not the work of Moses as was generally assumed at the time. Continue Reading →

AGAINST NATURE

By Joris-Karl Huysmans
Read Nicholas Boulton
7 hours 56 minutes

Against Nature (A Rebours) was one of the most shocking French novels of the 19th century. When it was published in 1884 it thrilled the aesthetes, the poets, and the intellectuals of Europe on both sides of the Channel, (notably Oscar Wilde) because for all its lofty tone, it had, as its core, an unbridled decadence; and it was just this same character that challenged, even horrified, established bourgeois society. Continue Reading →

AGRICOLA, GERMANIA, A DIALOGUE CONCERNING ORATORY

By Tacitus
Read by Leighton Pugh
4 hours 49 minutes

These three vibrant texts show different sides of the Roman historian Tacitus (c56–c102 CE) best known for his principal (and much longer) legacies of The Annals and The Histories. Agricola was a successful general and Governor of Britain (77-83CE), a task which he carried out with firmness and probity – in contrast to much of the corruption and repression in place during the reign of Emperor Domitian. Continue Reading →

AION

By C.G Jung
Read by David Rintoul
10 hours 46 minutes

Aion is one of the major works of C.G. Jung’s later years. The title comes from the Greek word for aeon or age and refers to the age of Christianity, for, in Aion, Jung is concerned with the collective psychic development that the Christian era represents. How did it come about when it did? What psychic change did it represent? In exploring these questions, Jung (1875-1961) draws upon Christian symbolism and, in particular, the figure of Christ as a case study in the archetype of the Self. Continue Reading →

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

ALEXANDER HAMILTON America’s Founding Father of Finance

His Original Reports on: PUBLIC FINANCE • A NATIONAL BANK • MANUFACTURES

Introduced and compiled by Mark G. Spencer
Read by Adam Sims and John Chancer
8 hours 23 minutes

Though best known for his primary authorship of the Federalist Papers, his death in a duel at the hands of the Vice President Aaron Burr on the banks of the Hudson River, and his star role in a 21^st century musical, it is often overlooked that Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in creating the key financial building blocks of the young United States of America. Continue Reading →

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STUDY AND THE FUTURE OF AN ILLUSION

By Sigmund Freud
Read by Derek Le Page
5 hours 1 minutes

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) reveals himself, in this autobiography which is simultaneously an account of the early history of psychoanalysis, to have been an outsider from the start. This fascinating account describes the journey of a young, Jewish doctor setting out to find his way in the world of professional medicine, his relationships and collaborations, friendships made and lost and his investigations into cocaine, hypnosis and the cathartic method which contributed to the evolution of his conceptual framework and practices. Continue Reading →

AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING

By John Locke
Read by Leighton Pugh
30 hours 20 minutes

John Locke and his works – particularly An Essay Concerning Human Understanding – are regularly and rightly presented as foundations for the Age of Enlightenment. His primary epistemological message – that the mind at birth is a blank sheet waiting to be filled by the experiences of the senses – complemented his primary political message: that human beings are free and equal and have the right to envision, create and direct the governments that rule them and the societies within which they live. Continue Reading →

AN INQUIRY INTO THE HUMAN MIND: ON THE PRINCIPLES OF COMMON SENSE

by Thomas Reid

Read by James Gillies
11 hours 58 minutes

Though now little known outside specialist philosophical circles, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710-1796) is remembered both for the founding of the Scottish School of Common Sense and his major work, An Inquiry into the Human Mind:on the Principles of Common Sense (1764). With his feet firmly on the ground, he challenged the speculative ideas of David Hume and George Berkeley who regarded ideas in the mind as a basis for the external world. Continue Reading →

An Introduction to Schopenhauer’s The Wisdom of Life

By T. Bailey Saunders
Read by David Rintoul
42 minutes

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a key influence on a wide range of major 19th and 20th century figures who followed him including Nietzsche, Schrödinger, Freud, Tolstoy, Wagner, Einstein, Thomas Mann, Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett. This was despite his reputation for being gloomy and pessimistic! Continue Reading →

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION

By Jeremy Bentham
Read by Andrew Cullum
17 hours 4 minutes

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the English philosopher, writer on law and political radical, was an extraordinary individual. His preserved body can still be seen seated in a case in the South Cloisters of University College, London – what he called an auto-icon. His most important legacy however is the ‘principle of utility’ – the greatest happiness of the greatest number: an ultimate measure of right and wrong. Continue Reading →

ANSWER TO JOB

By C.G. Jung
Read by John Telfer
5 hours 9 minutes

Of all the books of the Bible, few have had more resonance for modern readers than the Book of Job. For a world that over the past century has witnessed horrors the like of which could not have been imagined by earlier generations, Job’s cries of despair and incomprehension are all too recognizable. Continue Reading →

APOLOGIA and MEMORABILIA

By Xenophon
Read by David Rintoul
4 hours 41 mins

Xenophon was a friend of Socrates and yet his concise memories of the iconic philosopher have lived under the shadow of the more voluminous accounts by Plato. Yet Xenophon’s two works – Apology and Memorabilia – are, in many ways, more entertaining and more accessible, and they present a different view of the man who embodies a clear mind, temperate, ethical living, sharp intellect and humour. Continue Reading →

BEING AND TIME

By Martin Heidegger
Read by Martyn Swain With Introduction by Professor Taylor Carman
23 hours 18 minutes

In his lucid introduction to this recording, Professor Taylor Carman declares unequivocally that Being and Time by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is ‘one of the great masterpieces of 20^th century philosophy.’ And that is despite the fact that it is unquestionably a challenging read. Continue Reading →

BETWEEN THE ACTS

By Virginia Woolf
Read by Georgina Sutton
5 hours 42 minutes

Between The Acts, Virginia Woolf’s last novel, was finished in November 1940 and shortly afterwards delivered to her publisher Hogarth Press. The following March she committed suicide. Between the Acts is often an overlooked work in her oeuvre because she did express her intention to revise it before publication, though in the event this never happened. So it comes as a surprise to find that, while it probably would have benefitted from revision, it is something of an unpolished gem, at times sparkling and actually very engaging. Continue Reading →

BEWARE OF PITY

By Stefan Zweig
Read by Nicholas Boulton
14 hours 42 minutes

In the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a young cavalry officer is invited to a dance at the home of a rich landowner. There – with a small act of attempted charity – he commits a simple faux pas. But from this seemingly insignificant blunder comes a tale of catastrophe arising from kindness, and of honour poisoned by self-regard. Beware of Pity has all the intensity and the formidable sense of torment and of character, of the very best of Zweig’s work. Sensitively read by Nicholas Boulton. Continue Reading →

BUDDENBROOKS

By Thomas Mann
Read by David Rintoul
26 hours 48 minutes

First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family – a work so true to life that it scandalized the author’s former neighbours in his native Lübeck. Continue Reading →

CAPITAL Volume 1

By Karl Marx
Read by Derek Le Page
43 hours 04 minutes

It can be said of very few books that the world was changed as a result of its publication – but this is certainly the case of Capital, Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx (1818-1883). Volume 1 appeared (in German) in 1867, and the two subsequent volumes appeared at later dates after the author’s death Continue Reading →

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