What consolation can Philosophy provide to a condemned man? Boethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy while awaiting torture and execution. He imagines Philosophy visiting him personified as a woman. Philosophy explains to him how the Wheel of Fortune turns, but yet happiness remains within human control.  Nigel Warburton reads Chapter 3 from this book Philosophy: The Classics which gives a critical summary of Boethius' book.


Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy

Author Nigel Warburton reads from his book Philosophy: The Classics which is an introduction to 27 key works in the history of Philosophy

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Soren Kierkegaard's Either/Or is an oblique but brilliant contribution to philosophy. In this episode of Philosophy: The Classics  author Nigel Warburton summarises the book and considers several interpretations of it.


Soren Kierkegaard - Either/Or

Is it better to be a happy pig or a sad Socrates? John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism is the topic of this episode of Philosophy: The Classics.


John Stuart Mill - Utilitarianism

Published in 1859, the same year as Darwin's Origin of Species, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty remains the classic statement of individual freedom. Here I summarise some of its main themes and outline some criticisms that have been made of it.


John Stuart Mill On Liberty

What is the nature of reality? Why can music be so profound? Are we doomed to suffer or is extended happiness possible? Should we choose a life of asceticism? These are some of the questions that Arthur Schopenhauer addressed in The World as Will and Idea. In this episode of Philosophy: The Classics Nigel Warburton outlines and criticizes Schopenhauer's great book.


Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Idea

Immanuel Kant's ethical stance is uncompromising: you must do your moral duty whatever the consequences. In this reading from his book Philosophy: The Classics, Nigel Warburton outlines the main features of Kant's approach and sketches some criticisms of it.


Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy

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