The Experience of Thinking

By John B Thomson

What's The Experience of Thinking about?

From Plato to Martin Buber: 14 talks on major European thinkers, examining their ideas and essential viewpoints in relation to what we can know about the world and the self and how we achieve this knowledge

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The Experience of Thinking episodes:

09.22.2020
Martin Buber (1878 — 1965)
"To the human being the world is two-fold in accordance with his/her twofold attitude". His book 'I and Thou' published in 1923 describes a foundation in dialogue for understanding the world. It opens a new pathway in philosophy which avoids...
09.13.2020
Bertrand Russell (1872 — 1970), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 — 1951)
Philosophy and science have a common underlying methodology with Russell. All knowledge is proved by the methods of science. As a mathematician he looks for reliable knowledge based on outer experience freed from all subjectivity. The stuff of mental and physical worlds...
08.30.2020
Martin Heidegger (1889 — 1976)
He addresses directly the question what do we mean by thinking. It is not easy to grasp and any attempt to do so is entangled by his connection with National Socialism. “That we are still not thinking stems from the...
08.25.2020
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 — 1900)
"God is dead." This is his challenge to the optimism of the 19th century which pretended that religion and metaphysics were real but in fact were killed by science. Europe had lost the guidance which sustained it in past centuries....
08.17.2020
Edmund Husserl (1859 — 1938), Rudolf Steiner (1861 — 1925)
The new science that Husserl wished to found is ‘Phenomenology’ a method of exploring human consciousness. We are certain of our conscious awareness and when we analyse it we observe we are always conscious of something. Our awareness is intentional....
08.10.2020
Søren Kierkegaard (1813 — 1855)
One cannot find truth separate from one’s subjective experience as a living existing being. Hegel and Kant and other rational, systematic philosophers who remain detached observers are incapable of understanding the living processes that unfold before them. Existentialism later is inspired...
08.06.2020
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 — 1831)
His idealist philosophy examines that part of knowledge which is not derived from sense-perception, that is, the truth of the spirit (Geist). In the Phenomenology of Spirit he traces out the development of consciousness. Ideas are not just the product...
07.26.2020
Immanuel Kant (1724 — 1804)
The outstanding philosopher of the enlightenment. We have seen ideas as above the phenomena, as in the phenomena and now as separate from the phenomena. Kant’s task was to examine how we come to understand the world or rather how...
07.18.2020
John Locke (1632 — 1704), George Berkeley (1685 — 1753), David Hume (1711 — 1776)
Locke maintained that all knowledge is acquired and initially from the senses. All forms of nature can be explained mechanically by matter in motion and the impact of one body on another. Berkeley opposed this by denying the existence of inanimate...
07.08.2020
Francis Bacon (1561 — 1626), René Descartes (1596 — 1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632 — 1677)
The 17th century rejected the world views derived from the Greeks. Bacon emphasised a practical not a contemplative approach to nature. He proposed torturing nature to obtain her secrets. Descartes’ statement ‘I think therefore I am’ includes all the inner...
07.05.2020
Thomas Aquinas (1227 — 1274 AD)
Philosophy as religion culminated with the Scholastics the greatest of whom was Aquinas. He was a Realist (ideas are real) as distinct from the Nominalists (ideas, names are just labels we apply to everything in the world).
06.30.2020
Augustine of Hippo (354 — 430 AD)
The prophet of personality. In his book ‘The City of God’ there are two cities, (1) love of self, contempt of god and (2) love of god, contempt of self. The way of freedom is through the soul’s abyss.
06.25.2020
Aristotle (384 — 321 BC)
The idea is imminent in the sense object. Things are actualised in the sense world. This world of becoming is teleological (goal –oriented).
06.24.2020
Plato (427 — 347 BC)
The theory of forms. The world of spirit accessible to heightened awareness endures. The sense world is transient, a world of becoming. The dialectical method of Socrates.

What's The Experience of Thinking about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Experience of Thinking episodes:

Martin Buber (1878 — 1965)

Bertrand Russell (1872 — 1970), Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 — 1951)

Martin Heidegger (1889 — 1976)

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 — 1900)

Edmund Husserl (1859 — 1938), Rudolf Steiner (1861 — 1925)

Søren Kierkegaard (1813 — 1855)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 — 1831)

Immanuel Kant (1724 — 1804)

John Locke (1632 — 1704), George Berkeley (1685 — 1753), David Hume (1711 — 1776)

Francis Bacon (1561 — 1626), René Descartes (1596 — 1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632 — 1677)

Thomas Aquinas (1227 — 1274 AD)

Augustine of Hippo (354 — 430 AD)

Aristotle (384 — 321 BC)

Plato (427 — 347 BC)

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