The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is famous, amongst other things, for his negative outlook on life and human nature. His pessimism was partly due to his experience of human misery and his revolt against slavery; it was also partly due to his philosophy of the Will. He saw the Will as the blind driving force of human actions and behaviour. As humans have no control over the Will, their actions are not free. Schopenhauer, who was a brilliant prose writer, argues that our characters are unchangeable. There is no freedom of the Will. He was a virulent opponent of the obscurantism of German Idealism (Hegel, Fichte, Schelling) and a champion of clear language. Although he lived in the shadow of Hegel (and other German idealists) his ideas have influenced the likes of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Freud and Einstein. Karl Popper counted him amongst the great philosophers.
Literature:
In this Episode, I introduce the life and work of a forgotten hero of science: Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859). In his own time he was such a famous explorer and discoverer that many of his contemporaries were influenced by his thinking, most notably Charles Darwin. And even though he is no longer as well known as Darwin today , many places, species, mountains and rivers are still named after him. He took a global approach to Nature, treating Nature as an interrelated whole, in which everything is in flux. He became the first ecologist who truly understood the importance of the environment and its influence on life. He approached Nature as a living organism. Politically, he was inspired by the ideals of the French revolution, which made him an opponent of colonialism and slavery.
Literature:
Websites:
This episode looks at three pre-Darwinian accounts of the development of organic nature: the Great Chain of Being, Design arguments (Paley) and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's 'transformatism'. All of these accounts assume, in one way or another, that the explanation of organic life requires the postulation of purpose and design in nature. This assumption is in striking contrast with mechanical explanations in astronomy and physics. The idea of 'evolution' was well accepted before Darwin. But Darwin's achievement consists in the articulation of a testable mechanism - natural selection - which explained evolution, without requiring design and purpose. The episode ends with a succinct description of Darwin's 'revolution'.
Literature:
In this episode I introduce a brief history of scepticism, that is the doubt whether we can have any certain knowledge of the external world. I start with the Greek philosopher Sextus Empircus who lived in the second century AD. His arguments were taken up and developed by the French Renaissance writer Michel Montaigne (1533-1592). Two French philosophers - Marin Mersenne (1588-1648) and his friend Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) - rejected this rather defeatist version of scepticism and proposed a more moderate form: it accepts that we can know a lot about the appearances but nothing about the underlying causes. Modern scepticism, as represented by the philosopher Karl Popper and the physicist Sean Carroll, defends the idea of conjectural knowledge. Science knows about appearances and the underlying causes but this knowledge is conjectural because it is always at the risk of refutation and revision.
Literature:
This episode introduces the life and influential ideas of William of Ockham (1287-1347). He was a controversial figure in his own time and is famous for his principle, known as Ockham's razor. It is a principle of economy, adopted by many philosophers and scientists, including Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking. Its modern version recommends to use as few principles as possible to explain a maximum of facts. Ockham himself advised not to make unnecessary assumptions and not to postulate that abstract terms - such as beauty, cathood or humanity, - lead an extra-mental existence of their own in some sort of Platonic realm.
Literature:
This episode is based on my article: 'A razor sharp mind', in The Times Higher Education Supplement (14.03. 1986).
There are informative articles on Ockham in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
There is the rather common view that the Middle Ages were an age of darkness, ignorance and religious intolerance. But how true is this image? This episode introduces the Middle Ages (1000 AD-1543) as a period of intellectual vitality. It gave rise natural philosophy, which is the precursor of modern science. It accomplished two things. The first task was to make the Bible and Christian religion compatible with the authoritative teachings of Aristotle. This compromise was achieved by two remarkable scholars: Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus, 1200-1280) and Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274). The second task was to recognise Aristotle's errors and develop alternative explanations of the observable events in the natural world. Such alternative explanations were developed by John Buridan (1300-1361) and Nicola Oresme (1325-1382), amongst other scholastic philosophers. Both were followers of William of Ockham's philosophy of nominalism (1287-1347) and the maxim called Ockham's razor.
Literature:
A. C. Crombie: Augustine to Galileo (1959)
J. Hannam: God's Philosophers (2009)
This episode discusses scientific mistakes and blunders which have occurred in the history of science. Mistakes may be based on false information or mistaken assumptions, in which case they are honest mistakes. But if they are based on deliberate misinformation and incompetence, they are downright blunders. We can and should learn from mistakes but blunders are bad news because they have disastrous consequences. If mistakes are based on the wrong assumptions, they are usually be corrected, disproved or dispensed with. Blunders happen because factors external to science (political or religious interference) distort scientific investigations.
Literature:
Robert Youngson, Scientific Blunders. A brief History of How Wrong Scientists Can Sometimes Be (1998).
Popper's Critical Rationalism consists of two parts: 1) a critical attitude towards science; 2) a critical attitude towards politics. The critical attitude towards science meant that he regarded all scientific knowledge as fallible. No certainty exists in science. All scientific theories are subject to severe tests and are constantly facing the evidence. This is his famous method of falsifiability: all scientific knowledge is fallible. When he applies to it politics, it turns into the fallibility of political leaders and their ideas. It becomes his plea for an open society, in which the rule of law guarantees that political ideas and programmes are subject to rigorous scrutiny to prevent political leaders from doing too much harm. In an open society, the individual enjoys inalienable rights.
Literature:
Popper, K.: Conjectures and Refutations (1963)
Popper, K.: Objective Knowledge (1972)
Popper, K.: The Open Society and Its Enemies (2 volumes, 1966)
Popper, K.: Unended Quest - An Intellectual Biography (1976)
Weinert, F.: Karl Popper - Professional Philosopher and Public Intellectual (2022)
This episode focuses on the Enlightenment in France and Germany. Whilst it shares the basic Enlightenment ideals, there are national characteristics. In France the Enlightenment was shaped by the experience of the Ancien Regime. It is strong opposition to the power of the Catholic Church and Absolute Monarchy. An outstanding achievement of the French Enlightenment is the publication of the Encyclopedia,which was forbidden in 1759.
In Germany, the emphasis is on the meaning of the Enlightenment. What does it mean to be enlightened? Immanuel Kant famously defines the Enlightenment as as the emergence from self-inflicted immaturity. The German Enlightenment philosophers also reflect on the limitation of enlightened thinking. The Prussian King Frederick the Great saw himself as an enlightened ruler; so did Catherine the Great in Russia. Both hosted enlightened philosophers and scientists.
The Enlightenment (1688-1804) emerged in three European countries, in rough chronological order in Britain, then France and it ended in Germany. This episode (Part I) starts with a general characterisation of the Enlightenment and then focuses on the Enlightenment in Britain. The Enlightenment owes its momentum to the Scientific Revolution, which brought about a fundamental change in world views. The Enlightenment is an application of scientific principles to the intellectual and social world. In Britain it takes the form of Empiricism and Liberalism (John Locke, David Hume).
Literature:
(The following texts are a small selection).
Berlin, I.: Three Critics of the Enlightenment (ed. by Henry Hardy) Pimlico 2000
Cassirer, E.: The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (1932/2009)
Gay, P.: The Enlightenment (Volume 1: 1995; Volume 2: 1970
Hazard, P.: The Crisis of the European Mind (1680-1715)
Im Hof, U.: Enlightenment. Making of Europe (1994/1997)
Porter, R.: The Enlightenment (Studies in European History) (1990/2001)
Porter, R.: Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. Penguin Press 2000
Randall, J. H. The Career of Philosophy. Vol. 2 (1962/2022)
Torre, J. R.: The Enlightenment in America, 1720-1825 (Pickering & Chatto 2011)
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy contain further material.
In this Episode I address the question of whether populism poses a danger to a democratic, open society. I define populism as charismatic leadership with a particular vision. I make a distinction between a democratic regime - with emphasis on the rule of law, the independence of institutions and freedom - and an open society - with the emphasis on accountability, contestability and critical scrutiny of political affairs, established traditions and figures in authority. I argue that it is important to uphold a ope and democratic society because of the fallibility of all political visions.
Literature:
The classic sources on the open society are:
Bergson, H.: The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1935; Osmania University Library, Internet Source) Popper, K. R.: The Open Society and Its Enemies. Volume I: Plato. (London: Routledge 1945, 1966) Volume II: Hegel & Marx. (London: Routledge 1945, 1962)
Good books on populism are:
Mounk, Y.: The People vs. Democracy: Why our Freedom is in Danger & How to Save it. (Harvard University Press 2018)
Müller, J.W.: What is Populism? (Penguin Books 2017)
Weyland, K.: Democracy’s Resilience to Populism’s Threat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2024
I have published a review article on this whole question:Weinert, F.: ‘The Open Society Revisited’, in: Social Sciences 2025, 14 (3), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14030118
On the notion of trust, you may consult my paper:
Weinert, F.: ‘The Role of Trust in Political Systems. A Philosophical Perspective.’ Open Political Science 1 (2018): 7-15
In the last episode on Human Rights, I left open the question of whether Civil Disobedience should count as a fundamental human right. A good example of this debate occurs in the film The Great Debaters (2007). After having defined civil disobedience (following the philosophers John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas), I argue that it should count as a fundamental human right - under specified conditions: it should be a non-violent, public and political act, undertaken by a group in society whose fundamental human rights are under threat. I discuss the role of civil disobedience in both democratic systems, in which it can play an active part, and in totalitarian regimes, in which it mainly plays a passive part. Civil disobedience can be seen as the right for fight for one's rights.
Literature:
- M. Walzer, Obligations: Essays on Disobedience, War and Citizenship (1970)
- J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971: Ch. VI)
- J. Habermas, 'Civil Disobedience', in: Berkeley Journal of Sociology 30 (1985): 95-116 (translated form the German original in: Die Neue Unübersichtlichkeit, 1985: 79-99)
Following on from the last two episodes, which broadly dealt with issues of human freedom and justice, the question of the need for human rights arises naturally. I distinguish civil from human rights. Civil rights exist on the national level and they may differ from country to country. I propose three criteria to differentiate them from human or universal rights, which, as the term suggests, are transnational and transcultural. I explain why I think we need human rights, which I characterise as ethical benchmarks. They constitute standards for a dignified human existence.
Literature:
To start, there are excellent articles on human rights in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
In this episode I briefly describe the events of the French Revolution and then turn my attention to the life and times of two prominent 'engaged philosophers': Voltaire and the Marquis de Condorcet. Both fought against the injustices of the Ancient Regime, i.e. the time prior to the French Revolution, when France was ruled by absolute monarchs. Through their active defence and rehabilitation of the victims of injustice both Voltaire and Condorcet brought to light the religious intolerance and the obscurantism of their age.
I also briefly discuss the controversial German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel who became the philosopher of the French revolution.
I conclude this episode with a brief look at engaged intellectual in our age: Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Noam Chomsky.
Literature:
A good, concise introduction to the ideas of the French Revolution is George Rudé, The French Revolution (1988). A classic, comprehensive study is Albert Soboul, The French Revolution 1787-1799 (English translation 1975).
There are numerous biographies of Voltaire. For this episode I used Jean Orieux, Voltaire (2 volumes 1977). For Condorcet I used the brilliant biography of Elizabeth & Robert Badinter, Condorcet - Un Intellectuel en Politique (1988), which unfortunately has not been translated into English.
The next couple of episodes continue Part I on Political Philosophy.
The next two episodes will discuss the impact philosophical ideas have had on the social and political world. In the current episode (17), I start with the influence John Locke's political philosophy had on the adoption of the English Bill of Rights in the wake of the Glorious Revolution (1688), as well as French philosophers and the American Declaration of Independence (Jefferson). Locke, the Enlightenment philosopher, is often seen as the Godfather of liberalism. His ideas laid the foundations for liberal democracies worldwide.
In the following episode (18), I look at two French philosophers around the time of the French Revolution: Voltaire and Condorcet, and describe their fights for justice. Then I turn to Human Rights and the state of democracy in the face of the rise of populism.
Literature:
The classic source of liberalism is John Locke's The Two Treatises of Government, especially Part II, first published in 1690. His Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) is also worth reading. Every good book on political philosophy will discuss Locke's ideas and his influence. Voltaire's Lettres Philosophiques (1734), his Treatise on Religious Tolerance (1763) and his Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764) are well worth perusing.They give a flavour of Enlightenment ideas.
The question of whether humans enjoy free will (or not) has occupied people for centuries. Science has not yet found a definitive answer but we are all familiar with the phenomenon. When we want something (a mental event), we get up to get it (a physical event). When something happens to us (a physical event), we react with, say, sadness or joy (a mental event). How is this possible? How can physical events influence mental states? And how can mental states lead to physical events? In this Episode I introduce to rival accounts: determinism (which claims that we are not free agents) versus libertarianism (which holds that our mind are free to choose between options). I discuss the pros and cons of each position and conclude that I am more convinced by the libertarian argument, i.e. the belief in the freedom of the will, than determinism - unless proven otherwise.
Literature:
There is a vast amount of literature on free will, consciousness and the mind. I found the following helpful: Susan Blackmore, Consciousness-An Introduction (2003); Richard Swinburne (ed.), Free Will and Modern Science (2011).
There are also good articles in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
In previous Episodes, I have made many references to the laws of nature. Laws of nature are the regularities in the natural world, which exist independently of our knowledge of them. But in the textbooks of science you find many equations which encode the natural regularities. These equations are the laws of science. The laws of science are only approximately true because the employment of mathematics involves the use of abstractions and idealisations. The laws of science are subject to modifications, but the laws of nature just are. I limit myself to two philosophical attempts to explain what the natural laws tell us about the natural world: the regularity view and the structural view.
Literature:
The material of this episode draws on my Introduction to the volume Laws of Nature , edited and introduced by Friedel Weinert (1995).
In this Episode, I discuss some systematic ways in which discoveries are made in science. This follows on from Episode 13 (A, B) which introduced thought and real experiments. In this Episode I look at methods - systematic ways - to go about scientific discoveries. There are three methods: two different forms of induction and deduction. Induction works either by inferring from some to all cases (from 'some ravens are black' to 'all ravens are black') or by the method of elimination. To illustrate the latter method I compare the work of a scientist who tries to solve problems, to the work of a detective who tries to solve a crime. The detective tries to eliminate potential suspects to identify the real culprit. The scientist tries to eliminate possible solutions to find the real solution to a scientific problem. In between the two methods stands deductivism: according to this method a scientist makes a hypothesis - a bold conjecture - and then submits it to rigorous tests.
Literature:
I discuss these methods in more detail in Friedel Weinert, Copernicus, Darwin & Freud (2009) and Karl Popper-Professional Philosopher and Public Intellectual (2022).
Part B of this Episode concentrates on imaginary and real experiments in the modern era. I introduce Foucaults' famous pendulum experiment (1859), which gave a visual demonstration that the Earth turns on its own axis. I propose that thought experiments answer 'what-if' questions about the natural world. They are models of possible worlds. The episode finishes with a discussion of the famous double-slit experiment on the atomic level. It started out as a mere thought experiment before becoming an iconic a real experiment. It demonstrates the weird behaviour of quantum particles, i.e. the wave-particle duality.
Literature:
You can find brief, handy descriptions of scientific experiments in Rom Harré, Great Scientific Experiments (1981) and George Johnson, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (2009). The material of episodes 13 (A, B) is based on Friedel Weinert, The Demons of Science (2016), where you will find many more references to experiments in science.
Episode 13 (A, B) is devoted to the topic of experiments in science: thought experiments and real experiments. They are as important as grand scientific theories. Part A focuses on thought and real experiments from antiquity to the 17th century. I explain the function of such experiments and discuss some famous examples. How do you 'prove' that the universe if infinite (Archytas of Tarentum, ca 430-345 BC), that the Earth rotates (Aristotle and Galileo) and how do you measure its circumference (Erastothenes, 240 BC), when you cannot make direct measurements? Listen to Part A to find out!
Literature:
You can find brief, handy descriptions of scientific experiments in Rom Harré, Great Scientific Experiments (1981) and George Johnson, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (2009). The material of episodes 13 (A, B) is based on Friedel Weinert, The Demons of Science (2016), where you will find many more references to experiments in science.