In Our Time Folgen

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosophy of truth. Pontius Pilate famously asked: what is truth? In the twentieth century, the nature of truth became a subject of particular interest to philosophers, but they preferred to ask a slightly different question: what does it mean to say of any particular statement that it is true? What is the difference between these two questions, and how useful is the second of them?With:Simon Blackburn Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and Professor of Philosophy at the New College of the HumanitiesJennifer Hornsby Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of LondonCrispin Wright Regius Professor of Logic at the University of Aberdeen, and Professor of Philosophy at New York UniversityProducer: Victoria Brignell and Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Behavioural Ecology, the scientific study of animal behaviour.What factors influence where and what an animal chooses to eat? Why do some animals mate for life whilst others are promiscuous? Behavioural ecologists approach questions like these using Darwin's theory of natural selection, along with ideas drawn from game theory and the economics of consumer choice.Scientists had always been interested in why animals behave as they do, but before behavioural ecology this area of zoology never got much beyond a collection of interesting anecdotes. Behavioural ecology gave researchers techniques for constructing rigorous mathematical models of how animals act under different circumstances, and for predicting how they will react if circumstances change. Behavioural ecology emerged as a branch of zoology in the second half of the 20th century and proponents say it revolutionized our understanding of animals in their environments.GUESTSSteve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College LondonRebecca Kilner, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of CambridgeJohn Krebs, Principal of Jesus College at the University of OxfordProducer: Luke Mulhall.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Zen. It's often thought of as a form of Buddhism that emphasises the practice of meditation over any particular set of beliefs. In fact Zen belongs to a particular intellectual tradition within Buddhism that took root in China in the 6th century AD. It spread to Japan in the early Middle Ages, where Zen practitioners set up religious institutions like temples, monasteries and universities that remain important today.GUESTSTim Barrett, Emeritus Professor in the Department of the Study of Religions at SOAS, University of LondonLucia Dolce, Numata Reader in Japanese Buddhism at SOAS, University of LondonEric Greene, Lecturer in East Asian Religions at the University of BristolProducer: Luke Mulhall.