What Does It Mean to Be Free?
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of ideas about freedom.
A History of Ideas · BBC Radio 4
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Show Notes
A new history of ideas presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices.
Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking what does it mean to be Free?
Helping him answer it are philosopher Angie Hobbs, criminal barrister Harry Potter, neuropsychologist Paul Broks and theologian Giles Fraser.
For the rest of the week Angie, Giles, Harry and Paul take us further into the history of ideas with programmes of their own.
Between them they'll talk about Isaiah Berlin's distinction between positive and negative freedom, JS Mill's thoughts on individual liberty and the state; what neuroscience has to say about the age-old philosophical debate about free will and whether freedom is overrated as a political, moral and psychological concept.