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History
In Our Time
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PROGRAMME INFO
Thursday 9.00-9.45am
repeated 9.30pm
The big ideas which form the intellectual agenda of our age are illuminated by some of the best minds. Melvyn Bragg and three guests investigate the history of ideas and debate their application in modern life.
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In Our Time
PRESENTER
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
"I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in a time when so many people are doing fantastic work, and thinking in areas which it's not remotely possible for me to keep up with & and these people are prepared to talk about it. They're prepared to come on In Our Time and other programmes on Radio 4 and try and talk to the rest of us ..."
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Thursday 14 July 2005
Karl Marx
KARL MARX - WINNER OF THE GREATEST PHILOSOPHER VOTE

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"Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains", "Religion is the opium of the people", and "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". That should be enough for most of you to work out whom Radio 4 listeners have voted as their favourite philosopher: the winner of the In Our Time Greatest Philosopher Vote, chosen from 20 philosophers nominated by listeners and carried through on an electoral tidal wave of 28% of our 'first-past-the-post' vote is the communist theoretician, Karl Marx.

So, when you strip away the Marxist-Leninism, the Soviet era and later Marxist theory, who was Karl Marx? Where does he stand in the history of philosophy? He wrote in his Theses on Feuerbach, "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it" - which begs the question, is he really a philosopher at all?

Contributors

Anthony Grayling, Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London

Francis Wheen, journalist and author of a biography of Karl Marx

Gareth Stedman Jones, Professor of Political Science at Cambridge University

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In Our Time

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In Our Time
Thursday 9.00-9.45am, rpt 9.30-10.00pm. Melvyn Bragg explores the history of ideas. Listen again online or download the latest programme as an mp3 file.
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