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English
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In this program with world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee, A. J. Ayer, who played a major role in introducing logical positivism to England, explains the movement, its purpose, and its effect on current philosophical trends. Ayer also discusses its founders-members of the Vienna Circle of the 1920s-who based their theories on logic and science.
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English
Description
In this program, world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee and Bernard Williams of Cambridge University discuss linguistic philosophy-an offshoot of logical positivism-which argues that sentences can have no meaning beyond that which humans give them because language is a human invention.
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English
Description
In this program, world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee and William Barret of New York University examine the basic theory of existentialism as founded by Martin Heidegger, and later propagated by Jean-Paul Sartre. Barret discusses Heidegger's notions of being, existence as task, cosmic roots, and alienation. Sartre's concept of absolute human freedom is discussed as having promoted human dignity and individualism in the impersonal modern...
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English
Description
Even as newborn babies, we have certain expectations about how reality works. As the years go by we build upon that frame of reference, developing even greater stores of internal patterns with which to compare and categorize information. For the most part we expect that a drinking glass will not levitate, and that objects may be safely placed upon a horizontal surface-all based on the brain's power of recognition, with help from the individual's...
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English
Description
Is there a substantial reality to the notion of time, or is time merely a convention agreed upon to maintain an orderly world? Is there a physical basis for the feeling of a day either dragging or speeding by? What does the Big Bang have to do with the passage of time? In this program James Burke addresses these intriguing questions and others as he explores the science behind the human perception of time. Using a gigantic clock and actors set in...
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English
Description
Like a team of private eyes, the five senses pick up clues from outer stimuli and then, with input from the brain, put those clues together to form an understanding of reality. But does this process provide an accurate representation of what's going on in the physical world? In this program James Burke describes the physiology of human perception and explains why the brain sometimes arrives at the wrong conclusions as it works to make sensory data...
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English
Description
This is the story of the radical theologian Peter Abelard. Born near Nantes, France, in 1079, Abelard's teaching on the Trinity was declared heretical. He went on to found the Paraclete and became the abbot of St. Gildas-de-Rhuys. Condemned for heresy by the Council of Sens, he retired to Cluny, where he lived a model life of asceticism and theological labor.
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English
Description
Without consciously realizing it, human beings navigate the world through an ongoing process of calculating and correcting in response to perceptions about their surroundings. In this program, host James Burke uses 3-D models and a tub of gelatin to illustrate the vestibular system and how it works with the brain to gauge distance, perspective, and spatial orientation. Burke also explains the extraordinary way in which the brain fills in naturally-occurring...
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English
Description
The human body can function without being conscious - it does so when we're anesthetized or asleep. Where does consciousness go when we're not awake? In this program, James Burke explores the reticular formation, a part of the brain involved in regulating states of consciousness, touching on possible functions of dreaming and sleep as ways to integrate the day's experiences into our internal model of the world. Burke also explains what goes on in...
Language
English
Description
In this new release, host James H. Bride brings the language and lives of the Transcendentalists to realization by recognizing the context, expression, and foundation of the movement. This program pioneers a new way for teachers and general readers to be on familiar terms with Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, as well as the journals and writings of Henry David Thoreau. Professors Richard Baker, Joel Myerson, Bob Richardson, Wes Mott, and Larry Buell...