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A young man's quest for eternal youth and beauty ends in scandal, depravity and death. Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The picture of Dorian Gray was a...
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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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What do modern art, a symphony, and a documentary film have in common? They all require aesthetic considerations. This program presents the ideas of key figures in the shaping and understanding of aesthetics-from Plato, Francis Hutcheson, and Kant to Leon Battista Alberti, Stendhal, and Tolstoy-and addresses pivotal writings, including Aristotle's Poetics and Morris Weitz's "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics." Columbia University's Arthur Danto and...
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This program summarizes and distills what we have learned about the great religions in this series. Smith's lifetime of experience and study helps him to go beyond the differences between each tradition. He shows how the cultivation of virtues valued by all religions-intelligence, compassion, creativity, truth, beauty, and goodness-can lead to transcendence. In the many faces of God he has contemplated, Huston Smith sees no conflict. He believes them...
6) Hume
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The leading philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, is the subject of this program. In it, world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee and expert John Passmore of the National Australian University discuss causality as the cornerstone of Hume's philosophy. Also discussed are three of Hume's basic philosophical views: anything that is not a fact, is illusion; judgments on fact must be based on concrete experience; and all knowledge...
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Part four of Faces of Islam is a cinematic journey into the wondrous and varied world of 1.5 billion Muslims. Witness the everyday lives of modern Islam practitioners - scholars, teachers and activists who view their faith as a philosophy and instrument of social change, and seek to adapt it to the modern world. Journey into mosques, markets, schools, workshops, and music studios and get answers to questions about beliefs, traditions, gender roles,...
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This overview of the biography and writing of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from the Famous Authors series depicts Goethe as an avid student of arts and literature but less passionate about his formal studies of law. Love affairs caught him passionately and often triggered heartbreak and literary productivity, particularly his first great success The Sorrows of Young Werther, which established him as a famous novelist and associated him with the Sturm...
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The abstract geometric paintings of Helen Hardin beautifully illustrate the artist's struggle to depict aspects of her native heritage yet depart from the Santa Fe/Dorothy Dunn model of her predecessors-including her mother, the acclaimed Pablita Velarde. This program takes a close look at the work of a gifted Santa Clara painter and printmaker who acted almost as if she knew that her time to make a mark in the art world would be short. Her multi-layered...
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Far from embracing the existentialism he is often associated with, Albert Camus was a social activist and staunch believer in the positive potential of the human race. In this program excerpts from private film archives and a variety of interviews document Camus' career as a journalist concerned with social justice. From his early years in Algeria writing about poverty and oppression to the underground newspaper he edited for the French Resistance,...
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The French Revolution explodes, and the Church, at the center of the controversy, must redefine its relationship with political power. This program focuses on religious controversy throughout the ages to the 19th century, when Christianity finds a new vitality and diversity of worship in democratic societies. Vatican II (1962-1965) is discussed as having paved the way for modern Catholicism, and the Protestant Ecumenical movement, also of the 1960s,...
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The last and greatest of Dostoevsky's novels, The Brothers Karamazov is a towering masterpiece of literature, philosophy, psychology, and religion. It tells the story of intellectual Ivan, sensual Dmitri, and idealistic Alyosha Karamazov, who collide in the wake of their despicable father's brutal murder. Into the framework of the story Dostoevsky poured all of his deepest concerns -- the origin of evil, the nature of freedom, the craving for meaning...
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This video clip library of 36 two-minute segments provides a concise survey of 12 history-changing empires. Each empire is given an overview segment, including a timeline graphic to place it within the context of world history, and two additional segments that delve deeper into areas of particular importance. Connections to modern life and society are emphasized throughout, to help viewers see ancient history as a living presence in today’s world....
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Professor Calhoone explores modern and contemporary western philosophy of reality (metaphysics) and knowledge (epistemology), from the 17th to the 20th century, spanning movements such as empircism, rationalism, idealism, philosophy of language, logical positivism, existentialism, pragmatism, phenomenology, and postmodernism.