Men of Ideas is a 1978 BBC television series presented by Bryan Magee. There were 15 episodes, in which Magee interviewed noted philosophers.
Overview
The first episode, "Introduction to Philosophy", saw Magee in discussion with Isaiah Berlin. In subsequent episodes Magee discussed such topics as Marxist philosophy, the Frankfurt School, and modern Existentialism.
During the broadcast run, edited shorter versions of the discussions were published in The Listener magazine. Extensively revised versions of the dialogues within the Men of Ideas series were published in a 1979 book of the same name, now published under the title Talking Philosophy. DVDs of the series are sold to academic institutions with the title Contemporary Philosophy.
Noting that the series "attracted a steady one million viewers per show", The Daily Telegraph hailed the series, and its 1987 'sequel', for achieving "the near-impossible feat of presenting to a mass audience recondite issues of philosophy without compromising intellectual integrity or losing ratings."
Neither this series nor Magee's 1987 series The Great Philosophers are available for purchase by home users - though as of March 2023 (with the appearance of the Charles Taylor interview) all episodes are freely available on YouTube.
Episodes
"An Introduction to Philosophy", with Isaiah Berlin. "Marxist Philosophy", with Charles Taylor. "Marcuse and the Frankfurt School", with Herbert Marcuse. "Martin Heidegger and Modern Existentialism", with William Barrett. "The Two Philosophies of Wittgenstein", with Anthony Quinton "Logical Positivism and its Legacy", with A. J. Ayer "The Spell of Linguistic Philosophy", with Bernard Williams "Moral Philosophy", with R. M. Hare. "The Ideas of Quine", with Willard Van Orman Quine. "The Philosophy of Language", with John Searle. "The Ideas of Chomsky", with Noam Chomsky. "The Philosophy of Science", with Hilary Putnam. "Philosophy and Politics", with Ronald Dwarkin. "Philosophy and Literature", with Iris Murdoch. "Philosophy: The Social Context", with Ernest Gellner.
See also
The Great Philosophers, a similar BBC television series presented by Magee in 1987.