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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Enlightenment Voices: Diderot

The Essay: Enlightenment Voices: Diderot: Part 5

Diderot

Part 5 Enlightenment Voices

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Enlightenment Voices, Diderot, Part 5Close menu

Caroline Warman and Kate Tunstall introduce Diderot's dialogue D'Alembert's Dream.

Caroline Warman and Kate Tunstall introduce Diderot's extraordinary dialogue D'Alembert's Dream.

Diderot experts Caroline Warman and Kate Tunstall join forces to introduce his most extraordinary work, "D'Alembert's Dream". 

Denis Diderot's publications range from his monumental Encyclopedie to his erotic novella, Indiscreet Jewels, but perhaps his most extraordinary work is D'Alembert's Dream. It starts with Diderot's fellow encyclopedist, D'Alembert, challenging him to explain human life without making any reference to God or the soul or anything that isn't purely physical. Caroline Warman and Kate Tunstall, both Diderot experts at the University of Oxford, take on the Dream in a dialogue of their own and playfully challenge the listener to grapple with this quintessentially Enlightenment subject themselves.

The Essay: Enlightenment Voices

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

Series introducing great scientists, thinkers and activists of the European Enlightenment

Series introducing the great scientists, thinkers and activists of the European Enlightenment

Series exploring the life and work of French Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot

Series exploring the life and work of French philosopher Denis Diderot, the inspirational driving force behind the greatest publishing enterprise of the Enlightenment, the Encyclopdie

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