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The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

The Forum: 10/10/2010

10/10/2010

BBC World Service - The Forum, 10/10/2010

This week on the Forum: empathy in great apes, ancient Athens and fictional characters.

This week on The Forum: is empathy exclusively human? Piecing together archaeological fragments to reach back into the ancient world of Socrates, and breaking out of literary ghettoes.

A fresh look at human nature when compared with our nearest cousins in the animal kingdom. The eminent Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal describes new  research into chimpanzees and other primates that suggests consolation and empathy are not purely human virtues.

More virtue, this time going back two and a half thousand years. British historian Bettany Hughes transports us back to ancient Greece for a reassessment of the great philosopher Socrates and his ideas on what makes life worth living.

And a plea from the best selling Turkish writer Elif Shafak to let a novelist’s imagination run free, unconstrained by the pressures of national and identity politics.

Creating empathy across time, continents and species. Illustration by Emily Kasriel.

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10/10/2010

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