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The Reith Lectures

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Significant international thinkers deliver the BBC's flagship annual lecture series.

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The Reith Lectures: Bertrand Russell - Authority and the Individual: Control and Initiative: Their Respective Spheres

1948: Bertrand Russell - Authority and the Individual

23/01/1949

Control and Initiative: Their Respective Spheres

Bertrand Russell - Authority and the Individual

BBC Radio 4 - The Reith Lectures, Bertrand Russell - Authority and the Individual, Control and Initiative: Their Respective Spheres

Bertrand Russell considers the roles of state control in a progressive society.

Bertrand Russell considers what matters should be controlled by the state in a progressive society, and what should be left to private initiative, in his fifth Reith lecture.

The inaugural Reith Lecturer is the philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer Bertrand Russell. One of the founders of analytic philosophy and a Nobel Laureate, he is the author of Principia Mathematica, and the bestselling History of Western Philosophy, written in 1946. His Reith lecture series is entitled 'Authority and the Individual'. 

In his penultimate Reith lecture, entitled 'Control and Initiative: Their Respective Spheres', Bertrand Russell considers which matters should be controlled by the state in a healthy and progressive society, and what should be left to private initiative. He argues that in our complex world, there cannot be fruitful initiative without government, but nor can there be government without initiative.

The Reith Lectures: Bertrand Russell - Authority and the Individual

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Philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell gives the inaugural Reith lecture series.

The philosopher, mathematician and social reformer Bertrand Russell gives the inaugural Reith lecture series on the subject of Authority and the Individual.

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