Free Thinking

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The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

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Free Thinking: Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine

Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine

Matthew Sweet and guests look back at the week exploring the ideas shaping our lives today

Barry Smith, Joanne Paul, James Kirkup and Sophie Scott Brown join Matthew Sweet for a conversation about rights and duties that moves from Thomas Hobbes to margarine.

What do you owe the state? Do you think in terms of loyalties and duties?  Writing during the English civil war, Thomas Hobbes came up with an outline for the social contract between the people and the sovereign – on Free Thinking, Matthew Sweet and guests unpick his ideas and come up with a version for now. They also explore the politics of butter, margarine and scones and seek guidance about history from Abba lyrics.

Barry Smith is Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study and founding director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses. For BBC Radio 4 he presented a 10 part series called The Uncommon Senses.  You can find him on previous Free Thinking conversations about Pleasure and Futurism.
Joanne Paul is the author of The House of Dudley: A New History of Tudor England.  She's Honorary Senior Lecturer in Intellectual History at the University of Sussex and was a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker and presented her research in a Radio 3 Essay exploring Speaking truth to power 
James Kirkup is a Senior Fellow at the Social Market Foundation think tank and he writes for publications including The Times 
Sophie Scott-Brown is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, where she teaches intellectual history. She is the author of The Histories of Raphael Samuel - A Portrait of A People’s Historian.  You can find her in the Free Thinking programme archive discussing anarchism and David Graeber and Happiness 

Dr Stu Eve is Archaeological Director of the Waterloo Uncovered project. 

Previous episodes of Free Thinking are available on the programme website and BBC Sounds and as the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast. 

Producer: Robyn Read

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