This comprehensive series from the archives of the BBC features Bryan Magee - world-renowned author, professor, expert in the history of ideas, and creator of this series - who discusses the main developments in Western philosophy from the 19th century to the present with fifteen distinguished thinkers. Those interviewed include Willard Van Orman Quine, A. J. Ayer, Iris Murdoch, Ernest Gellner, Noam Chomsky, and the late Herbert Marcuse. Each program reinforces the relevance of philosophy to a broad range of subject areas, including language, morality, science, politics, literature, economics, and sociology.

*Fifteen programs 40 to 49 minutes each:
An Introduction to Philosophy | Marxist Philosophy | Marcuse and the Frankfurt School | Heidegger and Modern Existentialism | The Two Philosophies of Wittgenstein | Logical Positivism and Its Legacy | The Spell of Linguistic Philosophy | Moral Philosophy | The Ideas of Quine | The Philosophy of Language | The Ideas of Chomsky | The Philosophy of Science | Philosophy and Politics | Philosophy and Literature | Philosophy: The Social Context