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poster of The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition
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On the Nature of Law

Philosophy of law is an ancient subject, developed by Aristotle and elaborated by Cicero. We see how natural law theory has evolved through the Enlightenment and the writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin.

Writing:
  • Daniel Nicholas Robinson
Stars:
Release Date: Thu, Jan 01, 2004

Country: US
Language: En
Runtime: 30
Subtitle     Direct Link

Season 1:

From the Upanishads to Homer
Episode 1: From the Upanishads to Homer (Jan 01, 2004)
Before ancient Greek civilization, the world hosted deep insights into the human condition but offered little critical reflection. Homer planted the seeds of this reflection.
Philosophy—Did the Greeks Invent It?
Episode 2: Philosophy—Did the Greeks Invent It? (Jan 01, 2004)
The ancient Greeks were the first to objectify the products of their own thought and feeling and be willing to subject both to critical scrutiny. Why?
Pythagoras and the Divinity of Number
Episode 3: Pythagoras and the Divinity of Number (Jan 01, 2004)
How can we comprehend the very integrity of the universe and our place within it, if not by way of the most abstract relations?
What Is There?
Episode 4: What Is There? (Jan 01, 2004)
How many kinds of stuff make up the cosmos? Might everything, in fact, be reducible to one kind of thing?
The Greek Tragedians on Man’s Fate
Episode 5: The Greek Tragedians on Man’s Fate (Jan 01, 2004)
The ancient philosophers were only part of the rich community of thought and wonder that surrounded the world's first great dramatists and their landmark depth psychologies.
Herodotus and the Lamp of History
Episode 6: Herodotus and the Lamp of History (Jan 01, 2004)
Can history actually teach us? Herodotus looked at what he took to be certain universal human aspirations and deficiencies and concluded that indeed history could.
Socrates on the Examined Life
Episode 7: Socrates on the Examined Life (Jan 01, 2004)
Rhetoric wins arguments, but it is philosophy that shows us the way to our humanity.
Plato's Search For Truth
Episode 8: Plato's Search For Truth (Jan 01, 2004)
If one knows what one is looking for, why is a search necessary? And if one doesn't know, how is that search even possible? Socrates versus the Sophists.
Can Virtue Be Taught?
Episode 9: Can Virtue Be Taught? (Jan 01, 2004)
If virtue can be taught, whose virtue will it be? A look at the Socratic recognition of multiculturalism and moral relativism.
Plato's Republic—Man Writ Large
Episode 10: Plato's Republic—Man Writ Large (Jan 01, 2004)
This most famous of Plato's dialogues begins with the metaphor—or perhaps the reality—of the polis (community) as the expanded version of the person, with the fate of each inextricably bound to that of the other.
Hippocrates and the Science of Life
Episode 11: Hippocrates and the Science of Life (Jan 01, 2004)
Hippocratic medicine did much to demystify the human condition and the natural factors that affect it.
Aristotle on the Knowable
Episode 12: Aristotle on the Knowable (Jan 01, 2004)
Smith knows that a particular triangle contains 180 degrees because he has measured it, while Jones knows it by definition. But do they know the same thing?
Aristotle on Friendship
Episode 13: Aristotle on Friendship (Jan 01, 2004)
If true friendship is possible only between equals, how equal must they be—and with respect to what?
Aristotle on the Perfect Life
Episode 14: Aristotle on the Perfect Life (Jan 01, 2004)
What sort of life is right for humankind, and what is it about us that makes this so?
Rome, the Stoics, and the Rule of Law
Episode 15: Rome, the Stoics, and the Rule of Law (Jan 01, 2004)
The Stoics found in language something that would separate humanity from the animate realm, and that gave Rome a philosophy to civilize the world.
The Stoic Bridge to Christianity
Episode 16: The Stoic Bridge to Christianity (Jan 01, 2004)
The Jewish Christians, Hellenized or Orthodox, defended a monotheistic source of law.
Roman Law—Making a City of the Once-Wide World
Episode 17: Roman Law—Making a City of the Once-Wide World (Jan 01, 2004)
Roman development of law based on a conception of nature, and of human nature, is one of the signal achievements in the history of civilization.
The Light Within—Augustine on Human Nature
Episode 18: The Light Within—Augustine on Human Nature (Jan 01, 2004)
Thoughts and ideas from the fathers of the early Christian Church culminated in St. Augustine, who explores humanity's capacity for good and evil.
Islam
Episode 19: Islam (Jan 01, 2004)
What did the Prophet teach that so moved the masses? And how did the Western world come to understand the threat embodied in these Eastern "heresies"?
Secular Knowledge—The Idea of University
Episode 20: Secular Knowledge—The Idea of University (Jan 01, 2004)
Apart from trade schools devoted to medicine and law, the university as we know it did not come into being until 12th-century Paris.
The Reappearance of Experimental Science
Episode 21: The Reappearance of Experimental Science (Jan 01, 2004)
There were really two great renaissances. The first occurred at Oxford in the 13th century: the recovery of experimental inquiry by Roger Bacon and others.
Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law
Episode 22: Scholasticism and the Theory of Natural Law (Jan 01, 2004)
Thomas Aquinas's treatises on law would stand for centuries as the foundation of critical inquiry in jurisprudence.
The Renaissance—Was There One?
Episode 23: The Renaissance—Was There One? (Jan 01, 2004)
From Petrarch in the south to Erasmus in the north, Humanistic thought collided with those seeking to defend faith.
Let Us Burn the Witches to Save Them
Episode 24: Let Us Burn the Witches to Save Them (Jan 01, 2004)
Even in the time we honor with the title of Renaissance ran an undercurrent of a heady and ominous mixture of natural magic, natural science, and cruel superstition.
Francis Bacon and the Authority of Experience
Episode 25: Francis Bacon and the Authority of Experience (Jan 01, 2004)
Francis Bacon would come to be regarded as the prophet of Newton and originator of modern experimental science.
Descartes and the Authority of Reason
Episode 26: Descartes and the Authority of Reason (Jan 01, 2004)
Descartes is remembered for "I think, therefore I am." With his work, the authority of revelation, history, and title was replaced by the weight of reason itself.
Newton—The Saint of Science
Episode 27: Newton—The Saint of Science (Jan 01, 2004)
In the century after Newton's death, the Enlightenment's major architects of reform and revolution defended their ideas in terms of Newtonian science and its implications.
Hobbes and the Social Machine
Episode 28: Hobbes and the Social Machine (Jan 01, 2004)
As the idea of social science gained force, Hobbes's controversial treatise helped to naturalize the civil realm, readying it for scientific explanation.
Locke’s Newtonian Science of the Mind
Episode 29: Locke’s Newtonian Science of the Mind (Jan 01, 2004)
If all of physical reality can be reduced to elementary corpuscular entities, is the mind nothing more than comparable elements held together by something akin to gravity?
No matter? The Challenge of Materialism
Episode 30: No matter? The Challenge of Materialism (Jan 01, 2004)
When Berkeley reacted to Locke with an extravagant critique of materialism, he unwittingly reinforced claims of skeptics he meant to defeat.
Hume and the Pursuit of Happiness
Episode 31: Hume and the Pursuit of Happiness (Jan 01, 2004)
David Hume was perhaps the most influential philosopher to write in English, carrying empiricism to its logical end and thus grounding morality, truth, causation, and governance in experience.
Thomas Reid and the Scottish School
Episode 32: Thomas Reid and the Scottish School (Jan 01, 2004)
Thomas Reid was Hume's most successful and influential critic, with a common sense psychology that was both naturalistic and compatible with religious teaching and which reached America's founders.
France and the Philosophes
Episode 33: France and the Philosophes (Jan 01, 2004)
The leading French thinkers of the 18th century—Voltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and Diderot—appealed directly to the ordinary citizen, encouraging skepticism toward traditional authority.
The Federalist Papers and the Great Experiment
Episode 34: The Federalist Papers and the Great Experiment (Jan 01, 2004)
The extraordinary documents written in support of the proposed constitution represent a profound legacy in political philosophy.
What Is Enlightenment? Kant on Freedom
Episode 35: What Is Enlightenment? Kant on Freedom (Jan 01, 2004)
Here the limits of reason and the very framework of thought complete—and in another respect undermine—the very project of the Enlightenment.
Moral Science and the Natural World
Episode 36: Moral Science and the Natural World (Jan 01, 2004)
Kant traced the implications of a human life as lived in both the natural world of causality and the intelligible world of reason (where morality arises).
Phrenology—A Science of the Mind
Episode 37: Phrenology—A Science of the Mind (Jan 01, 2004)
In founding the now-discredited theory of phrenology, Franz Gall nevertheless helped define today's brain sciences.
The Idea of Freedom
Episode 38: The Idea of Freedom (Jan 01, 2004)
The idea of freedom developed by Goethe, Schiller, and other romantic idealists forms a central chapter in the Long Debate over whether or not science has overstepped its bounds.
The Hegelians and History
Episode 39: The Hegelians and History (Jan 01, 2004)
Hegel's Reason in History and other works inspired a transcendentalist movement that spanned Europe, Great Britain, and the United States.
The Aesthetic Movement—Genius
Episode 40: The Aesthetic Movement—Genius (Jan 01, 2004)
By the second half of the 19th century, the House of Intellect was divided between two competing perspectives: the growing aesthetic concept of reality and the narrowing scientific view.
Nietzsche at the Twilight
Episode 41: Nietzsche at the Twilight (Jan 01, 2004)
A student of the classics, Nietzsche came to regard the human condition as fatally tied to needs and motives that operate at the most powerful levels of existence.
The Liberal Tradition—J. S. Mill
Episode 42: The Liberal Tradition—J. S. Mill (Jan 01, 2004)
When can the state or the majority legitimately exercise power over the actions of individuals? The modern liberal answer is set forth in the work of Mill, an almost unchallenged authority for more than a century.
Darwin and Nature’s “Purposes”
Episode 43: Darwin and Nature’s “Purposes” (Jan 01, 2004)
From social Darwinism to sociobiology, the evolutionary science of the late 18th and 19th centuries dominates social thought and political initiatives.
Marxism—Dead But Not Forgotten
Episode 44: Marxism—Dead But Not Forgotten (Jan 01, 2004)
After years of influence, the Marxist critique of society is now more a subtext than a guiding bible of reform.
The Freudian World
Episode 45: The Freudian World (Jan 01, 2004)
Marx, Darwin, and Freud are the chief 19th-century architects of modern thought about society and self—each was nominally "scientific" in approach and believed their theories to be grounded in the realm of observable facts.
The Radical William James
Episode 46: The Radical William James (Jan 01, 2004)
Mortally opposed to all "block universes" of certainty and theoretical hubris, James offered a quintessentially home-grown psychology of experience.
William James's Pragmatism
Episode 47: William James's Pragmatism (Jan 01, 2004)
Working in the realm of common sense, James directed the attention of philosophy and science to that ultimate arena of confirmation in which our deepest and most enduring interests are found.
Wittgenstein and the Discursive Turn
Episode 48: Wittgenstein and the Discursive Turn (Jan 01, 2004)
Meaning arises from conventions that presuppose not only a social world but a world in which we share the interests and aspirations of others.
Alan Turing in the Forest of Wisdom
Episode 49: Alan Turing in the Forest of Wisdom (Jan 01, 2004)
Turing is famous for breaking Germany's famed World War II Enigma code, but, as a founder of modern computational science, he also wrote influentially about the possibilities of breaking the mind's code.
Four Theories of the Good Life
Episode 50: Four Theories of the Good Life (Jan 01, 2004)
The contemplative. The active. The fatalistic. The hedonistic. There are good but limited arguments for each of these.
Ontology—What There
Episode 51: Ontology—What There "Really" Is (Jan 01, 2004)
From the Greek ontos, there is a branch of metaphysics referred to as ontology, devoted to the question of "real being." Ontological controversies have broad ethical and social implications.
Philosophy of Science—The Last Word?
Episode 52: Philosophy of Science—The Last Word? (Jan 01, 2004)
Should fundamental questions, if they are to be answered with precision and objectivity, be answered by science? We consider Thomas Kuhn's influential treatise on scientific revolutions.
Philosophy of Psychology and Related Confusions
Episode 53: Philosophy of Psychology and Related Confusions (Jan 01, 2004)
Psychology is a subject of many and varied interests but narrow modes of inquiry. Today cognitive neuroscience is the dominant approach, but other schools have reappeared.
Philosophy of Mind, If There Is One
Episode 54: Philosophy of Mind, If There Is One (Jan 01, 2004)
The principal grounds of disagreement within the wide-ranging subject of philosophy of mind center on whether the right framework for considering issues is provided by developed sciences or humanistic frameworks.
What makes a Problem “Moral”
Episode 55: What makes a Problem “Moral” (Jan 01, 2004)
Is there a “moral reality”? We examine especially David Hume’s rejection of the idea that there is anything “moral” in the external world.
Medicine and the Value of Life
Episode 56: Medicine and the Value of Life (Jan 01, 2004)
What guidance does moral philosophy provide in the domain of medicine, where life-and-death decisions are made daily?
On the Nature of Law
Episode 57: On the Nature of Law (Jan 01, 2004)
Philosophy of law is an ancient subject, developed by Aristotle and elaborated by Cicero. We see how natural law theory has evolved through the Enlightenment and the writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin.
Justice and Just Wars
Episode 58: Justice and Just Wars (Jan 01, 2004)
Theories of the “just war,” beginning with St. Augustine and including St. Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vittoria, and Francisco Suarez, set forth principles by which engaging in and conducting war are justified.
Aesthetics—Beauty Without Observers
Episode 59: Aesthetics—Beauty Without Observers (Jan 01, 2004)
The subject of beauty is among the oldest in philosophy, treated at length in several of the dialogues of Plato and in his Symposium, and redefined through history. What is beauty? Is there anything “rational” about it?
God—Really?
Episode 60: God—Really? (Jan 01, 2004)
We consider various theological arguments for and against belief in God, including those of Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Reid, and William James.

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