Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Humility
56 mins; March 27, 2026
Oral tradition and oracy
56 mins; March 20, 2026
Taste
56 mins; March 16, 2026
Women, language & experience
56 mins; March 06, 2026
Authority
57 mins; February 27, 2026
Crime and punishment medieval to modern
56 mins; February 20, 2026
Working Class Creativity
56 mins; February 13, 2026
Is Might Right?
56 mins; February 06, 2026
Labour, work and productivity
57 mins; January 30, 2026
Double Lives
56 mins; January 23, 2026
Victorian Values
56 mins; January 16, 2026
Innovation
56 mins; January 09, 2026
Travel
56 mins; January 02, 2026
Idleness
56 mins; December 12, 2025
Influencing History
56 mins; December 05, 2025
Marriage
56 mins; November 28, 2025
Rocks
56 mins; November 21, 2025
Revenge and reconciliation
56 mins; November 14, 2025
The end of civilisations and societies
56 mins; November 07, 2025
Rational and Irrational decision making
57 mins; October 24, 2025
Traditions, roots and local pride
56 mins; October 17, 2025
The status of Science
58 mins; October 10, 2025
The Good Life
56 mins; October 03, 2025
Finding my tribe
56 mins; September 26, 2025
Friendship
56 mins; July 11, 2025
Censorship, editing and self-censorship
57 mins; July 04, 2025
Christian faith, politics and culture
56 mins; June 27, 2025
Language
56 mins; June 20, 2025
Failure
56 mins; June 13, 2025
Podcasting difficult histories
56 mins; June 06, 2025
Common Sense
56 mins; June 04, 2025
Power: A User's Guide
57 mins; June 04, 2025
WOLVES
56 mins; May 23, 2025
Political Visions
56 mins; May 16, 2025
Peace
56 mins; May 09, 2025
Community
56 mins; May 02, 2025
Decadence
56 mins; April 25, 2025
The Middle Classes
56 mins; March 28, 2025
Isolation
56 mins; March 21, 2025
Evidence
57 mins; March 14, 2025
Uncertainty
56 mins; March 07, 2025
A pinch of salt
56 mins; February 28, 2025
Malcolm X, life changes and flexible thinking
35 mins; February 21, 2025
All we need is love
56 mins; February 14, 2025
Repetition
56 mins; February 07, 2025
Decision Making
50 mins; January 31, 2025
Diaries
56 mins; January 24, 2025
Knowing When To Stop
57 mins; January 10, 2025
Beer, Crisps and the British pub
56 mins; December 20, 2024
Luck, predictability and superstition
57 mins; December 13, 2024
How we think about evil
56 mins; December 06, 2024
Gifts and Gratitude
56 mins; November 29, 2024
Diplomacy from Ancient Greece to Trump
56 mins; November 22, 2024
Cosy comfort reading or Nietzsche?
56 mins; November 15, 2024
Milton and our modern world
56 mins; November 08, 2024
Ghosts, death and ecstatic states
57 mins; November 01, 2024
Are we all American now?
56 mins; October 25, 2024
Insiders & Outsiders
56 mins; October 18, 2024
Childhood and innocence
56 mins; October 11, 2024
Reading & Empathy
56 mins; October 04, 2024
The eternal dynamic of Rivalry, Fredric Jameson, the newly reopened Warburg Institute
56 mins; September 27, 2024
Crisis & Decision
56 mins; September 20, 2024
Carl Schmitt, democracy and dictatorship
56 mins; September 13, 2024
Carl Schmitt, democracy and dictatorship
56 mins; September 13, 2024
Escapism
56 mins; June 28, 2024
The illusion of time, the summer solstice & the philosophy of comedy
56 mins; June 21, 2024
History - the long and short of it
56 mins; June 14, 2024
Generations - D-Day - Global Instability
56 mins; June 07, 2024
The Insurrectionists' Guide to the Movies
56 mins; May 31, 2024
The Insurrectionists' Guide to the Movies
56 mins; May 31, 2024
Left and Right - still relevant in British and Global Politics?
57 mins; May 25, 2024
Positive & negative politics, "intellectual vices" and the face you bring to work.
56 mins; May 21, 2024
New Thinking: 2024’s New Generation Thinkers
44 mins; May 16, 2024
Life expectations, philosophy in the world, protest
56 mins; May 10, 2024
Winning & Losing, Plato Scroll, the Decline of Nightlife
57 mins; May 04, 2024
Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal
57 mins; April 26, 2024
New Thinking: Exploring the local
43 mins; April 26, 2024
Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey
57 mins; April 19, 2024
Change, scrabble and cultural christianity
56 mins; April 12, 2024
Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine
56 mins; April 05, 2024
Unravelling plainness
14 mins; March 29, 2024
Pranks
44 mins; March 29, 2024
What does feminist art mean?
14 mins; March 28, 2024
New Thinking: Light and Darkness
39 mins; March 28, 2024
Approaches to death
44 mins; March 27, 2024
New Thinking: East West artistic connections
35 mins; March 27, 2024
Rock, Paper, Saints and Sinners
13 mins; March 27, 2024
Writing Place
44 mins; March 27, 2024
Arteries of tomorrow
14 mins; March 26, 2024
New Thinking: How water shapes our history and environment
