10/10/2010
This week on The Forum: is empathy exclusively human? Piecing together archaeological fragments to reach back into the ancient world of Socrates, and breaking out of literary ghettoes.
A fresh look at human nature when compared with our nearest cousins in the animal kingdom. The eminent Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal describes new research into chimpanzees and other primates that suggests consolation and empathy are not purely human virtues.
More virtue, this time going back two and a half thousand years. British historian Bettany Hughes transports us back to ancient Greece for a reassessment of the great philosopher Socrates and his ideas on what makes life worth living.
And a plea from the best selling Turkish writer Elif Shafak to let a novelist鈥檚 imagination run free, unconstrained by the pressures of national and identity politics.
Creating empathy across time, continents and species. Illustration by Emily Kasriel.
Last on
Chapters
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Frans de Waal
Making the case for empathy in our closest non-human relatives.
Duration: 18:48
SIXTY SECOND IDEA TO CHANGE THE WORLD
Give yourself a foretaste of death.
Duration: 04:12
Bettany Hughes
Why Socrates was attempting to find 鈥榯he good in life鈥�.
Duration: 15:12
Elif Shafak
Challenging preconceptions about female writers from the Muslim world.
Duration: 07:48
Broadcast
- Sun 10 Oct 2010 08:05GMT麻豆官网首页入口 World Service Online
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The Forum
The programme that explains the present by exploring the past
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