BBC Podcasts

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosophy of solitude. The state of being alone can arise for many different reasons: imprisonment, exile or personal choice. It can be prompted by religious belief, personal necessity or a philosophical need for solitary contemplation. Many thinkers have dealt with the subject, from Plato and Aristotle to Hannah Arendt. It's a philosophical tradition that takes in medieval religious mystics, the work of Montaigne and Adam Smith, and the great American poets of solitude Thoreau and Emerson.

With:

- Melissa Lane Professor of Politics at Princeton University

- Simon Blackburn Professor of Philosophy at the New College of the Humanities and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

- John Haldane Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews

Producer: Thomas Morris.