Philosophers Audio & Video

With the the LearnOutLoud Biography podcast series we will explore the lives of notable people throughout history.

Great Biographies in Time explores the lives of some of the most intriguing figures in history.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau is one of the best-known non-fiction books written by an American. Published in 1854, it details Thoreau’s life for two years, two months, and two days around the shores of Walden Pond.

What if you could watch Socrates, on film, rehearsing his Socratic dialogues? What if there was footage of Descartes, Thoreau, or Shakespeare as themselves at work and in their daily life? Might we now look at these figures differently, with perhaps a deeper understanding of their work and lives?

This feature-length documentary is a hilarious and mind-bending journey into the multi-dimensional life of Robert Anton Wilson, one of the foundations of 20th Century Western counterculture and author of the Illuminatus! Trilogy.

A 15-minute discussion of Ayn Rand's philosophy, posted every other Monday on www.Peikoff.com. Leonard Peikoff is a PhD in philosophy and a longtime teacher and writer; he was designated by Ayn Rand as her legal and intellectual heir. In the show, Peikoff reads a batch of philosophical questions emailed to him and methodically answers them.

For over 40 years, Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan has inspired audiences to expand their world view beyond traditional Western forms....

A series of biographical lectures originally published in 1850. Each chapter is a philosophical treatment of the life of an intellectual. The six representatives are Plato, Swedenborg, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Napolean and Goethe.

In this brilliant book, Francis Wheen, the author of the most successful biography of Karl Marx, tells the story of Das Kapital and Marx’s twenty-year struggle to complete his unfinished masterpiece.

The 1993 documentary film above, Michel Foucault: Beyond Good and Evil, explores the philosopher and his complex and controversial life through interviews with colleagues and biographers and re-enactments of Foucault's storied exploits in the American counterculture.