Portrait of Lord Melvyn Bragg, host of In Our Time

History of science by discipline

While the term "political science" as a separate field is a rather late arrival in terms of social sciences, analyzing political power and the effects that it had on history has been occurring for centuries. However, the term "political science" was not always distinguished from political philosophy, and the modern discipline has a clear set of antecedents including moral philosophy, political economy, political theology, history, and other fields concerned with normative determinations of what ought to be and with deducing the characteristics and functions of the ideal state.

3 episodes

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  1. Logic

    Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of logic, the study of reasoning and argument.

    21 October 2010

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    Featuring: A. C. Grayling, Peter Millican, Rosanna Keefe

     
  2. Renaissance Maths

    Melvyn Bragg discusses Renaissance Mathematics and the change in the understanding of numbers, movement, time and even nature itself, culminating in the calculus of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz.

    2 June 2005

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    Featuring: Robert Lee Kaplan, Jim Bennett, Jackie Stedall

     
  3. The Invention of Photography

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the development and impact of photography in the 1830s, with heliographs, sun pictures, photogenic drawing, Daguerre and Fox Talbot.

    7 July 2016

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    Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Elizabeth Edwards, Alison Morrison-Low