Our Work with The BBC on the History of Ideas series

As one of the world’s most respected public broadcasters, ‘Aunty Beeb’ needs no introduction.

We’ve been working with the BBC for six years on a range of projects and in different animation styles including whiteboard (with the hairy hand). Our work has been used on Radio, Television and the BBC website to explain complex subjects – we even got to illustrate Professor Stephen Hawking’s Reith Lectures on the nature of black holes.

A History of Ideas

How did everything begin? What is love? How do I live a good life? These are just some of the questions that ‘A History of Ideas’ sets out to address. Our animations illustrate and complement the thought-provoking scripts delivered by the vocal talents of Stephen Fry, Gillian Anderson, Harry Shearer and Aidan Turner.

Question 1: What is freedom?

Beauty
A History of Ideas: The Libet Experiments and Free Will
A History of Ideas: Thomas Hobbes on Freedom Vs Security
A History of Ideas: The Free Will Defence
A History of Ideas: John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle

Question 2: What is beauty?

What is justice?
A History of Ideas: The Golden Ratio
A History of Ideas: Simone de Beauvoir on Feminine Beauty
A History of Ideas: Diotima’s Ladder And The Appreciation Of Beauty
A History of Ideas: Edmund Burke on the Sublime

Question 3: How can I know right from wrong?

How do I lead a good life?
A History of Ideas: Peter Singer On The Life You Can Save
A History of Ideas: Kant's Axe
A History of Ideas: The Trolley Problem
A History of Ideas: The Is/Ought Problem (AKA ‘Hume’s Guillotine’)

Question 4: How did everything begin?

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A History of Ideas: William Paley and the Divine Watchmaker
History of Ideas: Thomas Aquinas and the First Mover Argument
A History of Ideas: Hindu Creation Stories
A History of Ideas: Astronomer Carole Mundell on the Big Bang
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A History of Ideas: The Idea of Cultural Transmission
A History of Ideas: Karl Marx on Alienation
A History of Ideas: John Locke on Personal Identity
A History of Ideas: Noam Chomsky on Language Acquisition

Question 6: How has technology changed us?

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A History of Ideas: Rewiring the Brain
A History of Ideas: Luciano Floridi On The Fourth Revolution
A History of Ideas: The Antikythera Mechanism
History of Ideas: Marshall McLuhan On The Medium is the Message

Question 7: How do I live a good life?

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A History of Ideas: Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths
A History of Ideas: Ayn Rand on Selfishness
A History of Ideas: Max Weber and the Protestant Ethic
A History of Ideas: Aristotle on ‘Flourishing'

Question 8: What is justice?

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A History of Ideas: Habeas Corpus
A History of Ideas: Lex Talionis and Retribution
A History of Ideas: John Rawls On The Veil of Ignorance
A History of Ideas: Henry David Thoreau On Civil Disobedience

Question 9: What does it mean to be me?

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A History of Ideas: Jean Paul Sartre and the Existential Choice
A History of Ideas: Erving Goffman and the Performed Self
A History of Ideas: Know Thyself
A History of Ideas: Renee Descartes and "I Think, Therefore I Am"

Question 10: How should we live together?

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A History of Ideas: Confucian Ancestor Worship
A History of Ideas: Adam Smith On The Invisible Hand
A History of Ideas: Plato's Philosopher Kings
A History of Ideas: John Locke on Toleration

Question 5: What makes me human?

Question 11: What is love?

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A History of Ideas: Selfless Love
A History of Ideas: The Oedipus Complex
A History of Ideas: Sartre on Love
A History of Ideas: The Myth of the Missing Half

Question 12:  How can I know anything at all?

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A History of Ideas: George Berkeley On 'Esse Est Percipi' ('To Be Is To Be Perceived')
A History of Ideas: Hume on Miracles
A History of Ideas: Wittgenstein’s Beetle In A Box Analogy
A History of Ideas: Karl Popper On Falsification