Past Present Future

David Runciman

Booking Overview

This twice-weekly history-of-ideas interview show examines politics, philosophy, culture, science, and technology through conversations with historians, writers, academics, and other subject-matter experts. Agencies could credibly pitch published scholars, authors, scientists, journalists, and public intellectuals with distinctive expertise or a timely book; booking difficulty is medium because guests generally need substantial credentials and intellectual relevance.

Metrics

Episodes: 335

Frequency: Multiple_weekly

Rating: 4.8/5.0

Estimated listeners: 10k-100k

Gender skew: Unknown

Location: United Kingdom

Contact Information

Publicly listed emails

ppfideas@gmail.com

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Host

David Runciman - Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge, author, and creator of the Talking Politics podcast.

Booking Intelligence

Booking Requirements

medium

Typical Credentials:

Established academics, historians, philosophers, scientists, authors, journalists, and other recognized experts with specialized knowledge and the ability to connect their work to larger intellectual or social questions.

Required Achievements:

Published books, Academic or professional expertise, Established journalism or writing careers, Recognized research or public scholarship

Recent Guest Discussions

Nikhil Krishnan - A. J. Ayer, Logical Positivism, Truth, And The Relationship Between Philosophy And Public Life

Sue Black - Forensic Science, Expert Testimony, DNA Evidence, And The Courtroom

Suzanne O'Sullivan - Medical Diagnosis, Expanding Diagnostic Categories, Predictive Testing, And Overdiagnosis

James Marriott - Short-form Video, Declining Attention Spans, Television, Youtube, Tiktok, And Reading

Ian Ellison - Decadence, Ancient Rome, Modern Art, Weimar Germany, And Contemporary Society

Recent Topics

Intellectual History, Philosophy, Politics, Technology

Episodes

Here's the recent few episodes on

Past Present Future

The Lives of the Philosophers: Camus

August 26, 2026

In our series about how twentieth-century philosophy and biography intersect, David talks to philosopher Alex Carter about the life of Albert Camus, novelist, playwright, journalist, celebrity and public intellectual. What makes Camus a philosopher as well? How was he shaped by his Algerian background? Does it make sense to call him an absurdist? How did he try to reconcile the very different parts of his extraordinary life? You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – w...

The Lives of the Philosophers: Simone Weil

August 23, 2026

The second life we explore in our series about the twentieth-century philosophers could not be more different from the first: David talks to philosopher Alex Carter about Simone Weil, who died aged just thirty-four and lived through much political and personal hardship, some of it self-inflicted. How did her asceticism inform her philosophical outlook? Why did she believe she needed to work in a factory and fight in the Spanish civil war to be true to her beliefs? When and how does her philos...

The Lives of the Philosophers: A. J. Ayer

August 19, 2026

Today we begin a new series exploring twentieth-century philosophy through the lives of the people behind the ideas. First up David talks to philosopher Nikhil Krishnan about A. J. Ayer, the man who helped inspire the rise and fall of logical positivism. What did Ayer discover about the nature of truth when he went to Vienna on his honeymoon? How did he manage to popularise such a technical approach to his subject? What was left of philosophy when he had finished with it? And what does Ayer’s...

Publicly listed emails

ppfideas@gmail.com

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