Precht is a German philosophy program on the Second German Television (ZDF). The program is hosted and named after the philosopher and publicist Richard David Precht , who discusses a current issue of social life with a guest from culture, science, business or politics in each episode.
In the very cinematic, nocturnal studio atmosphere without an audience, everything is concentrated on the two conversation partners. The topics are based on current developments in society or search for applicable knowledge on fundamental questions of human activity.
broadcast
Each broadcast is 45 minutes long and is recorded in a Berlin studio. The broadcast takes place on Sunday evenings between 11:30 p.m. and midnight. All episodes are repeated on 3sat . Gero von Boehm directs it, and Werner von Bergen is the editor.
For the television program, Precht received the German Television Prize 2013 in the “Special Achievements” category, along with two other winners .
Topics and guests
The programs are sorted chronologically according to the broadcast.
The journalist Maximilian Probst criticized in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in the article Precht makes stupid the first episode of the television program (subject: education policy), which replaced The Philosophical Quartet . He sees this as a “performative self-contradiction”. Precht calls for creativity without allowing it “just a moment in the medium of television”. At “no point” there was thought, at no point “doubted or given time”, not even “really asked or even asked once”. The result has "next to nothing to do with philosophy". The Spiegel author Sebastian Hammelehle agrees . The result is a "talk satire: two chairs, one opinion". The conversation between Precht and Gerald Hüther has “about as much to do” with philosophy as the “average German conversation about the Bundesliga - everyone has an opinion”.
The fifth episode was received more positively by Melanie Mühl . The 14th episode on the subject of “Big Data” was praised by the Handelsblatt as proof that the ZDF was still fulfilling its educational mandate “at least after midnight”. However, it is "not tremendously illuminating" when "two relatively like-minded Google opponents exchange their views in the absence of representatives of different opinions".
