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The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.
342 Episodes
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In the aftermath of the Second World War, France was in a state of creative ferment that affected politics, culture - and philosophy. A new mode of philosophical writing emerged in the form of the review, and it was being done in an idiom that we've since come to recognise as typical of modern French theory: dense, experimental, multivocal, open-ended, very much the opposite of traditional analytic philosophical style. It grabbed scholarly attention then, and is still controversial today.
1Pain is part of life, and none of us can escape it. And yet most of us feel that the deal is worth it, that the pleasure of life outweighs the suffering. Anti-natalist philosophy takes a different view.
British thinker Mary Midgley (1919-2018) believed that philosophy should be a public undertaking, concerned with issues that have their genesis out in the world rather than within the academy. But what is the proper relationship between public and academic philosophy? And why are we talking about plumbing this week?
Humility is the capacity for acknowledging that your own wisdom may be flawed, and that your epistemic commitments may be misplaced - but how can that acknowledgement honestly take place if you believe that the things you know are true?
"Freedom" has become a familiar catchcry in Western democracies, as individuals and protest groups increasingly push back against government restrictions of any and all kinds. The problems this poses for communal life and social cohesion are obvious - so how should freedom be properly understood?
How does a woman philosopher deal with the challenges posed by conservative, masculinist culture within her own academic discipline? Our guest this week turns to the work of Immanuel Kant, the 18th century German thinker who formulated a fine-grained philosophy of hope.
When you think about the music you like (or don't like), what does it tell you about your taste? Do you think you have good taste? And if you do, why? What is it about music that determines good or bad taste, and is it possible to cultivate the former?
This week we're exploring our enduring cultural fascination with identical twins, asking what drives it, and what philosophical questions around selfhood and identity are raised by twinship.
Digestive disorders are a common source of distress and social anxiety - which might seem to be an odd topic for philosophy, until you start to think about why we attach such stigma, shame and silence to issues of the gut. What does the gut tell us about our own experience of embodiment - and how can disability theory be used to shape healthier attitudes to the gut issues that plague so many of us?
The global pornography industry is getting bigger, more mainstream and more nasty - but does this mean it should be regulated? Many feminist philosophers would say yes - but this places them at odds with liberal defenders of pornography, who worry that regulation would constitute an attack on free speech.
Australian philosophy has been punching above its weight in recent decades - but does there exist something that we could call an identifiably Australian philosophical tradition? And how does the future of Australian philosophy look, at a time when the academic Humanities are under siege, and universities are being pushed to turn out "job-ready graduates"?
For a long time there's been an ambivalent relationship between LGBTQ communities and the state. Even in liberal democracies, which supposedly exist to protect the interests of all their citizens, examples of the state-sanctioned persecution of sexual minorities can be found right up to the present day. And the intellectual project of queer theory has had an anti-state scepticism baked into it from its earliest inception.
What exactly is it about swearing that gives it its offensive power? None of the standard philosophy-of-language explanations really gets to the bottom of why we swear, why we don't, and what we're doing when we use "obscene" language. This week, the author of a new book offers some thoughts.
What makes a true friend? Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics outlines certain conditions for virtuous friendship, but he sets the bar high, and his estimation of women's capacity for friendship is low. This week we're putting Aristotle in dialogue with Mary Astell, an early modern (and proto-feminist) English philosopher who also wrote extensively on friendship.
Transgender is commonly invoked as an identity, but this week we're asking if it is better understood as something that points to experience.
If you're a gamer, you might be interested to hear that according to a new study, female characters speak approximately half as much as male characters in video games. But why should philosophers be interested?
In 1998, the American philosopher Richard Rorty predicted dark days for democracy and the rise of a Trump-like figure in the USA. This week, with the publication of a new collection of Rorty's essays, we're considering the ongoing relevance of his work.
If you don't know much about women philosophers in the ancient Graeco-Roman world, you have a good excuse. They're known to have existed, but hardly any of their works have survived, and historical accounts of their lives tend to come from biographies written by men. This week we try to unravel the mystery.
During the lockdowns at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, people started to experience a strange sense of temporal distortion - time slowing down, time speeding up, time getting bent out of shape. This week we hear from a philosopher, a historian and a sociologist about how that might have happened, and what it might mean.
Mary Graham is one of Australia's most distinguished Aboriginal academics and authors. In this conversation, she articulates a political philosophy of relationality, conflict management and much more.
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what happened to the Daniel dennett episode I heard just a few days ago?
very interesting episode
I couldn't suppress a chortle when the guest exclaims "Jesus Christ" (cat jumping onto his lap - 18:01)
wonderful show. This guy makes much more sense about why the unbelievable is adhered to. And why there's no point in discussion of the belief. All birds are now drones etc. great fun.
Who is the democratic politician they talk about at 22.40?
Scruton always has some deep insight into the human condition. Enjoyable conversation!
oh my goood! blade runner😭
'Most people' DON'T agree that people should be able to barge in anyone's property. The entire premise of this show is flawed. Also, what 'most people' do is no measure of morality.
All science is is finding an explanation of a an observation in nature. It then extends in to using that understanding and applying it to an objective. Confirming the observation. Perceptional aweness, ability to accurately describe observations and motives and intentions behind the objectives are all governed by one's consciousness and perceptional abilities (which includes technology) Meta-sciences are observations that can only be described with math or a disputed observation.
Fascinating podcast. The issue of how to reconcile the theological Western heritage with thr supposedly secular society we live in is key point to understand every our moral and political choices even nowadays.
Hi I really love the show but the use of jazz as background music is an extremely poor and counter productive choice. Jazz is commonly described as a conversation and for this reason, especially for musicians, it is extremely distracting. For me it is like trying to listen to two unrelated conversations at once. Though I want to listen to the human voice, my attention is continuously being called away to the conversation that is being conducted musically. Please, no more jazz, stick to uniformly ignorable music in the background. To do otherwise is positively ignorant and makes no sense!