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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.
352 Episodes
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What moral judgements are made in philosophical thinking about fat bodies, and how does that culturally impact how we move through the world?
2Philosophers have long debated how to define emotions and their relationship to our bodies. So, what are the different schools of thought? Why is there such a lack of consensus?
How should we engage with politics and protest? We explore the history of political engagement and ask what role civil disobedience plays in our lives today.
Most of us experience time as something that passes, or flows like a river - or at least we think we do. Could it be that the sense of time passing is just an illusion? This week we're getting to grips with a theory of time that denies the reality of "flow" - and we're asking why time seems to speed up or slow down in certain situations.Guest: Heather Dyke, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Otago NZProducer: David RutledgeExperience of Passage in a Static World - Heather Dyke at the London School of Economics, June 2017This episode was first broadcast on July 30, 2023.
Life is hard — disappointment, regret and suffering come with the territory — and if the projections of climate scientists and epidemiologists are correct, it's not going to get easier any time soon. But then, life has always been hard. What do philosophical traditions have to say about the incurable toughness of human existence?
When we think of 19th century German philosophy, we perhaps think first of Nietzsche, or Hegel, and then some other men - but Germany in the 1800s was also home to a number of women philosophers.
For many on the political left, the end of capitalism is a cherished ideal - but what if capitalism ended and we found ourselves with something worse? This week we're exploring the possibility that Western liberal democracies could be sliding in the direction of "neofeudalism" and devolving into a much nastier set of economic and social structures than the ones we presently have.
Is obedience a virtue? History is littered with instances where obedience to bad rulers or unjust laws has resulted in catastrophe. But then it's hard to imagine raising or educating children without obedience being a fundamental requirement. This week we're exploring obedience in the moral domain - and in the domain of classical music, where disobedience to tradition can be the hallmark of genius.
What should we think when an academic Humanities journal unsuspectingly publishes a paper that's been written as a hoax, full of fashionable jargon and deliberately specious arguments? Does this demonstrate that the Humanities set a higher value on shallow intellectual trends than on rigorous scholarship - or is there something more nuanced and complicated going on?
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.
Pain 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"?
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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!