Philosopher's Zone

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.