Descartes Before the Horse

Descartes Before the Horse

By UQ Critical Thinking ProjectSociety & CulturePhilosophy
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Descartes Before the Horse episodes

  • S02E04 - Choose Your Belief: Basilisk, Pascal, or Dogs from Moloch

    In this episode, Dr Miller and Dr Zaphir dive into a surreal philosophical roleplay set in a fantasy inn with no vacancies and a knife storm brewing outside. The only way to avoid sleeping on a barstool (or being stabbed by airborne cutlery) is to convince one of three eccentric conference attendees to share their room — but each comes with a belief system you must accept.

    You meet:

    • Roko, a tech bro prophet of the coming machine god, who warns that the Basilisk is watching your tweets and will punish non-believers retroactively.
    • Susan, a whiskey-sipping Pascalian who offers a cozy wager: believe in God and maybe get cocktails in heaven, or don’t and risk overpriced beer in hell.
    • Beard Wizard, a twitchy cultist who demands your money and dental fillings to prepare for the arrival of immortal small dogs from Planet Moloch, who definitely does not correspond to any existing real world cults. Super swearsies.


    Come join us and see if threats of the afterlife is sufficient to warrant belief.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    57 min
  • S02E03 - Rational behaviour on a desert island prisoner's dilemma
    In this episode, Luke throws Liam and our special guest philosopher Dr Sameema Zahra into a sunburnt version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma: an island with not enough water, dubious fishing arrangements, and a suspiciously rickety hut. Along the way we learn who betrays, who stays “mostly consistent,” and how long you should really wait before cannibalism becomes an option. It’s survival ethics with a splash of existentialism and we talk about what it means to be rational in extreme situations.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    53 min
  • S02E2 - A trolley full of werewolves

    How many people would you sacrifice to save a loved one? Liam puts his moral consistency to the test in Luke's oddly bloodthirsty version of the trolley problem. It's not trolleys that Liam has to contend with though - it's werewolves!


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    59 min
  • S201 - I just Kant deal with this Cave

    On this new season of Descartes Before the Horse, Dr Liam Miller takes on the role of dungeon master and throwing an unwitting Dr Luke Zaphir up against Plato's Cave. Can he escape the cave and gain true knowledge of things? And while role playing as the folksy Immanuel Kant no less! It's a tough job to escape the Cave to perceive the truth of the universe while still maintaining his rigid morality? Or will he throw Plato out of a window and not bother?



    Theme music:

    "Aquarium" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

    Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 hr 9 min
  • EP13 - Which personality tests work?

    In order to how we can best discover ourselves, Dr Zaphir and Dr Miller explore a variety of psychological and philosophical tests and their value for self-reflection.


    The mini IPIP test for the big five personality traits everyone has (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, Extraversion)

    The Myers-Briggs test for 16 personalities

    The RIASEC career and personality test

    The Kinsey Scale for sexual orientation

    The Autism Test (should not be taken as indicative or diagnostic)

    Goofy tests for fun like Lord of the Rings

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    55 min
  • EP12 – does the alt-right make any good points about men?

    What is masculinity anyway? Is gender identity is under siege from an onslaught of feminist propaganda? We take a charitable look at Jordan Petersen, Andrew Tate, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro – and examine the stated beliefs and rhetoric of some of the most influential speakers in the conservative movement. Where is it that men should go from here?


    To see the sources used in this episode:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5jN8c8UEChWYcPUJ7LjiNrSGSgTBObus


    If you have questions, comments, or a topic you'd like to share, email us at [email protected]

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1 hr 10 min
  • Ep11 - Should we be teaching students how to protest?
    Should we be teaching students how to protest? Should a teacher get involved in political discussions with students and reveal their biases? Is it better to teach practical skills that will be of immediate tangible benefit to students? Or perhaps it’s better to teach controversy, not values? All of these ideas, good and bad are discussed with Dr Peter Ellerton from the Critical Thinking Project.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    58 min
  • EP10 - Are we required to love our families?
    Luke and Liam explore what love is. Are we obliged to love our parents? Must declarations of love be met with actions of love? What do we owe to our children? To our parents? Must we be grateful for being born? We didn’t ask for it after all.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    41 min
  • EP9 - Being a zombie is underrated
    Dr Peter Ellerton joins Luke and Liam in this discussion about zombies, both literal and philosophical. Is it possible for a human to be alive and functioning but without consciousness? What about dogs? Are mushrooms the next evolution in human development and should we bow to their fungal supremacy?

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    46 min

About Descartes Before the Horse

From the publisher's feed

Do you want to approach the world like a philosopher? To be both curious and rational? Dr Luke Zaphir and Dr Liam Miller show you how! Together they discuss issues in contemporary philosophy such…