Philosopher's Zone

Philosopher's Zone episodes:

• 04.18.2024

  Style wars pt 1: Postwar France and a new philosophical mode

  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...

  
• 04.10.2024

  The predicament of existence

  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.

  
• 04.04.2024

  Mary Midgley, public philosophy and plumbing

  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?...

  
• 03.27.2024

  Intellectual humility

  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?

  
• 03.20.2024

  Freedom or liberty?

  "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...

  
• 03.14.2024

  Philosophy, angst and hope

  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...

  
• 03.06.2024

  Music, taste and AI

  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...

  
• 02.29.2024

  The philosophy of twins

  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.

  
• 02.22.2024

  Philosophy, disability and the gut

  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...

  
• 02.15.2024

  Pornography and free speech

  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...

  
• 02.07.2024

  What are Australian philosophers thinking?

  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...

  
• 01.30.2024

  Queer vs the state

  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...

  
• 01.24.2024

  What is swearing?

  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...

  
• 01.17.2024

  Friendship

  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...

  
• 01.10.2024

  Transgender identity and experience

  Transgender is commonly invoked as an identity, but this week we're asking if it is better understood as something that points to experience.

  
• 01.03.2024

  Gender, gaming and pop culture

  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?

  
• 12.27.2023

  Richard Rorty and America

  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.

  
• 12.20.2023

  Women philosophers in antiquity

  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...

  
• 12.13.2023

  Time in the time of COVID

  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,...

  
• 12.07.2023

  Stability, security and survival: a conversation with Mary Graham

  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.

  
• 11.28.2023

  Libertarianism

  Libertarians are hard to pin down – they have a number of seemingly contradictory commitments that we normally associate with people on either the left or the right of politics. Libertarians like small government, low taxes and free markets –...

  
• 11.23.2023

  The Cynics

  Cynicism is a philosophical tradition that existed for centuries in the ancient Graeco-Roman world. Its influence can be found in the Christian gospels, throughout the Western philosophical tradition, and arguably up to the present day in the work of such...

  
• 11.15.2023

  The philosophy of biology

  Biology is a scientific discipline, notionally given to the pursuit of hard facts and empirical evidence - so what can philosophy bring to the table?

  
• 11.09.2023

  Banality, deception and evil

  Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" thesis has been hugely influential in moral philosophy, but how well does it hold up today? This week we're asking if Arendt's characterisation of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann as a mindless functionary, devoid of...

  
• 11.02.2023

  Defining Aboriginality

  The legal definition of Aboriginality is a complex issue, raising questions that have to do with identity, epistemology and politics. And while "race" as a biological category has been scientifically discredited, it still persists in Australian society, culture and law. So how should...

  
• 10.25.2023

  Race, biology and medicine

  The idea that race is a "natural" category, grounded in biology, has long been discredited - and yet it persists in a surprising number of places. This week we're looking at how medical practice has been shaped by outmoded assumptions...

  
• 10.17.2023

  Is there purpose in the cosmos?

  To many people, the notion that the universe has consciousness and purpose belongs back in the pre-scientific era. This week we're exploring the possibility that cosmic purpose is defensible not only philosophically, but also scientifically.

  
• 10.11.2023

  Power, domination and the ethics of global philanthropy

  When billionaires want to make a positive difference in the world, many of them turn to philanthropy. Which is fine in principle, but this week we're asking if giving away money via huge global philanthropic foundations is really an unalloyed...

  
• 10.04.2023

  Poverty and punishment

  This year's Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme exposed a system that unfairly (and illegally) subjected vulnerable people to stress and trauma - but was it deliberately punitive? And to what extent does our welfare system reflect negative public attitudes toward people...

  
• 09.28.2023

  Free will, consciousness and AI: a conversation with Daniel Dennett

  Daniel Dennett is one of the world's leading philosophers and cognitive scientists - at 81, and with a new memoir published, he's still as provocative and inspiring as ever.

  
• 09.21.2023

  René Girard and victimhood

  The politics of victimhood is a feature of our contemporary cultural landscape - but according to French philosopher René Girard, the impetus behind victim politics has been driving human civilisation for millennia.

  
• 09.13.2023

  Beauty and AI

  AI-powered beauty apps are becoming increasingly popular, as people use them to evaluate, rate and enhance their facial appearance in selfies and other images. But exactly what's going on behind the technological wizardry raises a host of troubling ethical and philosophical...

  
• 09.07.2023

  The pathology of ugliness

  There are plenty of features of our faces and bodies that we don't necessarily like - but does this make them aberrations that require medical intervention? As the cosmetic surgery industry goes from strength to strength, the answer would increasingly...

  
• 08.30.2023

  Women philosophers in 19th century Germany

  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.

  
• 08.23.2023

  Police abolition

  What might a society without police look like? For some, the idea of police abolition evokes a vision of danger, anarchy and chaos - but for heavily-policed communities subject to high rates of incarceration, it's a survival imperative.

  
• 08.17.2023

  Neofeudalism: techno-lords and peasants

  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...

  
• 08.10.2023

  Friendship

  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...

  
• 08.03.2023

  Gaslighting

  Gaslighting is the word on everyone's lips right now – in fact, Merriam-Webster named it their Word of the Year for 2022. But what is it about gaslighting that has us all talking about it? And why is it philosophically...

  
• 07.27.2023

  Why time doesn't pass

  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...

  
• 07.20.2023

  Exploring Tourette's

  Tourette Syndrome is not well understood, even by clinicians, and it raises a host of fascinating philosophical questions around volition and free will. Is Tourette's-related behaviour intentional? And if it is, should it be understood as action that carries moral...

  
• 07.11.2023

  Philosophy and myth

  There was once a time when mythology and philosophy got along perfectly well together. But since the Enlightenment, philosophy has come to regard myth as something of an embarrassment – especially in political theory, where the memory of "blood and soil"...

  
• 07.05.2023

  Transgender identity and experience

  Transgender is commonly invoked as an identity, but this week we're asking if it is better understood as something that points to experience.

  
• 06.27.2023

  How philosophy fell in love with language

  Around the beginning of the 20th century, philosophy began to take what's come to be known as "the linguistic turn". All major philosophical questions, it was argued, were really questions about language, and this conviction would dominate philosophical discourse for the...

  
• 06.22.2023

  Philosophy for tough times

  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....

  
• 06.15.2023

  Taking politics seriously

  Is justice a game? Most of us would say no. But for John Rawls – arguably the 20th century’s most important political philosopher – the answer was a qualified yes. This week we’re wondering if the gamification of justice can create...

  
• 06.08.2023

  Gender, gaming and pop culture

  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?

  
• 06.01.2023

  Exploring the multiverse

  Do parallel universes exist? The answer depends on who you ask. Some philosophers and scientists say it's an absurd concept, while others say the existence of the multiverse can be inferred directly from known laws of physics.

  
• 05.25.2023

  Leadership

  What do we mean by good leadership? Leaders in business are generally judged according to how effective they are, how much value they generate for shareholders and so on. But at what point do ethical concerns enter the equation?

  
• 05.21.2023

  Bilingual parenting, home and the mother tongue

  Standard philosophical accounts of language present it as a kind of home – a place that we inhabit, and that shapes our sense of self. But what happens when we're not quite "at home" within a language?

  
• 05.14.2023

  Philosophy behind bars

  What does it mean to study and teach philosophy in prison? Andy West has been teaching philosophy in prisons since 2015, and his memoir The Life Inside is a fascinating account of this experience - as well as a reflection on...