Ready to get back in the saddle? Good! Because it’s part 2 of Steve and Christabel’s double-episode extravaganza answering Lowen’s question “Are horses important to the world?” In this second offering, Christabel expounds upon the symbolic significance of horses within ancient metaphysics. The duo begin in ancient India with the Rigveda, the oldest written work in the Vedic tradition. She reveals the unfortunate position wild stallions held within ritual sacrifice, and tells us what the Daoists agreed that metaphysicians and butchers have in common. Ever the champion of vegetarianism, Steve offers some parallel meat-free examples of his own.

Our hosts then engage in some microcosm-macrocosm reasoning with Thales of Miletus, Hippocrates, and the authors of the Upanishads. Steve entertains the Stoic’s idea that tidal patterns are the Earth breathing in and out, but he stops short of endorsing the analogy of the cosmic horse (and the restorative powers of its seed – which can apparently be identified with the ancient Indian drink of soma). Steve takes this opportunity to wax lyrical about Chocomel, the soma of his household. This is a welcome palate cleanser for all.

But Christabel doesn’t let us get too comfortable. She launches into an analysis of charioteer analogies, the first of which being Plato’s chariot-based symbolism within his depiction of lust within the Phaedrus. We learn some tips about what NOT to say to the object of your affections, and move swiftly on. Steve alludes to the time that he disproved heterosexual intercourse using magnets, and launches into a tirade against Channel 4. The second charioteer analogy comes from the Sāṅkhya tradition, and it explains the distinction between self (or puruṣa) and nature (or prakṛti). Thus ends our round trip across equine philosophy right back where we started in ancient India.

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This fortnight, Steve and Christabel embark on a double-episode stint to answer Lowen’s question, “Are horses important to the world?” This is part 1, and it’s jam-packed fuller with equine content than a Findus lasagne. The duo start off in Turin in 1889 to bear witness to Nietzsche’s last cogent conversation (it was admittedly a little one-sided, given that his final interlocutor was a poor cab-driver’s horse). Christabel dabbles in a little chaos theory, and Steve lets us in on how to procure Arthur Morgan the most badass steed in Red Dead Redemption II. 

They then take a quick pit stop in 479–221 B.C.E. China to check in on the ‘School of Names’ philosophers. Gongsun Long is of particular interest, as is his famous (and maddeningly enigmatic) claim that “White horse is not horse”. Steve takes us back to elementary school for a lesson on colour mixing for pigments versus lights, and then treats us to an infinitely superior mnemonic for recalling the planets in our solar system.

The episode closes in ancient Greece, and with the centuries-old logic joke that was tragically left out of Christopher Nolan’s adaption of The Odyssey. Steve points out that we shouldn’t be too disappointed, as the movie does deliver an Ithacan Batman – Spiderman crossover (reminiscent of a certain early YouTube viral classic). Our hosts grapple with cyclopes, Pegasi, alicorns and talking donkeys, but will they definitively answer Lowen’s question? Tune in next week for part 2!

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This week, Steve and Christabel are joined by the incomparable philosopher, sci-fi aficionado and Plato stan Saloni de Souza to answer what it would be like to live forever. Saloni compares the different types of immortality we associate with various entities including superheroes,Jonathan Swift's Struldbrugs, and even with Liverpudlians. Steve informs us of the kind of eternal life introduced by the ThunderCats (as provided to Mumm-Ra by the Ancient Spirits of Evil), and Christabel takes the opportunity to talk a little too much about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight’s Edward Cullen.

But should we even care about the quality-of-life immortal beings should expect, given that life’s only certainty is death (and taxes)? Surprisingly enough, this view isn’t supported by some interpretations of quantum mechanics; our hosts therefore turn to the topic of quantum immortality. Steve explains decoherence by analogising sets of superposed particles with stand-up comedy patrons, and Christabel relays David Lewis’ ‘quantum torment’ argument. It states that no-collapse theories entail that we might be eternally transported through the branching universe, trapped within bodies that continually degrade, but carry on living. This sets up a discussion with Saloni into the hidden (and not-so hidden) ableism of the immortality debate, and the ableist assumptions that build up around figures like Daredevil and the X-Men.

The trio go on to discuss their own near-death experiences: we learn that Saloni and Christabel need to develop their peripheral awareness near motor vehicles, and Steve regales us with his roadside celebrity almost-encounters. Christabel informs us that she fears death about as much as a strongly worded email, and Steve affords us valuable insight into the art of saying ‘no’ at work (and getting away with it). Saloni leaves us with the characteristically sage advice to think of death merely as the ultimate deadline. So don’t leave it until tomorrow to binge this episode, dear listeners!

Brobdingnagian-sized thanks to Saloni for joining us (and for being the Platonic ideal of a podcast guest).

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This week, Steve and Christabel are delighted to be joined by composer/ writer/ podcaster/ director/ photographer extraordinaire Ian Bowkett to tackle a question that was technically posed by Steve’s son. Steve relays that whilst returning his children to bed for the umpteenth time that night, he informed them that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy”. Steve’s son asked what this meant, which gave our hosts *just enough* of a plausible excuse to invite their friend and Sisyphus expert Ian to join them for an episode on Albert Camus’ most iconic thought experiment.

Ian describes the research he conducted into Greek myth and Stoic philosophy whilst writing ‘Sisyphus: A Rock ’n’ Roll Musical’. He reports that there is no single, coherent account of what happened to the king of Corinth, his Pleiad nymph wife Merope, and the Greek gods he angered: like many stories passed down through oral tradition, there are many overlapping versions to choose from. Ian recounts the task of gently separating and reweaving the myth’s threads to create his own narrative. (This prompts the trio take a moment to consider which parts of The Odyssey Christopher Nolan should have left in his recent film adaptation).

Christabel acquaints us with Camus’ absurdist philosophy, his paradoxical stance on Algerian independence, and his legendary fallings-out with the existentialist philosophers and Parisian tastemakers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Steve fills us in on the ultimate Sisyphean task of parenting, and demonstrates a highly-developed sensitivity to the absurd on the topics of football, Pokémon, jazz and dentistry.

Massive thanks to Ian for joining us, find his fabulous ‘The Mayor of Musical Theatre’ podcast here: https://shows.acast.com/the-mayor-of-musical-theatre

Keep your eyes peeled for tickets to Ian’s new musical ‘Stag Night’, which will be released soon for a December run at the Canal Café Theatre: https://canalcafetheatre.com/

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This week Steve and Christabel take a stab at answering why it is that people don’t want to be old. They begin in Ancient Greece with a conversation between Socrates and Cephalus, drawing heavily on Saloni de Souza’s interpretation of Plato’s presentation of old age in this early passage of The Republic. Even in ancient times, it was known that wealth can help mitigate the downsides of the ageing process, so the duo hop over to France to pick up on the more explicitly class-conscious critiques of society’s treatment of the old, as provided by Simone de Beauvoir and Édouard Louis.

They (hopefully) skirt Jeff Bezos’ legal team’s notice in their discussion of the plight of Amazon warehouse workers, describing what Joseph Fraccia describes as “the messages that capital writes on the bodies of labourers”. Christabel points to a UCL study led by Paola Zaninotto that found that the wealthiest can expect to live an extra 8-9 years free of disability. She then has a mild existential crisis at the thought that most professional sportspeople her age are considered significantly past their prime. Steve attempts to draw her out of her spiralling by teaching her about football manager culture (and is extremely rude about the good people of Stevenage in the process).

The focus of our intrepid hosts remains steadfastly on the continent as conversation turns to Edmund Husserl’s distinction between the natural and the philosophical attitudes. Christabel relays that both Jessie Stanier and Hans-Georg Eilenberger posit that ageism gets sedimented into the natural attitude. Steve proceeds to dunk on the Silicon Valley Tech Bros who spend millions on the junk science that purports to ‘reverse their biological ages’. The episode closes with a commendation of the work that Jessie Stanier and Rosie Poebright put into facilitating intergenerational conversations between LGBTQIA+ Bristolians, and concludes that we should all be following the good example set by the wonderfulqueers of the Southwest.

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This week, Steve and Christabel survey what the philosophers have said about temporal biases that drive behaviours like saving the best for last, ‘swallowing the frog’ and investing for retirement. In the course of these proceedings, Steve informs us of the objectively correct order to consume a roast dinner, and then solves Zeno’s paradox. Christabel tells us of the study conducted by Eugene Caruso, Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson that suggests that human beings become more emotional when thinking about future events, and the duo discuss the possibility that evolution might select for this trait, drawing on the work of Kristie Miller, Paul Horwich, Christopher Suhler, Craig Callender, James Maclaurin and Heather Dyke.

Of course, it wouldn’t be rational for us to save the best for the distant future if we weren’t convinced that the person we’ll wake up as tomorrow is truly us. This thought sends our hosts down the rabbit hole of Galen Strawson’s view that persons are episodic, which implies that (much like the careers of Prince, Taylor Swift and David Bowie), selves can be separated into distinct ‘eras’.

The duo then dive into a variety of the kinds of biases we might have for pleasurable events to be located in the future, the present, the temporally near and on particular dates. Discussion very briefly stalls as Christabel gets caught up in the question as to whether time is real, but with the help of philosophers J.M.E. McTaggart, Arthur Prior, Sidney Shoemaker and Robin Le Poidevin, our hosts leave these troubled waters and plough on into the last (and, fittingly, best) part of the episode.

The final act sees the podcast return to the bread and butter of philosophical thought experiments, which are (of course) demons and torturers. These come courtesy of Christian Tarsney’s revision of Newcomb’s box problem, which calls us to question whether future biases might rub up against other intuitions we might have about how to best behave in your own best interests.

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For the episode this week, Steve and Christabel tackle a question from Steve’s daughter, who asked whether animals have different emotions (to those experienced by human beings). In answering this question, our hosts build on the material covered in episode 13, which wrestles with the immense difficulty of knowing (for certain) what it’s like to be a dog (or indeed, bat). But not to be put off, the duo leaves the clear skies of deductive inference to take a dive into the murky waters of abduction, which is a form of reasoning that finds the best explanation to fit the facts. Steve propels us along with a host of duck-based inference puns.

But what are the facts? One kind of evidence for animal emotion might be thought to be the sentimental behaviour that they display. Christabel tells us of her dog’s separation anxiety, and introduces analytic behaviourism, one school of thought spawned by logical positivism. Sensing that the answers provided by this philosophical trend are a little too easily-won, they move onto another kind of evidence – that of neuroscience. They discuss Jaak Panskepp’s seven emotional ‘circuits’ and Christabel addresses the links between Panskepp’s posits and David Lewis’ causal role physicalism.

Steve and Christabel then try to figure out if animals not only feel pain and pleasure, but also suffering and joy, drawing on Sean Power’s observation that these more sophisticated emotions plausibly require their subjects to possess temporal concepts. Bertrand Russell and Ludvig Wittgenstein both claim that the capacity to remember is the key to understanding what time is, so our hosts take a look at Ali Boyle’s research into episodic memory in non-human minds. 

Though perhaps these more sophisticated feelings require a more sophisticated theory; the episode’s last port of call is the work of Lisa Feldman Barrett and her constructivist theory of emotions. Our hosts recognise that when it comes to the question of whether animals feel the same emotions, we may never know. However – as Steve points out – we’re no more certain on this question when it comes to the Danish, either.

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This week Steve and Christabel answer Huey, who asks “How many bad guys are there?” Christabel responds with an assortment of takes on villainy given by the good, the bad and the ugly of philosophy.

We start with the position that ALL the guys are bad, canvassing the pessimistic assessments of human nature offered by Niccolò Machiavelli, Saint Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Hobbes. The milder view that only SOME guys are bad is represented by the Confucian philosophers Mencius and Xunzi, the latter of whom thinks that people should strive to embody the loyalty of the birds, who pair bond for life. Ever the biologist, Steve gestures at the enormous amount of evidence for cheating in the animal kingdom, and the duo move swiftly on.

They then discuss a special case of the response that only some guys are bad. This is given by the Stoics, who argue that YOU are the only baddie in your own story. Christabel advances an interpretation of Ayn Rand’s ethics that draws a similar conclusion. Steve points out that Rand’s message of ‘pulling yourself up by your bootstraps’ quite literally physically equates to falling over on your arse.  

Finally, our hosts consider Nietzsche’s amoralist view that NO guys are bad, because there is no such thing as good and evil. Steve immediately disproves Nietzsche by convincing Christabel that she’s pronouncing ‘gaslighting’ wrongly. Thoroughly confused, the duo end on the agreement that there are probably some bad guys out there in the world, but there certainly aren’t any who listen to Philosophy Playdate.

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Does the universe explode when I go to sleep?

This week, Steve and Christabel try their very best to get to the bottom of what happens to the world when we aren’t directly observing it. Steve reports his daughter’s posit that the world explodes when she falls asleep, only to reform upon her waking back up. Christabel examines how this theory fares against three major ontologies: Cartesian dualism, materialism and the idealism of George Berkeley.  

Along the way, Christabel struggles to pronounce the word ‘tautologous’, Steve advances a new (and very pigeon-centred) ornithology, and our hosts compile their dream philosopher zombie guestlist for a day trip to Chingford’s model railway. They opt to bring David Lewis, Simone de Beauvoir and David Hume. Walt Disney isn’t invited, as he’s already made the visit. 

Christabel compares A.J. Ayer’s verification principle to Karl Popper’s falsification principle, and Steve founds the cult of Blorons, which are ubiquitous but unobservable conscious particles. Christabel remarks that this reminds her of the panpsychist theory advanced by noted philosopher and optical manufacturer Baruch Spinoza. Steve wonders if he’d let Spinoza grind his lens.

The episode ends with a discussion of the position that Margret Dauler Wilson dubs ‘phenomenal realism’, or the view that we cannot (technically) ever be wrong about the phenomenal character of our own experiences. It’s concluded that though we can’t be sure of much about the external world, two dependable pieces of advice emerge: don’t relax your guard around windows in Prague, and decline any drink offered by Bishop Berkeley, especially if it smells like pine needles.

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This episode is devoted to finding the difference between knowledge and wisdom (or, as Aristotle might have said, the difference between phronesis and sophia). In the process, Christabel learns a lot about the casting stats of various Dungeons and Dragons classes and Steve lets us in on his narrative theory of Star Trek. According to Steve, the presence of Spock is a necessary condition for any successful spin-off series. This brings Christabel to discuss Oushinar Nath’s theory of ‘epistemic essentialism’, according to which the presence of knowledge is a necessary condition for wisdom. 

The rival theories of epistemic reductionism (or the view that knowledge is a sufficient condition for wisdom) and epistemic nihilism (which separates knowledge from wisdom entirely) are considered, as is Dennis Whitcomb’s characterisation of Mephistopheles as evil but wise. Steve offers an insightful theological conjecture that demons, like naked mole rats, cannot be judged by human standards; for them, every day is opposite day. Our hosts embrace the psychological profile of wisdom provided by Monkia Ardelt, but raise some doubts for Shih-ying Yang’s and Leonard Jason’s claims that the paradigmatically wise person must maintain a sunny outlook on life. 

The last part of the episode digs into the question of what true knowledge consists in. We’re introduced to Dharmottara and the Gettier cases, and to the epistemic dangers of counting sheep-shaped rocks. Christabel differentiates between propositional knowledge, or ‘knowing-that’, and procedural knowledge, or ‘know-how’. Steve presents us with some excellent examples of the latter, advising us both on how to construct the perfect pub quiz and on the best way to avoid being accosted by street epistemologists. By the end of the episode, we certainly know more, but are we any the wiser?

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