More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/gilbert-ryle.

Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) was a British philosopher of mind and language best known for his book The Concept of Mind. He developed a novel argument against Cartesian dualism, which he called “the doctrine of the ghost in the machine”—the idea that our minds and bodies are separate substances. Ryle introduced a new term for the problem with this argument: Descartes was making a “category mistake.” But what exactly is a category mistake, and how bad is it to make one? If Cartesian dualism is false, what is the relationship between our minds and our bodies? And what does it have to do with the distinction between “knowing-how” and “knowing-that”? Josh and Ray turn their minds to Michael Kremer from the University of Chicago.

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/can-ai-help-us-understand-babies.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere in our day-to-day lives and our interactions with the world. And it’s made impressive progress at a variety of visual, linguistic, and reasoning tasks. Does this improved performance indicate that computers are thinking, or is it just an engineering artifact? Can it help us understand how children acquire knowledge and develop language skills? Or are humans fundamentally different from machines? Josh and Ray decode the babble with Michael Frank, Professor of Human Biology at Stanford University and Director of the Symbolic Systems Program.

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/margaret-cavendish.

Margaret Cavendish was a writer of poetry, philosophy, polemics, histories, plays, and utopian fiction. She employed many different genres as a way to overcome access barriers for women and build an audience for her subversive philosophical ideas. So, what was so radical about Cavendish’s views? Why did she think all matter, even rocks, was at least partially rational? And how did she anticipate the term “epistemic injustice” 400 years before it was coined? Josh and Ray explore the life and thought of Margaret Cavendish with Karen Detlefsen from the University of Pennsylvania, co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy.

Part of our series Wise Women, generously supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/narrative-and-the-meaning-of-life.

Humans are uniquely storytelling creatures who can narrate the events of their own lives. Some argue that our lives derive meaning from our ability to see them as an ongoing story. So is telling our own life story the key to a meaningful life? Is it the events that matter, or how we describe them? Does it matter if we’re unreliable narrators who fudge the facts to make ourselves look good? Josh and Ray tell tales with Helena de Bres from Wellesley College, author of Philosophy in the First Person (forthcoming).

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/mary-astell.

Mary Astell (1666–1731) was an English philosopher and writer who advocated for equal rights for women. While she described marriage as a type of “slavery,” she was also a staunch conservative who claimed that women who did marry should accept subordination to their husbands. So what was Astell’s vision for the education of women? How did she reconcile her seemingly conflicting views on marriage? And why did philosopher John Locke criticize her views on natural law? Josh and Ray explore her life and thought with Allauren Forbes from McMaster University, author of the Oxford Bibliography on Mary Astell.

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Descartes said that the purpose of wonderment is “to enable us to learn and retain in our memory things of which we were formerly unaware.” He also said that those who are not inclined to wonder are “ordinarily very ignorant.” So what exactly is wonder, and how is it different from awe? Is wonder at the core of what drives us to search for novel insights? And can we suffer from an excess of wonderment? Josh and Ray stand in awe of Helen De Cruz from St. Louis University, author of Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think.

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/making-and-breaking-habits.

We often hear that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” The idea seems to be that long-standing habits are too entrenched to change. But are habits always so rigid and inflexible? Why does it seem that it’s hard to break bad habits and form virtuous ones? And do habits help or hinder our creative impulses? Josh and Ray habituate themselves with Shaun Gallagher from the University of Memphis, author of Action and Interaction.

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/elisabeth-bohemia.

Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia is best known for her correspondence with René Descartes. In her letters, she articulated a devastating critique of his dualist theory of mind, in particular on the impossibility of mind-body interaction. So what was Elisabeth’s own position on the nature of mind? What can we ascertain about her moral and political concerns based on her various correspondences? And how are her ideas still relevant to current debates in philosophy? Josh and Ray explore Elisabeth’s life and thought with Lisa Shapiro from McGill University, editor of The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy.

Part of our series Wise Women, supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/zhuangzi.

Zhuangzi, the 4th-century BCE Chinese philosopher, was arguably the most important figure in Taoism. He believed that a person’s ideal relationship to the world was to “be one with ten thousand things.” So how is someone supposed to achieve this ideal? What is at the core of Zhuangzi’s conception of the good life? And how could contemporary western readers benefit from his way of thinking? Josh and Ray welcome back Paul Kjellberg from Whittier College, editor of Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in The Zhuangzi.