Introduction Imagine the smile on your parent’s face as you rush to meet them at the school gates, the soft heat of the sand between your toes on a first holiday, waking up in the haze of a late afternoon after dancing all night, the drop in your stomach when you realize you’ll never hear their voice again. These are conscious experiences. Without them, what is there to life? In this sense, we all know what consciousness is – there’s nothing we know more intimately – yet it remains one of life’s greatest mysteries. Despite the incredible advances made in physical science, it doesn’t seem like we’re any closer to an explanation of where consciousness comes from. How is it, exactly, that the brain’s 86 billion neurons give rise to conscious experience? As we’ll see, our answer to this question will not only shape our understanding of the human mind, but the fabric of reality itself. – Extract from Philosophers on Consciousness   Contents Part I. The Fabric of Reality Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion         Links Philosophers on Consciousness: Talking about the Mind (Bloomsbury; Jack Symes).  

Episode 101, Talking about the Mind (Part I - The Fabric of Reality)

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‘The clouds are grey, the sun obscured and you are walking through the countryside in the overcast of winter. Passing from field to woodland, the trees shed coats of frosty bark to celebrate the passing of another icy season. It feels too early for spring, but echoes of swallows in the canopies sing songs of new beginnings. You pause to catch a glimpse of your woodland companions. With effortless precision, your eyes track the birds as they zip between empty branches and, combining countless neurons, you forecast the birds’ trajectory each time they fall out of view. You walk on, emerging from the trees, and return to the open fields. You look back, appreciate the woods and see a river flowing into the trees from the east. Where does the river begin? Escaping the clouds, the sun will soon be free of the sky altogether; if you want to discover the river’s source, you had better get walking.’    Contents Part I. Out of Nothing Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion     Links     Philosophers on God: Talking about Existence (book)   

Episode 129, Talking about Existence (Part I - Out of Nothing)

‘The kitchen needs cleaning, but only one of us seems to notice. I mean, he looked straight at the dishes in the sink…and just stacked his dish on top of them. How high does this precarious tower of crockery have to be until he decides to wash the dishes or, more likely, they collapse into an unrepairable heap? I suppose I’ll have to wash them. They won’t get washed otherwise, and I’d rather get them off my mind.’ The unequal distribution of household labour is a familiar concern amongst feminists. Despite the progress in women’s rights and freedoms, women across the world continue to bear the responsibility of domestic chores and childcare. This raises an important question: why do women in monogamous, opposite-sex relationships continue to shoulder a disproportionate amount of housework work despite their political gains? In this episode, we’ll be exploring this question with two outstanding philosophers of morality and mind: Paulina Sliwa (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna) and Thomas McClelland (Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge).  According to Paulina and Tom, our disparities and perception of domestic labour are determined by our feelings, beliefs, and social norms. In other words, the way we perceive the world is radically different. The dishes don’t call out to some – in need of cleaning – in a moment of perception, as they do to others. So what can we do to change this disparity…that is, if it’s in need of changing at all.              Contents Part I. Affordance Perception Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion           Links Thomas McClelland and Paulina Sliwa, Gendered Affordance Perception and Unequal Domestic Labour (paper) Coverage of Gendered Addordance Perception in the media (website) Thomas McClelland (website) Paulina Sliwa (website)   

Episode 128, ‘Domestic Labour’ with Paulina Sliwa & Tom McClelland (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)

‘The kitchen needs cleaning, but only one of us seems to notice. I mean, he looked straight at the dishes in the sink…and just stacked his dish on top of them. How high does this precarious tower of crockery have to be until he decides to wash the dishes or, more likely, they collapse into an unrepairable heap? I suppose I’ll have to wash them. They won’t get washed otherwise, and I’d rather get them off my mind.’ The unequal distribution of household labour is a familiar concern amongst feminists. Despite the progress in women’s rights and freedoms, women across the world continue to bear the responsibility of domestic chores and childcare. This raises an important question: why do women in monogamous, opposite-sex relationships continue to shoulder a disproportionate amount of housework work despite their political gains? In this episode, we’ll be exploring this question with two outstanding philosophers of morality and mind: Paulina Sliwa (Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna) and Thomas McClelland (Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge).  According to Paulina and Tom, our disparities and perception of domestic labour are determined by our feelings, beliefs, and social norms. In other words, the way we perceive the world is radically different. The dishes don’t call out to some – in need of cleaning – in a moment of perception, as they do to others. So what can we do to change this disparity…that is, if it’s in need of changing at all.        Contents Part I. Affordance Perception Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion           Links Thomas McClelland and Paulina Sliwa, Gendered Affordance Perception and Unequal Domestic Labour (paper) Coverage of Gendered Addordance Perception in the media (website) Thomas McClelland (website) Paulina Sliwa (website)   

Episode 128, ‘Domestic Labour’ with Paulina Sliwa & Tom McClelland (Part I - Affordance Perception)

Alongside life and liberty, the Declaration of Independence marked the pursuit of happiness as the foundation of American democracy. Yet, as the history of philosophy has taught us, understanding happiness is no easy task. Pursuing happiness as the cessation of desire, a feeling of perpetual pleasure, or as a state of human flourishing are very different projects…so, which conception of happiness did America’s Founding Fathers take to be an ‘inalienable right’? In this episode, we’ll be exploring the nature of happiness with Professor Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center. According to Rosen, in tracing the Founding Fathers’ intellectual development – inspired by Greek and Roman philosophy – we see that the Founders understood happiness as a pursuit of moral excellence rather than immediate gratification. No doubt, Western understandings of happiness have shifted…today, happiness means something closer to feeling good than being good. Our question is whether this cultural shift was a mistake. In carving out our futures, ought we look to the past? In defining the purpose of our lives and the destination of our states, should we turn to America’s Founding Fathers and their ancient teachers?    Contents Part I. The Founding Fathers Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion           Links Jeffrey Rosen, Twitter The National Constitution Center, Website Jeffrey Rosen, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America (Amazon) Jeffrey Rosen, The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America (Simon & Schuster)   

Episode 101, Talking about the Mind (Part I - The Fabric of Reality)

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