The School of Athens

By Estelle Qin and Lea Hansen

A philosophy podcast delivered by young (and fun!) philosophers to young (and equally fun!) philosophers. We attempt to break down the traditional image of philosophers as two young girls, who share t... more

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FAQs about The School of Athens:

How many episodes does The School of Athens have?

The podcast currently has 7 episodes available.

The School of Athens episodes:

March 25, 2023 Lesson 6: The Ontological Argument and Pascal's Wager
In today's lesson, we critically talk about Anselm's ontological argument and Pascal's Wager. We explore Gaunilo's 'Lost Island' as a refute to Anselm. Our verdict is that both Anselm and Pascal have not given convincing enough arguments. Listen to the episode to find out why!
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17min
March 09, 2023 Lesson 5: Fatalism
Hi! Following our last episode about determinism, we are talking about fatalism in this one! And we mean logical fatalism, which is illustrated by Aristotle's sea battle argument. We explain what this argument is and its main counters. We also try to show the difference between determinism and fatalism. Hope you enjoy this lesson and we look forward to next time!

Resources mentioned:
Riddles of Existence by Earl Brink Conee
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16min
February 18, 2023 Lesson 4: Determinism and Free Will
This week, we question the extent of our free will, looking at the views of hard determinists, libertarians, and compatibilists. We have some interesting examples and scenarios to illustrate these views, including My Little Pony... my little pony... aaahhh... Stay tuned to the end to hear about our own takes on whether we are just the sum of our causes - how we were brought up and our genes.
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22min
February 04, 2023 Lesson 3: Mind and Body
Continuing from Plato's views on the mind and body from last episode, this week, we discuss dualism... and a bit of everything else. We expand on Plato a bit with his charioteer analogy and on Descartes' cogito ergo sum, sharing some of our own views on the eternity of the soul too. We also talk about Frank Jackson's thought experiment, Mary's Room, and its counter arguments, before we go off on how much we love (Estelle) or hate (Lea) thought experiments. Lea shares a thought experiment about a lobster, but NOTE: the actual thought experiment is Locke's prince and cobbler (NOT lobster), we're sorry for that confusion but we hope you enjoy our more entertaining version!

Resources mentioned:
Phaedrus by Plato
Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes
Persons and Personal Identity by Amy Kind
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25min
January 20, 2023 Lesson 2: The Socratic Philosophers
We are back! Having set ourselves the challenge to summarise the three famous Socratic philosophers in twenty minutes, we talk about the key ideas of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. We begin with 'The School of Athens' painting, explaining the origins of the name of our show. We touch on Socrates' love for questioning and how that impacted the abrupt end of his life, Plato's world of forms and his ideal state, as well as Aristotle's influence on Aquinas (e.g. the Prime Mover). We breezed past each topic so we will go into detail with some in the future!

The philosophy resources recommendations we mentioned:
'Think' by Simon Blackburn
Oxford: Very Short Introductions
BBC: 'In Our Time' podcast
'Philosophy Bites' podcast
Philosophy Now articles

Regarding Socrates' execution: https://philosophynow.org/issues/19/Socrates_Revisited_The_Jurors_Speak
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24min
December 30, 2022 Lesson 1: Existentialism
In our first episode, we introduce existentialism. We argue who the 'it girl' of existentialism is: is it Sartre, his boo Beauvoir, Kierkegaard or Nietzsche? Lea argues for her guy Kierkegaard (with a very interesting gossip story about his boo Regine), while Estelle argues for her guy Nietzshe with a saddening story about him and a horse. We encompass Kierkegaard's ideas on faith and Nietzsche's beliefs about guilt. Enjoy!
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26min
December 23, 2022 Welcome to The School of Athens!
Introducing the teachers Lea & Estelle and their fun and quirky philosophy podcast 'The School of Athens'!
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7min

FAQs about The School of Athens:

How many episodes does The School of Athens have?

The podcast currently has 7 episodes available.