David Hume: Roving Philosophical ReportWe sent our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Amy Standen, to find out more about Hume the human being. More at www.philosophytalk.org/shows/hume.
John Stuart Mill and the Good LifeMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/js-mill-and-good-life. John Stuart Mill was one of the most important British philosophers of the 19th century. As a liberal, he thought that individuals are generally the best judges of their own welfare. But Mill was also a utilitarian who thought that there were objectively lower and higher pleasures and that the good life was one which maximized higher pleasures. So is there a way to reconcile Mill’s li...
Kierkegaard (2023)More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/kierkegaard. Philosophy usually suggests a striving for rationality and objectivity. But the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard advocated subjectivity and the leap of faith—his conception of how an individual would believe in God or act in love. Kierkegaard, whose best-known work is "Fear and Trembling," is often considered the father of Existentialism. Ken and John explore the life and thought of this passionate philos...
KierkegaardMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/kierkegaard. Philosophy usually suggests a striving for rationality and objectivity. But the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard advocated subjectivity and the leap of faith—his conception of how an individual would believe in God or act in love. Kierkegaard, whose best-known work is "Fear and Trembling," is often considered the father of Existentialism. Ken and John explore the life and thought of this passionate philosopher w...
Marcus AureliusMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/marcus-aurelius. Marcus Aurelius was a 2nd century Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher. He is most famous for his Meditations, which was written as a private guide to himself on how to live a life where virtue is the only good and vice the only evil. So how do we figure out how to live a truly Stoic life? What’s the relationship between the wellbeing of an individual and the interest of the larger community? And what can we l...
Why Is the World So Weird: Roving Philosophical ReportWe sent our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Shereen Adel, to ask people on the street what they find most weird about the world. More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/why-world-so-weird.
Neuroscience and Free WillMore at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/neuroscience-and-free-will. We like to think of ourselves as rational agents who exercise conscious control over most of our actions and decisions. Yet in recent years, neuroscientists have claimed to prove that free will is simply an illusion, that our brains decide for us before our conscious minds even become aware. But what kind of evidence do these scientists rely on to support their sweeping conclusions? Is the...
Mind Sharingwww.philosophytalk.org/shows/mind-sharing. Mind reading might sound like the stuff of science fiction. But in philosophy and psychology, mind reading is something that human beings do whenever we try to guess what another person is thinking. Could it be that people are also natural born mind sharers, unconsciously shaping our behavior to be understood by others? How do we change or exaggerate our actions when others are present? And how can we use these insights to communica...
Why Is the World So Weird?More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/why-world-so-weird. Quantum mechanics, mathematics, human consciousness.... whichever way you slice it, the universe is weird. How can our conscious minds be made from unconscious atoms? What should we make of quantum entanglement, or the fact that light can be both a particle and a wave? Why is it that there are exactly as many fractions as there are whole numbers? Josh and Ray boggle at the strangeness of it all wi...