The 2026 Dionysus Awards: Best Future-Facing Fantasy That Asks What Makes Us Human

...and whether that’s even a good thing. More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/the-2026-dionysus-awards.

Hobbes and the Ideal Citizen

Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that without government to control our worst impulses, life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ Consequently, he thought that absolute monarchy is the best form of government. So is Hobbes’ ideal citizen simply someone who is willing to submit to absolute authority, or are there other features the ideal citizen must have? What flaws would make a subject bad, or worse, a threat to pe...

The 2026 Dionysus Awards: Best TV Show That Blows Up All Your Theories of Personal Identity

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/the-2026-dionysus-awards.

How to Do Things With Your Mind

We all engage in mental actions of various kinds, whether it’s planning the coming week, trying to remember the lyrics of a song, or imagining what we’d look like with a different haircut. These thought processes have significance for us and help us direct our other actions. But are we really in control of trains of thoughts or do they just pop into consciousness? Does it make sense to criticize others for what goes on inside their heads? And is there a...

Wise Woman: Nísia Floresta

Nísia Floresta was a 19th-century writer and translator known as “the Brazilian Mary Wollstonecraft.” She published the first book on women’s rights in South America, when Brazil was gaining independence from Portugal and a new post-colonial nation was being built. She also argued for the rights of the enslaved and indigenous Brazilians, who were marginalized and exploited in this new nation. Josh and Ray explore her life and thought with Nastassja Pugli...

What Is Addiction?

People who are addicted to substances display a puzzling behavior: they keep using even when it causes harm and distress to them and the people in their lives. Why would someone do this? Is it the result of a brain disease? Can we explain it in psychological terms without victim-blaming? What if everyone is irrational, whether or not they’re addicted to substances? Josh and Ray can’t quit talking to Hanna Pickard from Johns Hopkins University, author of What Would Y...