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Philosophy Talk Starters

Philosophy Podcasts

Bite-size episodes from the program that questions everything... except your intelligence. Learn more and access complete episodes at www.philosophytalk.org.

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United States

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Bite-size episodes from the program that questions everything... except your intelligence. Learn more and access complete episodes at www.philosophytalk.org.

Language:

English


Episodes
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588: Why Is the World So Weird?

4/23/2024
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 with Eric Schwitzgebel from UC Riverside, author of "The Weirdness of the World."

Duration:00:09:36

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587: Shakespeare's Outsiders

4/14/2024
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/shakespeares-outsiders. Over 400 years after his death, Shakespeare is still widely regarded as the greatest dramatist of all time. His many plays tackle questions about power, influence, identity, and moral and social status. His characters—be they villains or heroes—are often disdained because of their race, religion, class, disability, or gender. So what do Shakespeare’s plays reveal about identity and status in his time? How might they shed light on who we include and who we exclude today? Could Shakespearian dramas have more in common with modern day soap operas than we think? Ray and guest-host Adrian Daub go inside with David Sterling Brown from Trinity College, author of "Shakespeare's White Others."

Duration:00:10:59

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586: Mind Sharing

3/31/2024
More at https://www.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 communicate better with our loved ones? Josh and Ray share their mind(s) with Julian Jara-Ettinger, Director of the Computational Social Cognition Lab at Yale University.

Duration:00:09:20

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585: Margaret Cavendish

3/20/2024
More at https://www.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."

Duration:00:10:45

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584: The 2024 Dionysus Awards

3/5/2024
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/2024-dionysus-awards. What movies of the past year challenged your assumptions and made you think about things in new ways? Josh and guest co-host Jeremy Sabol present our annual Dionysus Awards for the most thought-provoking movies of 2023, including: • Best Film about Social Justice that Wonders What Makes a Good Film about Social Justice • Most Disturbing Exploration of a Female Criminal Who Thinks She May Be Innocent • Most Moving Film (or TV show!) about Difficult Choices

Duration:00:15:51

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583: Im Yunjidang

2/21/2024
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/im-yunjidang. 8th-century Korean philosopher Im Yunjidang was the first Confucian to argue for women’s equality in matters of morality and to claim that women, just like men, can be sages. She also argued that it isn't just what you do that matters morally—it's also how you decide. So what does it mean to be a sage and how does someone become one? How did Im Yunjidang use traditional Confucian texts to argue for women's spiritual equality? And what did she think was important when it comes to making difficult moral choices? Josh and Ray explore her life and thought with Hwa Yeong Wang from Duke Kunshan University, editor of "Korean Women Philosophers and the Ideal of a Female Sage: The Essential of Writings of Im Yungjidang and Gang Jeongildang." Part of the "Wise Women" series, supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Duration:00:10:03

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582: Can A.I. Help Us Understand Babies?

1/31/2024
More at https://www.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.

Duration:00:09:17

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581: 20th Anniversary Quiz Night

1/24/2024
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/20th-anniversary-quiz-night. Philosophy Talk made its radio debut on August 20, 2003 with a live pilot on KALW San Francisco and weekly broadcasts beginning in January 2004. To celebrate two decades on the air, in November 2023 we held our first-ever Quiz Night. Longtime listeners and first-time fans filled KALW's popup space in downtown San Francisco as Director of Research Laura Maguire ran eight teams through the gauntlet of a philosophical pub quiz. In this special 20th anniversary episode, Josh and Ray (who participated in the quiz as regular contestants) revisit the drama and intellectual derring-do from that evening with their guest quiz-taker, host emeritus John Perry.

Duration:00:17:55

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580: American Futures (Ken Taylor Memorial Episode)

12/31/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/american-futures. When Philosophy Talk co-founder Ken Taylor passed away in 2019, he was working on a manuscript titled Farewell to the Republic We Once Dreamed of. Was Ken right to think the American experiment is on the verge of collapse? Are we heading for authoritarian rule, a national divorce, or even a civil war? Or could better days be on the horizon? In Ken’s honor, Josh and Ray devote their end-of-year special to probing the future of the American republic with Barbara Walter from UC San Diego, Tamsin Shaw from New York University, and Rob Reich from Stanford University.

Duration:00:16:56

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579: Impossible Worlds

12/14/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/impossible-worlds. Philosophers often speculate about possible worlds: ways that things could be. Some of them also believe in impossible worlds: ways that things couldn't be. Are impossible worlds places where strange things happen, or descriptions, or abstract objects, or something else entirely? How can you describe an impossibility without contradicting yourself? Could we imagine worlds where even the laws of logic are different? Josh and Ray imagine the unimaginable with Koji Tanaka from the Australian National University, author of "Logically Impossible Worlds."

Duration:00:10:05

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578: In Awe of Wonder

11/30/2023
More at www.philosophytalk.org/shows/awe-wonder. René 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" (forthcoming).

Duration:00:11:26

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577: Mary Astell

11/16/2023
More at https://www.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. Part of the "Wise Women" series, supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Duration:00:10:35

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576: Zhuangzi—Being One with Ten Thousand Things

11/5/2023
More at www.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."

Duration:00:11:02

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528: Referring to the World – Ken's Final Work

10/29/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/referring-world. On December 2, 2019, Ken Taylor announced that he finally had “an almost complete draft” of a book he had been writing for years. “I think I'll pour a glass of wine to mark the occasion, before plunging back into the work that is still to be done,” he wrote. Tragically and unexpectedly, he died later that same day. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of some colleagues, his book, "Referring to the World: An Opinionated Introduction to the Theory of Reference," has just been published. In this special episode, Josh and Ray discuss Ken’s ideas about reference with USC philosopher Robin Jeshion, who helped bring the book to fruition.

Duration:00:08:41

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575: Elisabeth of Bohemia

10/17/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/elisabeth-bohemia. Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618–1680) 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.

Duration:00:09:35

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574: Can Architecture Be Political?

10/4/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/can-architecture-be-political. It’s common to judge a piece of architecture based on its functional and aesthetic values, and how the two might complement or compete with one other. It’s less common to judge architecture based on its political values. But can’t a building’s design also express a political viewpoint? Why are different styles of architecture associated with different ideologies? And can a historical edifice's social purpose change over time? Josh and Ray build a foundation with Vladimir Kulić from Iowa State University, editor of "Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980."

Duration:00:10:08

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573: Are We Living in a Simulation?

9/14/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/are-we-living-simulation. With rapid advances in Virtual Reality technology and the like, it’s now possible for us to become absorbed in completely made-up worlds. We might wonder how soon it will be till we reach a point where VR is so good, we can’t tell it apart from the real world. But what if we’ve already reached that point? How would we know if we were currently living in a simulated reality, or are there always telltale signs? And if we were in a simulation, what difference would it make—pragmatically or morally—in how we live our lives and treat other people? Josh and Ray don't fake it with David Chalmers from NYU, author of "Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy."

Duration:00:08:38

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572: Weird Wants

8/16/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/weird-wants. Philosophers from Thomas Aquinas to Elizabeth Anscombe have claimed that wanting something means seeing the good in it. Even if what you want is bad overall, like procrastinating on important work, you can still desire it for its positive qualities. But don't we sometimes want things because of their badness, not in spite of it? Isn't there joy in doing something totally pointless, or even in breaking the rules? And is it really impossible, logically speaking, to want to be bad? Josh and Ray unravel our weird wants with Paul Bloom from the University of Toronto, author of "The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning."

Duration:00:09:29

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571: Making a Better World

8/10/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/making-better-world. Some philosophers think that morality boils down to one idea: we should make the world better for everyone. But who counts in "everyone"—babies, animals, future people? How can we tell what makes the world better for others? And in an uncertain world, how can anyone gauge the effects of their actions? Josh and Ray try to save the world with acclaimed Princeton philosopher Peter Singer, author of "Ethics in the Real World: 90 Essays on Things That Matter."

Duration:00:10:33

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570: Hypatia of Alexandria

7/21/2023
More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/hypatia-alexandria. Hypatia of Alexandria, late antiquity public figure and scholar, made significant contributions to mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy. Her embrace of Neoplatonism was seen as such a threat to the political elite in Alexandria that she was murdered by a mob of Christians. So what made her ideas so dangerous and revolutionary for her time? As a woman in Ancient Egypt, how did she exert power over her own narrative? And should she really be considered a "martyr" for philosophy? Josh and Ray explore Hypatia's life and thought with Edward Watts, Professor of History at UCSD and author of "Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher."

Duration:00:10:30