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Philosopher's Zone podcast

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Philosopher's Zone

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The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.

The simplest questions often have the most complex answers. The Philosopher's Zone is your guide through the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.

 

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#241

Style wars pt 2: Scandals and hoaxes

What should we think when an academic Humanities journal unsuspectingly publishes a paper that's been written as a hoax, full of fashionable jargon and deliberately specious arguments? Does this demonstrate that the Humanities set a higher value on shallow intellectual trends than on rigorous scholarship - or is there something more nuanced and complicated going on? ... Read more

Yesterday

31 MINS

31:09

Yesterday

#240

Style wars pt 1: Postwar France and a new philosophical mode

In the aftermath of the Second World War, France was in a state of creative ferment that affected politics, culture - and philosophy. A new mode of philosophical writing emerged in the form of the review, and it was being done in an idiom that we've since come to recognise as typical of modern French theory: dense, experimental, multivocal, open-ended, very much the opposite of traditional analytic philosophical style. It grabbed scholarly attention then, and is still controversial today. ... Read more

18 Apr 2024

33 MINS

33:03

18 Apr 2024

#239

The predicament of existence

Pain is part of life, and none of us can escape it. And yet most of us feel that the deal is worth it, that the pleasure of life outweighs the suffering. Anti-natalist philosophy takes a different view. ... Read more

10 Apr 2024

28 MINS

28:25

10 Apr 2024

#238

Mary Midgley, public philosophy and plumbing

British thinker Mary Midgley (1919-2018) believed that philosophy should be a public undertaking, concerned with issues that have their genesis out in the world rather than within the academy. But what is the proper relationship between public and academic philosophy? And why are we talking about plumbing this week? ... Read more

04 Apr 2024

28 MINS

28:24

04 Apr 2024

#237

Intellectual humility

Humility is the capacity for acknowledging that your own wisdom may be flawed, and that your epistemic commitments may be misplaced - but how can that acknowledgement honestly take place if you believe that the things you know are true? ... Read more

27 Mar 2024

28 MINS

28:25

27 Mar 2024

#236

Freedom or liberty?

"Freedom" has become a familiar catchcry in Western democracies, as individuals and protest groups increasingly push back against government restrictions of any and all kinds. The problems this poses for communal life and social cohesion are obvious - so how should freedom be properly understood? ... Read more

20 Mar 2024

40 MINS

40:17

20 Mar 2024

#235

Philosophy, angst and hope

How does a woman philosopher deal with the challenges posed by conservative, masculinist culture within her own academic discipline? Our guest this week turns to the work of Immanuel Kant, the 18th century German thinker who formulated a fine-grained philosophy of hope. ... Read more

14 Mar 2024

27 MINS

27:47

14 Mar 2024

#234

Music, taste and AI

When you think about the music you like (or don't like), what does it tell you about your taste? Do you think you have good taste? And if you do, why? What is it about music that determines good or bad taste, and is it possible to cultivate the former? ... Read more

06 Mar 2024

42 MINS

42:52

06 Mar 2024

#233

The philosophy of twins

This week we're exploring our enduring cultural fascination with identical twins, asking what drives it, and what philosophical questions around selfhood and identity are raised by twinship. ... Read more

29 Feb 2024

28 MINS

28:25

29 Feb 2024

#232

Philosophy, disability and the gut

Digestive disorders are a common source of distress and social anxiety - which might seem to be an odd topic for philosophy, until you start to think about why we attach such stigma, shame and silence to issues of the gut. What does the gut tell us about our own experience of embodiment - and how can disability theory be used to shape healthier attitudes to the gut issues that plague so many of us? ... Read more

22 Feb 2024

29 MINS

29:19

22 Feb 2024

#231

Pornography and free speech

The global pornography industry is getting bigger, more mainstream and more nasty - but does this mean it should be regulated? Many feminist philosophers would say yes - but this places them at odds with liberal defenders of pornography, who worry that regulation would constitute an attack on free speech. ... Read more

15 Feb 2024

32 MINS

32:21

15 Feb 2024

#230

What are Australian philosophers thinking?

Australian philosophy has been punching above its weight in recent decades - but does there exist something that we could call an identifiably Australian philosophical tradition? And how does the future of Australian philosophy look, at a time when the academic Humanities are under siege, and universities are being pushed to turn out "job-ready graduates"? ... Read more

07 Feb 2024

34 MINS

34:07

07 Feb 2024

#229

Queer vs the state

For a long time there's been an ambivalent relationship between LGBTQ communities and the state. Even in liberal democracies, which supposedly exist to protect the interests of all their citizens, examples of the state-sanctioned persecution of sexual minorities can be found right up to the present day. And the intellectual project of queer theory has had an anti-state scepticism baked into it from its earliest inception. ... Read more

30 Jan 2024

43 MINS

43:57

30 Jan 2024

#228

What is swearing?

What exactly is it about swearing that gives it its offensive power? None of the standard philosophy-of-language explanations really gets to the bottom of why we swear, why we don't, and what we're doing when we use "obscene" language. This week, the author of a new book offers some thoughts. ... Read more

24 Jan 2024

34 MINS

34:46

24 Jan 2024

#227

Friendship

What makes a true friend? Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics outlines certain conditions for virtuous friendship, but he sets the bar high, and his estimation of women's capacity for friendship is low. This week we're putting Aristotle in dialogue with Mary Astell, an early modern (and proto-feminist) English philosopher who also wrote extensively on friendship. ... Read more

17 Jan 2024

28 MINS

28:25

17 Jan 2024

#226

Transgender identity and experience

Transgender is commonly invoked as an identity, but this week we're asking if it is better understood as something that points to experience.  ... Read more

10 Jan 2024

30 MINS

30:16

10 Jan 2024

#225

Gender, gaming and pop culture

If you're a gamer, you might be interested to hear that according to a new study, female characters speak approximately half as much as male characters in video games. But why should philosophers be interested? ... Read more

03 Jan 2024

28 MINS

28:25

03 Jan 2024

#224

Richard Rorty and America

In 1998, the American philosopher Richard Rorty predicted dark days for democracy and the rise of a Trump-like figure in the USA. This week, with the publication of a new collection of Rorty's essays, we're considering the ongoing relevance of his work. ... Read more

27 Dec 2023

35 MINS

35:47

27 Dec 2023

#223

Women philosophers in antiquity

If you don't know much about women philosophers in the ancient Graeco-Roman world, you have a good excuse. They're known to have existed, but hardly any of their works have survived, and historical accounts of their lives tend to come from biographies written by men. This week we try to unravel the mystery. ... Read more

20 Dec 2023

28 MINS

28:25

20 Dec 2023

#222

Time in the time of COVID

During the lockdowns at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, people started to experience a strange sense of temporal distortion - time slowing down, time speeding up, time getting bent out of shape. This week we hear from a philosopher, a historian and a sociologist about how that might have happened, and what it might mean. ... Read more

13 Dec 2023

28 MINS

28:24

13 Dec 2023

#221

Stability, security and survival: a conversation with Mary Graham

Mary Graham is one of Australia's most distinguished Aboriginal academics and authors. In this conversation, she articulates a political philosophy of relationality, conflict management and much more. ... Read more

07 Dec 2023

28 MINS

28:25

07 Dec 2023