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PODCAST

Philosopher"s Zone

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.

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

0:39:45

Expanding our moral circle

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/02/19

Our "moral circle" encompasses fellow humans, other primates, dogs, cats and other animals to which we attribute feelings and interests. But as science teaches us more about the inner lives of insects, marine animals and even microbes, it becomes more and more apparent that we might need to include them in our moral circle as well. Furthermore, we may need to bestow moral significance on an upcoming population of artificial intelligences. How can we possibly care for them all, and

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0:31:19

Knowing what things are like

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/02/12

Conventional wisdom has it that if you've never fallen in love, if you've never given birth to a child, if you've never tasted Vegemite... then you can't know what these experiences are like. But is the conventional wisdom correct? This week we're asking if there could in fact be various kinds of what-it-is-like knowledge, not all of which require direct first-hand experience.

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0:28:25

How important is aesthetic education?

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/02/05

It's often said that we're experiencing a crisis in the arts and Humanities, with declining student numbers in subjects that aren't deemed suitable for creating "job-ready graduates", and funding cuts slashing support for the arts. In a world of tight job markets and increasing importance given to STEM subjects, what can we do about it?

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0:29:12

Rediscovering Wilfrid Sellars

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/01/30

The American thinker Wilfrid Sellars died in 1989, and has been remembered as a primarily analytic philosopher. But today, Sellars is being rediscovered by a new generation of Continental philosophers - and, perhaps surprisingly, Marxists. What do these thinkers find in Sellars, and how are his thoughts on science and knowledge being applied to questions of politics and society?

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0:33:21

Auschwitz: experiencing what can't be experienced

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/01/23

This week marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz at the end of the Second World War. Representation in literature and cinema of the horrors that took place at Auschwitz is fraught with ethical ambiguities, as is the experience of actually visiting Auschwitz, which many people do today. The place stands as a famous memorial, known to all - and yet, this week's guest fears that the lessons of Auschwitz are being forgotten.

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0:33:32

Summer season: History and narrative

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/01/15

Historians are commonly thought of as being a little like archaeologists or scientists - they're in the business of uncovering facts, and then presenting those facts to the public as accurately as possible. But this week we're considering history as a species of narrative, and the historian as someone who doesn't "discover" the meaning of the past but constructs it.

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0:40:15

Summer season: Libertarianism and freedom

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/01/08

Libertarians are hard to pin down – they have a number of seemingly contradictory commitments that we normally associate with people on either the left or the right of politics. Libertarians like small government, low taxes and free markets – but they also favour things like same-sex marriage and drug legalisation. So what exactly is libertarianism, and where did it come from?

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0:34:31

Summer season: What is swearing?

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2025/01/01

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 very sweary philosophy book offers some thoughts.

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0:28:25

Summer season: How philosophy fell in love with language

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/12/25

Around the beginning of the 20th century, philosophy began to take what's come to be known as "the linguistic turn". All major philosophical questions, it was argued, were really questions about language, and this conviction would dominate philosophical discourse for the next century. But are philosophers now starting to turn away from the linguistic turn? And what might be coming next?

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0:42:35

Summer season: Music, taste and AI

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/12/18

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?

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0:27:59

Stability, security and survival: a conversation with...

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/12/11

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.

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0:36:24

Hannah Arendt and the aesthetic

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/12/04

German-American political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was someone who thought and wrote about some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century, so it might seem strange to suggest that her conception of politics was primarily aesthetic. But she herself once said that she only wanted to understand the world, not to change it.

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0:34:59

Sense, sensibility and the authentic self

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/11/27

Authenticity, vulnerability and empathy are all positive character traits - but is there something in the modern ritual performance of these traits that can actually be detrimental to public life? Are we forsaking reason for the sugar rush of cheap emotion? The tension between what Jane Austen called "sense and sensibility" goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, and this week we're exploring the philosophical history of toxic touchy-feeliness.

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0:38:08

Philosophy and mysticism

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/11/21

Mysticism is a phenomenon commonly associated with religion and the kind of experience that bypasses the rational, critical mind - which is probably why modern philosophers have tended to treat it with suspicion. But this week we're asking if contemporary philosophy can learn something from the mystics.

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0:28:06

Health care ethics: otherness and belonging

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/11/13

In ethical terms, health care systems are supposed to be "blind" to culture, offering the same level of care and respect to all patients regardless of background. Programs promoting diversity and inclusivity in health care are designed to further this aim - and yet for immigrants and other minorities, the practice can fall far from the ideal.

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0:30:40

Sentience

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/11/07

Sentience is a puzzle - and an increasingly important one. The question of exactly what constitutes sentience, and which organisms possess it, is hotly contested. But with scientific evidence emerging in support of the theory that octopuses, bees and other invertebrates may be sentience candidates, moral questions of how we should treat them become more and more pressing. And then there's AI - could sentient robots be on the horizon?

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0:33:13

Nationalism and immigration

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/10/30

Nationalism is often associated with rightwing politics and anti-immigration sentiment - but is that a necessary connection? This week we're looking at various forms of nationalism, and asking if there's something about the structure of the nation-state itself that fosters an exclusionary attitude to outsiders.

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0:40:44

Philosophy, history and religion

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/10/24

With the launch this week of a new Centre for the History of Philosophy at Notre Dame University, we're talking about the value of philosophical insights from the past – particularly insights from a time when philosophy and theology were close cousins.

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0:42:21

The 2024 Alan Saunders Lecture: Krushil Watene

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/10/17

Maori philosopher Krushil Watene is an outstanding scholar and part of a global leadership network working toward a sustainable future and a healthier planet. This week, delivering the 2024 Alan Saunders Lecture, she presents "Indigenous Philosophy and Intergenerational Justice".

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0:36:54

Is there purpose in the cosmos?

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/10/10

To many people, the notion that the universe has consciousness and purpose belongs back in the pre-scientific era. This week we're exploring the possibility that cosmic purpose is defensible not only philosophically, but also scientifically.

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353 results

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