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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

33:49

History and narrative

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/07/02

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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28:37

The ancient key to modern happiness

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/06/27

Most of us aspire to achieve happiness in life, but is our understanding of happiness somewhat misguided? Could the wisdom of the ancient philosophers hold the key to modern happiness?

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28:37

Fighting fatphobia with Kate Manne

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/06/21

What moral judgements are made in philosophical thinking about fat bodies, and how does that culturally impact how we move through the world?

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28:36

The philosophy of emotions

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/06/14

We all experience emotions, but can we actually pinpoint where they come from?

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28:36

Civil Disobedience with Noëlle McAfee

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/06/07

How should we engage with politics and protest? We explore the history of political engagement and ask what role civil disobedience plays in our lives today.

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28:34

Why time doesn't pass

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/05/30

Most of us experience time as something that passes, or flows like a river - or at least we think we do. Could it be that the sense of time passing is just an illusion? This week we're getting to grips with a theory of time that denies the reality of "flow" - and we're asking why time seems to speed up or slow down in certain situations.Guest: Heather Dyke, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Otago NZProducer: David RutledgeExperience of Passage in a Static World -

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28:38

Philosophy for tough times

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/05/24

Life is hard — disappointment, regret and suffering come with the territory — and if the projections of climate scientists and epidemiologists are correct, it's not going to get easier any time soon. But then, life has always been hard. What do philosophical traditions have to say about the incurable toughness of human existence?

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38:19

Women philosophers in 19th century Germany

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/05/16

When we think of 19th century German philosophy, we perhaps think first of Nietzsche, or Hegel, and then some other men - but Germany in the 1800s was also home to a number of women philosophers.

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38:36

Neofeudalism: techno-lords and peasants

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/05/08

For many on the political left, the end of capitalism is a cherished ideal - but what if capitalism ended and we found ourselves with something worse? This week we're exploring the possibility that Western liberal democracies could be sliding in the direction of "neofeudalism" and devolving into a much nastier set of economic and social structures than the ones we presently have.

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28:25

Obedience

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/05/01

Is obedience a virtue? History is littered with instances where obedience to bad rulers or unjust laws has resulted in catastrophe. But then it's hard to imagine raising or educating children without obedience being a fundamental requirement. This week we're exploring obedience in the moral domain - and in the domain of classical music, where disobedience to tradition can be the hallmark of genius.

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31:09

Style wars pt 2: Scandals and hoaxes

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/04/25

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?

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33:03

Style wars pt 1: Postwar France and a new...

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/04/18

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

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28:25

The predicament of existence

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/04/10

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.

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28:24

Mary Midgley, public philosophy and plumbing

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/04/04

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?

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28:25

Intellectual humility

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/03/27

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?

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40:17

Freedom or liberty?

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/03/20

"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?

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27:47

Philosophy, angst and hope

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/03/14

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.

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42:52

Music, taste and AI

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/03/06

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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28:25

The philosophy of twins

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/02/29

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.

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29:19

Philosophy, disability and the gut

Philosopher"s Zone ·

2024/02/22

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?

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340 results

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