Friction

What if getting clear on perception, number, and the self depends on metaphysics coming first, rather than on meaning or concepts setting the rules? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Christopher Peacocke is Johnsonian professor of philosophy and director of graduate studies in philosophy at Columbia University, and his work has focused on mind, epistemology, and metaphysics...

Can moral flaws make a work artistically worse—and why do we seek out horror if it’s supposed to scare and disgust us? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Noël Carroll is distinguished professor of philosophy at the graduate centre of the City University of New York, and his work has focused on the philosophy of aesthetics, art, film, and more. 2. Interview Summary The interv...

What do Grim Reaper paradoxes actually show about infinity in time and causation, and why might the best response be that the scenario is simply unsatisfiable? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Alex Malpass's work focuses on philosophical logic, philosophy of time, philosophy of physics, and more. His website is https://useofreason.wordpress.com/, and he runs the Thoughtolo...

What are you, really—and if consciousness can’t be reduced to mindless matter, what does that imply about where minds come from and how free we can be? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Joshua Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University, and his research focuses primarily on metaphysics, necessary existence, theology, truth, and a number of big, related topics...

How far can testimony take us toward believing in miracles like the resurrection, and what follows for how we understand religious belief, fine-tuning, and decision theory? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Arif Ahmed is a philosopher at the University of Cambridge. He is a Reader in Philosophy, University of Cambridge, and is Nicholas Sallnow-Smith Lecturer in Philosophy,...

Can perceptual noise and a non-representational notion of acquaintance explain why experience feels so authoritative while still undercutting higher-order theories of consciousness? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Benj Hellie is professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and his research focuses primarily on mind, epistemology, and semantics. 2. Interview Summar...

Can liberal legal interpretation, free speech absolutism, and neutral “public meaning” really survive once you admit that texts, norms, and institutions only make sense inside purposive social practices? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Stanley Fish is a literary theorist, legal scholar, author and public intellectual. He is currently the Floersheimer Distinguished Visitin...

How can a physicalist account of the mind survive the intuitive pull of Mary’s Room while still explaining what we genuinely learn when we first experience color? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Frank Jackson is Professor Emeritus at Australian National University and was a visiting professor at Princeton University. His work focuses primarily on mind, language, and ethic...

Can a perceptual experience be rational or irrational in the same way a belief can, and what happens when fear or prejudice shapes what you literally see? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Susanna Siegel is Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, and her work focuses on mind, epistemology, perception, and related topics. 2. Interview Summary Susanna Sieg...

Can racism be understood as a historically evolving system of domination, and do near-death experiences and the prospect of immortality really support the big metaphysical conclusions people often draw from them? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Sam Houston State University and his work focuses on ethics, act...

If science gets the final say about reality, should we treat intentionality and objective meaning as comforting illusions, as Alex Rosenberg argues in defense of ‘scientism’ and a sober ‘nice nihilism’? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Alex Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University. His research focuses on the philosophy of biology and scie...

Can Western philosophy really understand belief and rationality without emotion, or do we need the kind of “heart-mind” yin-and-yang framework that Michael Slote defends here? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Michael Slote is Professor Emeritus at the University of Miami, and his research focuses on ethics and mind, and especially on virtues, sentimentalism, and related to...

What if the best reason to reject classical logic isn’t that it’s wrong everywhere, but that it unnecessarily rules out true theories by banning both truth-value gaps and truth-value gluts? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Jc Beall holds the O’Neill Family Chair of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and his research primarily focuses on logic and the philosophy of...

What happens to “knowing” and moral responsibility when we stop talking about vague context and start asking which alternatives actually matter? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. He is core faculty in the Duke Cen...

Is philosophy really just wordplay, or can thought experiments and counterfactuals tell us something substantive about reality? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Timothy Williamson is Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University, and his research focuses primarily on epistemology, logic, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. 2. Interview Summary Timothy Williamson...

How much do we really owe people in desperate need once we take seriously both the real-world consequences of aid and what it means to be a good person? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Larry Temkin is distinguished professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, and his research focuses primarily on normative ethics and political philosophy. His book is "Being Good in a Wo...

Is reality fundamentally built from many parts, or does everything ultimately depend on the whole through a layered structure of grounding and explanation? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Jonathan Schaffer is an American philosopher specializing in metaphysics and also working in epistemology, mind, and language. 2. Interview Summary Jonathan Schaffer discusses how metaph...

What if the pandemic wasn’t just a shared misfortune, but a spotlight on injustice that should change how we think about politics, cooperation, and truth? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Vittorio Bufacchi is senior lecturer of philosophy at University College Cork. 2. Interview Summary Vittorio Bufacchi frames the conversation around why he wrote Everything Must Change: P...

What happens to skeptical arguments once we treat them as credibility comparisons, and can higher-order theories really explain why some mental states feel conscious? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest William Lycan is an American philosopher and Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work has focused on a range of philosophical issues, bu...

How far can you get in ethics by focusing on the concrete reasons in each case, rather than relying on moral principles to tell you what you ought to do? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Jonathan Dancy is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and Research Professor at the University of Reading. 2. Interview Summary Jonathan Dancy (introduced as a pro...

Why do slurs offend even when you’re not using them to insult anyone, and what does that reveal about how meaning, context, and social norms actually work in language? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Ernest Lepore is a philosopher and cognitive scientist and a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. 2. Interview Summary Ernest Lepore opens by framing his book proje...

What does it take not just to do the right thing, but to do it virtuously—and what do achievement and anger reveal about the ethical costs of injustice? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Sukaina Hirji is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Her philosophical research focuses primarily on ancient philosophy, Aristotelian ethics, and contempora...

Do we need a single, primitive “Grounding” relation to explain metaphysical dependence, or can a plural toolkit of more specific relations do the job while still making sense of emergence and physicalism? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Jessica Wilson is Professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Her area of research focuses on a range of topics in...

If determinism rules out real alternatives, what could still make us genuinely responsible for what we do? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest John Martin Fischer is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. His philosophical work focuses on free will, moral responsibility, as well as death, near-death experiences, immortality, and more...

If freedom isn’t just about having options but about not living at someone else’s mercy, what does that imply for free will, responsibility, and the political institutions we should build? My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy . 1. Guest Philip Pettit is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National...