Branches of Philosophy Podcast

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Paradox of Self-consciousness" By Jose Luis Bermudez 1998In this book, Jos Luis Berm dez addesses two fundamental problems in the philosophy and psychology of self-consciousness: (1) Can we provide a noncircular account of fully fledged self-conscious thought and language in terms of more fundamental capacities? (2) Can we...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The puzzle of Experience” By J. J. Valberg 1992 If we reason in a certain way about our experience, we are driven to the conclusion that what is present to us - the object of our experience - is something that exists only in so far as it is present, hence that it is not part of the world. If, on the other hand, we simply open up to...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One" By Riccardo Manzotti 2021 Once we came out of the jungle and found time to think of something besides food, sex, and shelter, we confronted the fundamental questions: what are we? Who are we? Is a person a body, a soul? How do we access the external world if we are noth...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All" By Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares 2025 In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushin...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Self-knowledge for Humans" By Quassim Cassam 2014 Human beings are not model epistemic citizens. Our reasoning can be careless and uncritical, and our beliefs, desires, and other attitudes aren't always as they ought rationally to be. Our beliefs can be eccentric, our desires irrational and our hopes hopelessly unrealistic...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding"By Sarah Blaffer Hrdy 2009 Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How such sin...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality" By Angela A. Mendelovici 2018 Intentionality is the mind's ability to be "of," "about," or "directed" at things, or to "say" something. For example, a thought might "say" that grass is green or that Santa Claus is jolly, and a visual...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Materialist Phenomenology: A Philosophy of Perception" By Manuel DeLanda 2021Bringing together phenomenology and materialism, two perspectives seemingly at odds with each other, leading international theorist, Manuel DeLanda, has created an entirely new theory of visual perception. Engaging the scientific (biology, ecological...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "A Theory of Sentience" By Austen Clark 2000 'A Theory of Sentience is as valuable for the questions it opens up as for the positive theory it puts forward. Austen Clark has brought to our attention a way of thinking about the details of sensory experience which opens up possibilities for fruitful interaction between philos...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Becoming Human: From Pointing Gestures to Syntax" By Teresa Bejarano 2011 What do the pointing gesture, the imitation of new complex motor patterns, the evocation of absent objects and the grasping of others’ false beliefs all have in common? Apart from being (one way or other) involved in the language, they all would share a...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding" By Dan Sperber & Hugo Mercier 2017 Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. But, if reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If it is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasone...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory" By Peter Carruthers 2000 How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Many have despaired of finding answers to these qu...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Wittgenstein's Poker" By David Edmonds & John Eidinow 2001 On 25 October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The encounter lasted only ten minutes, and did not go well. Almost immediately, rumours started to spread around the world tha...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences" By Michel Foucault 1966 When one defines "order" as a sorting of priorities, it becomes beautifully clear as to what Foucault is doing here. With virtuoso showmanship, he weaves an intensely complex history of thought. He dips into literature, art, economics...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Phenomenological Mind" By Shaun Gallagher & Dan Zahavi 2008 The Phenomenological Mind, Third Edition introduces fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. One of the outstanding books in the field, now translated into eight languages, this highly regarded exploration of phenomenology fr...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "The Intercorporeal Self: Merleau-Ponty on Subjectivity" By Scott L. Marratto 2012 Challenging a prevalent Western idea of the self as a discrete, interior consciousness, Scott L. Marratto argues instead that subjectivity is a characteristic of the living, expressive movement establishing a dynamic intertwining between a sentie...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Mind: Your Consciousness is What and Where?" By Ted Honderich 2017 What is mind? Still harder, what is consciousness? In this radical new book, eminent philosopher Ted Honderich tackles this great mystery in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience—and the rest of life. He proposes to replace all competing theories of consciousnes...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain" By Michael Gazzaniga 2011 The prevailing orthodoxy in brain science is that since physical laws govern our physical brains, physical laws therefore govern our behaviour and even our conscious selves. Free will is meaningless, goes the mantra; we live in a 'determ...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People" By Emily Herring 2024 The first English-language biography of Henri Bergson, the philosopher who defined individual creativity and transformed twentieth century thought. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Henri Bergson became the most famous phi...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Apperception and Self-Consciousness in Kant and German Idealism" By Dennis Schulting 2020 "In Apperception and Self-Consciousness in Kant and German Idealism, Dennis Schulting examines the themes of reflexivity, self-consciousness, representation and apperception in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism more...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of :The Great Guide:What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well"By Julian Baggini 202 1Invaluable wisdom on living a good life from one of the Enlightenment's greatest philosophers David Hume (1711–1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely th...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "John McDowell on Worldly Subjectivity: Oxford Kantianism Meets Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences" By Tony Cheng 2022 John McDowell’s philosophical ideas are both influential and comprehensive, encompassing philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, metaphysics and the history of philosophy. This book...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics" By Martin Heidegger 1929/1997 Since its original publication in 1929, Martin Heidegger's provocative book on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has attracted much attention both as an important contribution to twentieth-century Kant scholarship and as a pivotal work in Heidegger's o...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology" By Edmund Husserl 1931/2012 Widely regarded as the principal founder of phenomenology, one of the most important movements in twentieth century philosophy, Edmund Husserl’s Ideas is one of his most important works and a classic of twentieth century thought. This Routledge Clas...

Ai generated & human edited. Introduction and summary of "Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness" By Philip Goff 2019 From a leading philosopher of mind comes this lucid, provocative argument that offers a radically new picture of human consciousness—panpsychism. Understanding how brains produce consciousness is one of the great scientific challenges of o...