Philosopher's Zone

This week we're exploring the concept of moral creativity - a virtue that can be useful when it comes to negotiating the grey areas in our modern moral universe.

How can learning flourish in a time of war? Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in January 2022, thousands of scholars have fled or been displaced, while nearly 200 institutions of higher education have been damaged or destroyed. This week we explore the possibilities for supporting and restoring the academy, and the role of Ukrainian intellectual traditions in resistance.

As much as we dislike thinking about it, failure is deeply embedded within everything we do and everything we are. From our politics to our bodies, the salient feature is that it all falls apart sooner or later. Failure has inspired a million depressing songs and poems - but it's also fertile ground for philosophy, and for some unexpectedly positive reflections.

For philosopher Martin Kovan, the resources within Buddhism provide an analytical means to gain new perspectives on violence. His book is A Buddhist Theory of Killing: A Philosophical Exposition.

What challenges come with being a minority in philosophy? 

When a tennis pro lunges for a difficult drop volley, or a concert cellist rips through the difficult section of a Bach suite, are they thinking about what they're doing? Some would say that elite physical performance is essentially a mindless phenomenon, and that thinking is counterproductive to success. But the reality is more complex - and more interesting.

For more than three millennia, most buildings in China were configured around a central courtyard. This week's guest believes that the courtyard helps us to understand Chinese society and culture, as well as Confucian philosophy. Today, with increasing numbers of people living in urban apartment buildings, the courtyard has become something of a period piece. What does this tell us about Chinese t...

The recipe for living well is simple: develop a morally sound set of values, formulate goals rooted in those values, and achieve those goals. But beneath this basic formula there lurks a number of tricky questions.

When philosophy turns its attention to music, it's traditionally an exercise in high culture. Questions about the nature and function of music are often explored with reference to an established canon of "serious" music – while pop finds itself relegated to the margins. This week we're getting serious about pop, and exploring the ways that the compositional and sonic structures of pop music reflec...

You don’t have to be stupid to be a conspiracy theorist. Many people who buy into paranoid fantasies about stolen Presidential elections and global Satanic cabals are perfectly sane, well-educated individuals. So why do they fall for these myths? This week we consider the possibility that the attraction is primarily aesthetic, and that the experience is fun. But why the perennial focus on Jews?

These days we’re constantly pushed to be more efficient – at work, of course, but also in our leisure pursuits and even while we sleep. How did we get here? And how can we get back to a state that’s governed by principles other than accumulation and profit? This week, a story of two key figures in the history of modern industrial capitalism: F.W. Taylor, the father of “scientific management” theor...

Children can teach adults a thing or two when it comes to the getting of wisdom. But does this mean that children are philosophers? And if the answer is Yes, then what kind of philosophers are they?

When billionaires want to make a positive difference in the world, many of them turn to philanthropy. Which is fine in principle, but this week we're asking if giving away money via huge global philanthropic foundations is really an unalloyed good.

Standard philosophical accounts of language present it as a kind of home – a place that we inhabit, and that shapes our sense of self. But what happens when we're not quite "at home" within a language?

Confusion has reigned at Twitter since Elon Musk took the reins of the company, and one of the most pressing questions has to do with whether or not the social media platform will be reshaped to fit its new CEO's ideal of unfettered free speech. Musk has referred to Twitter as the "digital town square" – but how can the town square also be a private estate, owned by a billionaire? This week we're...

What does it mean to study and teach philosophy in prison? Andy West has been teaching philosophy in prisons since 2015, and his memoir The Life Inside is a fascinating account of this experience - as well as a reflection on inherited trauma and the fact that his father, uncle and brother all spent time behind bars.

Like death, causation is something of a riddle. The death certificate of Queen Elizabeth II has "old age" given as the cause of death - but given that old age is simply an outcome of being alive for a certain period of time, what does it mean to pathologise it in this way, and to list it as a fatal condition? Far from being an exact science, death certification is rife with interpretation and cont...

Günther Anders is the most interesting and important philosopher you've probably never heard of. An exile from Nazi Germany who landed in America in the late 1930s, Anders was a prescient theorist of media and technology whose insights are remarkably pertinent to today's digital landscape. His major work is a best-seller in Europe and he's one of Germany's most well-regarded intellectuals, yet he'...

Insect farming, we're told by its proponents, is the next big thing in edible protein production, and it may just save the world. But an insect "farm" is more like a manufacturing plant where the tiny organisms are pulped into powder form. What is the moral status of these living things? Can we be sure they're not sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain and suffering? And if we can't be sure...

Modern travel is a commodity: you buy a holiday. But have you ever thought of travel as a philosophical activity? Offering the discovery of new traditions, new perspectives and the acquisition of knowledge, travel should make philosophers of us all. The 19th century was an era in which travel was thought of in this way, and women were out there at the frontiers of discovery. But their independence...

Refugees have been with us for millennia, but the modern refugee exists under a distinctively modern set of circumstances. Moral philosophers often fail to take these circumstances into account, and to acknowledge the ways in which the West can be responsible for refugee crises.

Friedrich Nietzsche is popularly regarded as one of the gloomier thinkers, so people are often surprised to learn that he can be very funny. But the humour in his writing is doing serious work: Nietzsche is looking for a way to find joy in the darkest corners of life - and to do it without falling back on what he sees as false Christian comfort.

How do we know the things we know? The fact is that most of our knowledge comes down to trust - particularly trust in institutions and experts. But in a world where misinformation has become a lucrative industry, how is it possible to trust wisely?

Can a religion be non-theistic, with no God or deity at the centre? It's a question that has exercised philosophers of religion for a long time – but members of The Satanic Temple, which was founded in the USA in 2013, would emphatically say yes. This week's guest expounds some Satanic philosophy, and has a fascinating backstory of his own.

Familiar ideas about value, ownership and market economics can obscure the fact that there are different ways to think about housing. This week, we're looking at housing through the lens of Aboriginal property development and land rights.