Philosopher's Zone

Rent is one of those simple market economy mechanisms that seem very natural, as though it's an organic outgrowth of human society. But in fact, rent has a philosophical history, and one that's been traced in a new book by this week's guest.

Your guide throThese days we're increasingly led to think of a house as a commodity. But what does it mean to think of a house as a site of care, rather than an asset in a system of market exchange? This week we're re-centring people in the housing value debate.ugh the strange thickets of logic, metaphysics and ethics.

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.

If we cease to exist after we die, then is our fear of death a fear of... nothing?

Death holds a special fascination for all of us - but none more than philosophers, who have been pondering the puzzle of death for centuries. In this two-part series, we take a look at some recent approaches to an ancient mystery.

So you’re feeling sick, and you go to the doctor. The doctor sends you off for a range of diagnostic tests, which come back inconclusive. What happens next?

This week we're exploring the idea that art can say things, and do things, and mean different things according to shifting historical circumstances - and that those sayings, doings and meanings aren't always benign or harmless. How should we respond to morally problematic art - particularly the kind of art that can function as hate speech?

Simone de Beauvoir wrote that “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”. It’s a much-quoted phrase that appears to speak presciently to modern concerns around sex and gender. But how well is Beauvoir understood by contemporary feminists?

Ubuntu is an African tradition of thought whose ethical orientation is captured in the well-known aphorism “I am, because we are”. But what gets lost when Ubuntu is framed as a philosophical discourse in the Western intellectual tradition? And where do we see its successes and failures in the reconstruction of post-colonial Africa?

Philosophy is often thought of as proceeding via elaborate conceptual systems. But sometimes, a choice phrase is all you need to get you thinking.

We live in a society dominated by the aspiration to greatness, where the ancient ethical ideal of "the good life" is often framed in terms of wealth, fame and power. The notion that we might settle for a "good-enough life" seems oddly countercultural - but this week we're exploring the virtues of modest ambition, and the ways in which a relentlessly competitive social order can damage everyone, fr...

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...

The 18th century British parliamentarian and philosopher Edmund Burke is routinely referred to as "the founder of modern conservatism", and at a glance it's not hard to see why. He believed in the authority of tradition and inherited values, staunchly opposed the French Revolution, and was in many ways out of step with the Enlightenment humanism of his day. But on closer inspection, Burke can look...

Modernity has us in a terrible bind. We know that our Western habits of growth and consumption are destroying the planet, and that we need to stop exploiting the natural world for our benefit. But at the same time, our very identity as modern humans is grounded in the notion of endless growth, self-determination and the domination of nature. The work of the 18th century German philosopher GWF Hege...

There’s a venerable philosophical tradition devoted to explaining what love is, and it stretches back to the ancient Greeks. It deals with questions like “the problem of particularity” – the mystery of why, if we fall in love with someone because of their physical beauty and attractive character, we don’t then fall in love with anyone and everyone who shares these traits. What philosophy hasn’t ha...

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?

There are an estimated 16.2 million documented orphans worldwide, with as many as 100 million more children living on the streets. It’s a problem of crisis proportions, which makes it perhaps strange that so many of us consider adoption as more of a last resort than a first-order obligation – to be considered only if the path to having genetically-related children is blocked. This week we’re looki...

Identity politics is grounded in the appeal to a stable, unified self and the authority of testimony. But this week we’re asking whether that foundation is solid, and if deconstructing it might allow for a more flexible approach to social justice.

These days, beauty is a moral imperative, an ideal to live by, and one according to which we judge ourselves and others. As a result, we increasingly shape our identities around our bodies – and not just our actual bodies with their lumps and bumps, but our imaginary future bodies: thin, smooth and firm. Gradually our notion of the good life comes to be centred on physical appearance, and this cau...

In a world shaken by war, pandemic and climate crisis, hope is a precious resource. It can be fragile, fleeting and hard to find. But what exactly does hope mean? It has clear Christian overtones, and a venerable theological tradition behind it. This week we're talking about the ways in which the theological informs the secular, and exploring how hope plays out in the political arena. We also hear...

This week, a conversation about death, and the ways in which our reluctance to face mortality results in the creation of “immortality constructs” – comforting symbolic fictions that when challenged, can elicit a violent defensive response. In order to come to terms with death, we need to come to terms with sex – but this can involve a double bind for women. Is the age-old association of women with...

There was once a time when mythology and philosophy got along perfectly well together. But since the Enlightenment, philosophy has come to regard myth as something of an embarrassment – and today, we often tend to view “myth” as synonymous with “falsehood”, or at least as a throwback to pre-rational, superstitious human culture. Myths are also held to be suspect in political theory, where the memo...

Most of us agree that pain is part of life, that none of us can escape it, and that death comes for all of us in the end. And yet many of us feel that life is worth it; that the pleasure of life outweighs the suffering. Anti-natalist philosophy takes a different view. The anti-natalist believes that pain outweighs pleasure, so much so that it's morally wrong to bring a child into the world. What f...

Movies and TV series increasingly feature leading characters that are morally repugnant, and yet we respond positively to their charisma. Why do we like them so much on screen? And is our emotional investment in their stories indicative of moral failure on our own part? This week we're exploring ideas of moral beauty, moral ugliness, and the strange ways in which artists - even in apparently moral...

Philosophy can sometimes be an exercise in abstract, "pure" reason, unsullied by the demands of the body or the contingencies of history. But this week we're placing history and corporeality front and centre, with a look at the intimate lives of four eminent philosophers, and asking how their private entanglements shaped their public work.