Philosophy Talk

Nothing stirs up controversy like abortion.  To some, it carries the steep moral cost of destroying human life, while to others, it represents an inviolable bastion of women’s rights over their own bodies.  Despite the polarizing nature of the debate, it covers broad philosophical ground, and touches on religious, political, social and moral considerations.  Ken and John seek a dispassionate and r...

We live in a market-driven society – our day-to-day lives consist of buying and selling goods and services, and to some, our ability to do so without government regulation is the underpinning of democratic freedom itself. Everything has a price, and pretty much everything is for sale, from concert tickets to political influence. But should it be this way? Ken and John explore the moral costs of fr...

Because of their innocent approach to things, do children make good philosophers?  Or do they lack the equipment for clear-thinking?  Is exposure to philosophy good for children?  Or will it undermine their sense of security?  John and Ken welcome Jana Mohr Lone, founder and director of the Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children at the University of Washington. Together they’ll put some clas...

Human thought is an amazing thing. It has given us not only science, literature, and morality, but also superstition, slavery, and war.  Thought has the power to uncover the deepest mysteries of the universe.  Or to create new realities – social realities.  But what makes human thought so powerful?  John and Ken put this question and more to renowned cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, author of th...

Sometimes people who seem to be your epistemic peers – that is, people as experienced, as well trained, as thoughtful, and as intelligent as you – disagree with you.  Should this shake your confidence in your own beliefs?  When, how much, and under what conditions?  Ken and John search for common ground with Jennifer Lackey from Northwestern University, author of Learning From Words: Testimony as...

Reading is a lot of fun, especially narrative fiction – everyone loves a good story. But maybe there’s more to it than that. Maybe everyone is, or at least tries to be, a good story themselves. Perhaps our very personal identities rest on narratives we form about ourselves, narratives that give our lives meaning, continuity, and coherence. Will the younger generation fashion lives based on the cha...

The occult is routinely dismissed in our times as the province of quacks, the irrational, and the superstitious.  But during the Renaissance, many of the best minds in Europe studied the philosophy and science of the occult.  The period witnessed an outpouring of systematic philosophical and scientific treatises on the occult.  References to the occult pervade the works of Shakespeare and other li...

Compromise is the condition of peace and progress.  But there are times when we should not compromise – when compromise would undermine integrity and amount to cooperating with evil.  How do we distinguish between when are we ‘bargaining with the devil’ and when are we simply trying to be tolerant of alternative lifestyles and political positions?  Is it OK to ‘bargain with the devil’ in the name...

Scholars from Berkeley and from Stanford have played a big role on Philosophy Talk.  Sure, John and Ken are from Stanford, but many of our most frequent and most brilliant guests are from Berkeley: Alison Gopnik, John Searle, Geoff Nunberg, George Lakoff, and many others. But who supports KALW more, Berkeley or Stanford?  We’ll rely on our Stanford- and Berkeley-connected guests to charge up the C...

The American Revolution was saturated with meaning and ambiguity, from the words of the Declaration of Independence, to the beliefs of the founding fathers, to the vagueness, hedges, and contradictions of the Constitution on which the possibility of union between slave and free states rested.  Ken and John examine the personalities, philosophies, and documents of the American Revolution with Pulit...

Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth. In America, youth below college age are usually not exposed to philosophy in the classroom. Is philosophy all that dangerous? Should it be taught to teenagers? Or would this lead to a generation of self-absorbed and skeptical young people, shirking their duties in order to worry about the meaning of life? John and Ken are joined by Jack Bowen, author...

Self-deception sounds like a contradiction: intentionally convincing yourself of something you know to be untrue.  But it is a pervasive aspect of human nature.  What is the nature of self-deception, and what are its main patterns?  Does it serve any purpose?  Ken and John confront the truths of self-deception with Neil Van Leeuwen from the University of Johannesburg.

Humanism as a movement arose with the Renaissance.  It took powerful expression with the Enlightenment, and deeply influenced the founding of the United States.  But now “secular humanism” is widely decried and even derided.  What was Humanism, and what has it become?  In an age of appreciating the interconnectedness of all nature, is the Humanist enterprise out of date?  Ken and John are joined b...

Few things affect our lives as much as the fact that we are citizens of one country rather than another.  The government of, the economy of, and the rights recognized and opportunities provided by the country we live in shape our lives.  But how real are any of these facts and things?  Without human beliefs, and societies of humans, there would be no states, no facts of citizenship, no money, and...

Loyalty is usually reckoned to be an important virtue; even loyalty to lost causes is often admired.  But loyalty to evil causes is no virtue.  To whom and what should one be loyal?  When is loyalty a virtue?  When is it wrong?  And when is it stupid?  Ken and John welcome back poet and philosopher Troy Jollimore, author of Friendship and Agent-Relative Morality.

Our founding fathers believed that a free press would serve democracy by promoting unfettered political debate and expose the actions of the government to the harsh scrutiny of an informed and engaged populace.  Today, however, large media conglomerates have become part of the entrenched power structure and are driven as much by profit as by a sense of public mission.  Is it still possible to beli...

According to the Declaration of Independence, the basic human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are God-given. Whatever the role of God, rights must be recognized by the society in which one lives to be of any use. Are rights universal? God given? Philosophically justified? Or a matter of custom and culture? John and Ken welcome back Helen Stacy, author of Human Rights For the 2...

The Supreme Court recently decided that corporations had the right of free speech under the U.S. Constitution, since they are persons.  But what does it mean to say corporations are persons?  Why should they have rights?  If they have free speech, should they have the vote?  What sorts of duties do they have?  Where did the idea of a corporation as a person come from, and should it be retired?  Ke...

What philosophers, philosophies, or philosophical issues do you want to read up on over the summer?  Heidegger’s Being and Time probably isn’t the obvious choice to take on vacation, but there are a lot of readable, beach-friendly classics and non-classics to add philosophical depth to your vacation reading. Not to mention new and classic fiction books with a philosophical bent.  You are invited t...

It’s a Philosophy Talk highlight reel for the membership drive! In this special episode, John and Ken relive some favorite moments from Philosophy Talk episodes recorded in front of live audiences around the country. We start at the Marsh theatre in San Francisco with psychologist Alison Gopnik and political philosopher Judith Butler, followed by philosopher-poet Troy Jollimore in Portland, pop cu...

Paranoia, depression, schizophrenia, bipolarity, and all the other ways Americans have discovered to be crazy – are they universal phenomena, rooted in human biology?  Or are they cultural kinks, rooted in one society’s peculiar pressures and institutions?  Are Americans inducing the rest of the world to be crazy like us, so we can market the appropriate cures?  Ken and John maintain their sanity...

According to Proverbs, lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.  But lies on human lips are as common as fleas on a dog.  What is a lie?  Are all untruths lies?  Is lying always immoral?  Do our faces inevitably betray our lies?  Join the hosts as they uncover the concept, practice, and detection of lies with pioneering psychologist Paul Ekman, author of Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Mark...

According to former Vice President Cheney, practices widely regarded as torture prevented further attack on America after 9/11.  The facts are in dispute.  But suppose he is correct – can torture be justified on such utilitarian grounds?  What is the philosophical basis of our aversion to using torture?  Is the moral principle not to torture absolute or circumstantial?  Ken and John consider the e...

The concept of a wife has been embedded in cultures, religious practices, social customs and economic patterns of wildly different sorts.  Is there a core concept of what it is to be a wife?  Is it a good concept, or one that deserves to be thrown on the trash heap of intellectual history because it perpetrates corrosive stereotypes of women?  What conceptions of being a wife do Americans have tod...

Fear is an emotion, but it is one with a long history in both political theory and politics in the real world. In many versions of social contract theory, it is a fear of the state of nature that leads to government in the first place. From McCarthy to post-9/11 politics, fear has played a leading role in American public discourse. Ken and John examine fear as theme in politics and political philo...