Select Episodes

All episodes are now to free to listen at philosophytalk.org, so this feed will no longer be updated. Subscribe to the weekly podcast at https://philosophytalk.org/get-the-podcast.

More at https://philosophytalk.org/shows/can-money-buy-well-being. Governments and central banks set economic policies that affect us all. But how do those policies influence our quality of life? And how can that quality even be measured? Gross Domestic Product (GDP) includes many factors that have little to do with the regular person’s happiness. What do people really need, beyond enough to live...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/anna-julia-cooper. Born into slavery in the nineteenth century, Anna Julia Cooper received a classical education, attended the Sorbonne, and became the fourth African American in history to be awarded a PhD. Her first book, A Voice from the South, offered one of the first articulations of how Black women are impacted by race, gender, and socioeconomic c...

More at www.philosophytalk.org/shows/mind-sharing. Mind reading might sound like the stuff of science fiction. But in philosophy and psychology, mind reading is something that human beings do whenever we try to guess what another person is thinking. Could it be that people are also natural born mind sharers, unconsciously shaping our behavior to be understood by others? How do we change or exagger...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/shakespeares-outsiders. Over 400 years after his death, Shakespeare is still widely regarded as the greatest dramatist of all time. His many plays tackle questions about power, influence, identity, and moral and social status. His characters—be they villains or heroes—are often disdained because of their race, religion, class, disability, or gender. So...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/im-yunjidang. 18th-century Korean philosopher Im Yunjidang was the first Confucian to argue for women’s equality in matters of morality and to claim that women, just like men, can be sages. She also argued that it isn't just what you do that matters morally—it's also how you decide. So what does it mean to be a sage and how does someone become one? How...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/margaret-cavendish. Margaret Cavendish was a writer of poetry, philosophy, polemics, histories, plays, and utopian fiction. She employed many different genres as a way to overcome access barriers for women and build an audience for her subversive philosophical ideas. So, what was so radical about Cavendish's views? Why did she think all matter, even roc...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/mary-astell. Mary Astell (1666–1731) was an English philosopher and writer who advocated for equal rights for women. While she described marriage as a type of “slavery,” she was also a staunch conservative who claimed that women who did marry should accept subordination to their husbands. So what was Astell's vision for the education of women? How did s...

More at www.philosophytalk.org/shows/elisabeth-bohemia. Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618–1680) is best known for her correspondence with René Descartes. In her letters, she articulated a devastating critique of his dualist theory of mind, in particular on the impossibility of mind-body interaction. So what was Elisabeth's own position on the nature of mind? What can we ascertain about her moral...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/hildegard-of-bingen. Hildegard von Bingen was a 12th century mystic, polymath, and composer whose work spanned visionary theology, philosophy, cosmology, medicine, botany, and music. Her extraordinary intellectual accomplishments belie her humble claim to be “just a woman”. Was her humility justified in the face of the divine, internalizing misogynistic...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/hypatia-alexandria. Hypatia of Alexandria, late antiquity public figure and scholar, made significant contributions to mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy. Her embrace of Neoplatonism was seen as such a threat to the political elite in Alexandria that she was murdered by a mob of Christians. So what made her ideas so dangerous and revolutionary for h...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/philippa-foot. Philippa Foot invented the thought experiment that famously became known as the Trolley Problem. Despite the vast industry of “trolleyology” it inspired, Foot’s goal to illuminate debates on abortion and euthanasia often gets lost in the mix. So, how did Foot use this thought experiment to distinguish between doing versus allowing? What d...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/mary-midgley. Mary Midgley became one of the best known public intellectuals in the UK, and was one of the first philosophers to talk about climate change. Though she didn’t publish her first book—Beast and Man—till she was 59, she wrote many influential works on science, ethics, and animal rights. So, why did Midgley argue that the climate crisis was u...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/iris-murdoch. Iris Murdoch may be best known for her works of fiction, but her philosophical contributions were equally significant. A moral realist influenced by Plato and Simone Weil, she developed theories in virtue ethics and care ethics. So what is the relationship between Murdoch's works of fiction and her philosophical writings? Why did she belie...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/judith-jarvis-thomson. Judith Jarvis Thomson is best known for arguing that abortion is morally permissible, even granting the fetus the status of person. Her colorful thought experiments illustrate that a right to life does not mean the right to use another person's body to survive. So, what exactly is a right to life and what does it permit or prohibi...

More at thttps://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/elizabeth-anscombe. Elizabeth Anscombe made hugely influential contributions to contemporary action theory, moral theory, and philosophy of mind. She also famously protested Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb when he was awarded an honorary degree at Oxford. Josh and Ray explore her life and thought with Rachael Wiseman from the University of Li...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/crisis-and-creativity-mayan-mythology. The Popol Vuh, written in 1702, was based on a Mayan oral tradition encompassing creation myths, history, and cosmology. These stories were written in a time of crisis: European colonialism had decimated the Mayan population and destroyed much of their cultural knowledge. How do stories help a society survive and t...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/emma-goldman. Activist and anarchist philosopher Emma Goldman fought for human liberation in every realm of life. While she opposed the women's suffrage movement, she was a staunch advocate for women’s rights. So why did she think the right to vote was so unimportant? What did she think was required to achieve her anarchist goals? And how ahead of her t...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/american-futures. When Ken Taylor passed away suddenly in 2019, he was working on a manuscript titled "Farewell to the Republic We Once Dreamed of." Was Ken right to think the American experiment is on the verge of collapse? Are we heading for authoritarian rule, a national divorce, or even a civil war? Or could better days be on the horizon? In Ken’s h...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/simone-weil. French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil was also an activist whose goal was to elevate the lower classes. But she was opposed to the kind of revolution where the oppressed overthrow their oppressors. So, how did she think we could achieve peace and justice? Is it enough to pay the right kind of attention to each other's suffering? And how...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/nisia-floresta. Nísia Floresta was a 19th-century writer and translator known as “the Brazilian Mary Wollstonecraft.” She published the first book on women’s rights in South America, when Brazil was gaining independence from Portugal and a new post-colonial nation was being built. She also argued for the rights of the enslaved and indigenous Brazilians,...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/mary-wollstonecraft. Mary Wollstonecraft is often labeled as a “liberal feminist” because of her concern for women’s rights and conceptions of freedom. But that label narrows her work, which was broadly critical of all social inequalities that distort human relations. So why did Wollstonecraft think that virtue is not truly possible unless we are all fr...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/could-robots-be-persons. As we approach the advent of autonomous robots, we must decide how we will determine culpability for their actions. Some propose creating a new legal category of “electronic personhood” for any sufficiently advanced robot that can learn and make decisions by itself. But do we really want to assign artificial intelligence legal—o...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/20th-anniversary-quiz-night. Philosophy Talk made its radio debut on August 20, 2003 with a live pilot on KALW San Francisco and weekly broadcasts beginning in January 2004. To celebrate two decades on the air, in November 2023 we held our first-ever Quiz Night. Longtime listeners and first-time fans filled KALW's popup space in downtown San Francisco a...

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/can-architecture-be-political. It’s common to judge a piece of architecture based on its functional and aesthetic values, and how the two might complement or compete with one other. It’s less common to judge architecture based on its political values. But can’t a building’s design also express a political viewpoint? Why are different styles of architect...