The Canadian Philosophy Show

In this episode, Hale and Brandon discuss various narrative and media elements of the 2024 US presidential election.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded November 6, 2024

In this episode, Hale and Brandon read and discuss Agathon's speech in Plato's Symposium, particularly with a view to exploring the place of rhetoric in his speech.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded October 20, 2024

In this episode, Brandon and Hale conclude their reading of Parmenides' poem, focusing on the argument for what-is and exploring the fragmentary way of seeming.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded October 8, 2024

Artificial intelligence, art, politics, and ethics.   With: Aaron Wang Kyra Tianen Michael Robert Caditz   Recorderd October 14, 2024 in Vancouver BC

Reading the Presocratics: Parmenides (part 1) In this episode, Hale and Brandon begin reading the surviving passages of Parmenides' poem, unpacking the novel idea that "it is."   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded September 1, 2024

Reading the Presocratics: Heraclitus Description: In this episode, Hale and Brandon introduce and read through a selection of the fragments of Heraclitus, especially those concerned with his paradoxical ontology.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded August 18, 2024

Reading the Presocratics: Pherecydes and Xenophanes Description: In this episode, Hale and Brandon bring together Pherecydes and Xenophanes to read them each as criticising and revising the inherited theological picture of the Ancient Greek world.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded August 4, 2024

Reading the Presocratics: Pythagoras In this episode, Brandon and Hale introduce and discuss Pythagoras, a religious and political leader whose Pythagorean community would go on to have an enormous influence on Ancient Greek philosophy. We relate him to the intellectual climate at the time and read through a selection of the various sayings and anecdotes attributed to Pythagoras.   with: Hale Roth...

What is superintelligence? An entry level discussion of the idea and problem of superintelligence. https://nickbostrom.com/ethics/ai     with: Aaron Wang (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee   Recorded July 26, 2024

What is superintelligence? An entry level discussion of the idea and problem of superintelligence. https://nickbostrom.com/ethics/ai     with: Aaron Wang (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Kyra Tianen (Vancouver Island University) Recorded July 13, 2024

Reading the Presocratics: The Melisians part 2 In this episode of our Reading the Presocratics series, Brandon and Hale continue surveying the fragmentary remains of the Milesians and their metaphysical thought. Part 2 reviews Thales and covers Anaximander and Anaximenes.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded July 4, 2024

In this episode, Hale and Brandon begin reading the Presocratic philosophers, starting with the Milesians. They introduce the Milesians and the context which gave rise to their philosophical project, and work through some of the ideas and deeds attributed to Thales.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded June 28, 2024

Special guest Jillian Maguire discusses the fight to clean up public pensions in British Columbia  and the importance of climate action on a massive scale. Jillian Maguire is a BC public school teacher who co-founded the BCTF Divest Now campaign with Kim Benson. The BC Teachers’ Pension Plan is a subsidiary of BCI (British Columbia Investments). BCI has holdings in fossil fuels, weapons of mass de...

In this episode, Brandon and Hale explore Martin Heidegger's philosophy with a focus on the experience of presence. We begin with an article by Lawrence Berger outlining the experience Heidegger wants to illuminate and its relation to our modern scientific perspectives, before turning to his essay Building Dwelling Thinking to take a closer look at how Heidegger understands how our experience of p...

In this episode, Brandon and Hale briefly sketch out skepticism within contemporary epistemology and explore one answer to radical skepticism: hinge epistemology. Following Michael Williams', they discuss the immediate appeal and ultimate failure of hinge propositions to answer skeptical challenges.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded June 3, 2024

There is no ethical obligation to obey laws Michael will make a deductive argument with the unusual conclusion that although one might sometimes abide by laws for practical reasons, there are neither ethical nor principled reasons to do so. with: Brandon Brownlee (Vancouver Island University) Michael Robert Caditz (University of British Columbia)   Recorded April 4th, 2024

Our Goals in Philosophy In this discussion, we'll explore the way that one's aims and goals factor into and are a part of doing and studying philosophy.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded March 25, 2024

In this episode, Hale and Brandon discuss the notion of human rights and their competing justifications in religious and secular terms.     with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded March 20, 2024

Philosophy of Mind: A discussion on monism and its current role in the philosophy of mind as a response to dualism. We'll raise the question of what these metaphysical theories are, and whether they're adequate responses to dualism (at least as monism is discussed within contemporary philosophy of mind). with: Brandon Brownlee (Vancouver Island University) Michael Robert Caditz (University of Brit...

Environmental philosophy: The five pillars of nature's value. An analysis of five philosophical reasons nature can be asserted to have value. with: Michael Robert Caditz (University of British Columbia) Brandon Brownlee (Vancouver Island University)

The Herd, the Public, the They In this episode, Brandon and Hale elaborate and discuss Heidegger's notion of the They, and explore two prior concepts anticipating this idea: Nietzsche's idea of the Herd and Kierkegaard's idea of the Public.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded March 3, 2024

Media and Rhetoric Description: In this episode, Hale and Brandon discuss forms of media and media theory in relation to current political circumstances, from the Israel-Palestine conflict to the emerging wave of populist politics.   with: Hale Rothery (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee (Vancouver Island University) Recorded February 25, 2024

Cultural evolution does not exist I will make a highly provocative and controversial claim based in logic that although biological "Darwinian" evolution may be indisputable, the popular notion of "cultural evolution"--which is the subject of much cutting-edge exploration and unsettled debate--is unlikely to exist.   with: Michael Robert Caditz (University of British Columbia) Brandon Brownlee (Van...

Continuation of Part 1 in the introduction to Philosophy of Law. This time, we discuss Dworkin's view, which builds upon the legal positivist view with reference to the natural law theorists mentioned previously. Two more cases are brought to bear on this debate.   Led by Mihai Covaser University of British Columbia)   with:   Tagen Marshall (Vancouver Island University) Brandon Brownlee Recorded...

Introduction to the two primary camps in the debate about the nature of law: natural law theory and legal positivism. We explore two natural law theorists, St. Thomas Aquinas and John Finnis, and two legal positivists, John Austin and H.L.A. Hart, as well as Hart's student Ronald Dworkin, who's theory tries to reconcile the two camps.   with: Michael Robert Caditz (University of British Columbia)...