Why do some people have a strange desire to do weird things for no (good) reason? There's something fascinating about kids who eat laundry soap as part of a “challenge,” or people who deliberately... Read more
PHILOSOPHERS' CORNER
PHILOSOPHERS' CORNER
Money Matters
27
Apr 2020
Is money the root of all evil, or is it just a technology that makes our lives more efficient? Should some things not be for sale? This week on Philosophy Talk, we’ll be discussing money: where it comes from, what it is now, and what it could become in the future.
Read moreProust and Social Distance
22
Apr 2020
Marcel Proust once wrote about a hypothetical sufferer of “spiritual depression” who has no physical incapacity but lacks the will to act. If you've been walled up at home for weeks, you might suffer from this type of mental languor. A good book may be the jolt you need to spur you into new and creative thoughts.
Read morePuzzle 2: What is an Identity?
16
Apr 2020
Continuing my series of puzzles to distract you from the current crisis, this month I'm asking: What is an identity? I mean the kind of identity that makes you a member of a certain social group (call these collective identities, social identities, or group identities), though that’s a rough characterization.
Read morePhilosophy and the Superhero
11
Apr 2020
Can comic books reveal deep truths about human nature? What can Marvel’s Miracleman teach us about metaphysics? Should we be learning about ethics from Batman and Superman? On this week’s show, we’ll be talking with Nathaniel Goldberg about what philosophers can learn from superhero comics.
Read moreTrying to Let Go of the Past
09
Apr 2020
How many times have you heard people advise others to let go of the past? Once you see that these painful, traumatic experiences are over and done, you supposedly achieve “closure” and can “get on with your life.” But trying to let go of past experiences is not really something you can achieve.
Read moreThinking and Mental Action
02
Apr 2020
Sometimes your mind wanders, and sometimes your thoughts focus on a specific topic. When your mind wanders, you're not really doing much, but when you focus, you're engaged in a specific mental action; you control what you're thinking about. So what is this mental control?
Read moreGame Theory and COVIDiocy
27
Mar 2020
It's time for a listener question! Susan L. wrote to us with a very interesting question about game theory and COVID-19. She wanted to know if we could discover a pattern in the president's behavior and use game theory to disrupt that pattern and save lives. I put together some responses to Susan's question.
Read morePuzzle 1: Are Beliefs Voluntary?
23
Mar 2020
Need a distraction from the incessant stream of information and speculation about the Coronavirus? I certainly do. So for my next few blogs, I’m going to describe philosophical puzzles that are either old or new. I won’t help solve them until the next blog, at which point I’ll post links to various solutions. Enjoy!
Read moreViral Xenophobia
16
Mar 2020
As I write this, the world is in the path of a mounting pandemic. People are frightened. They should be. The novel coronavirus is dangerous. It can and does kill. But its biologically menacing character is just one part of the threat that it poses. The virus also presents us with a social threat.
Read more#FrancisOnFilm: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
09
Mar 2020
Is it wrong to paint someone’s portrait without their consent? Portrait of a Lady on Fire presents this ethical dilemma for an eighteenth century portrait artist. The film is deep on many levels, but one of the most important is how it asks us to think about portraiture, privacy, and consent.
Read moreSorry, Critics: Parasite is a Good Movie
02
Mar 2020
For me—as for the good people at the Oscars—Parasite was far and away the best film of 2019. Critics, however, are eagerly denouncing it as a failure, a capitulation, a “conservative” film, indeed a movie full of “contempt” for the working class. What is going on?
Read moreAnti-Sacred Spaces
27
Feb 2020
According to the "Blowing Off Steam" theory, rough humor—humor that deals with culturally sensitive issues in a way that bumps into or violates taboos—helps release people’s anxieties and stresses in a safe environment. Specifically, it is a release of sacred anxiety.
Read moreIs the Self Real?
20
Feb 2020
Is there such a thing as a self, something that makes you who you are? Or is the self just a convenient fiction? Would the world be a better place if we all stopped believing in selves? These are some of the questions we're asking in this week's show.
Read moreAm I in Everything I Imagine?
13
Feb 2020
Imagination is one way we can get outside our own skin and get a sense of other people’s lives. But when we take imaginative travels, must we always imagine ourselves being part of these other worlds—or can we simply imagine these worlds without including ourselves in them?
Read moreWhat Is Good Philosophy?
06
Feb 2020
Not too long ago, I had a Twitter exchange with Philosophy Talk’s Josh Landy about whether Freud was a good philosopher. It struck me that I’ve never given much thought to the question of what good philosophy is. Is it just a matter of taste? Or are there guidelines for separating the wheat from the chaff?
Read more#FrancisOnFilm: Dionysus for Docs
03
Feb 2020
A documentary film has never won the Philosophy Talk Dionysus Award for Most Philosophical Film of the Year. But documentaries often raise complex philosophical issues and get us to question our assumptions. This year’s Oscar nominees for Best Documentary are no exception.
Read moreRough Humor
29
Jan 2020
One current culture war in North American society concerns rough humor—jokes, skits, writings, cartoons, etc. that deal with culturally sensitive issues in a way that bumps into or violates taboos. But is there something harmful about rough humor?
Read moreIs the Sentence Becoming Passé?
26
Jan 2020
In an age of emojis, memes, and reaction gifs, are complete sentences becoming passé? Do outmoded forms of writing deserve to die? Or could there be room for more than one kind of writing? These are the questions we're asking on this week's show.
Read moreWhat Is a “Vivid” Mental Image?
23
Jan 2020
What is a mental image? You might say it’s like a picture that belongs to the “mind’s eye.” Or you might say it's like a visual experience, only less vivid. But what, exactly, does it mean for mental images to be less vivid than genuine visual experiences of the world?
Read moreComedy on the Edges
14
Jan 2020
Is there comedy so offensive that it shouldn’t be allowed? Do some jokes encourage bigotry and hatred? Could edgy comedy ever be good for society? These are some of the questions we’re asking in this week’s show, our first new show since Ken died last month.
Read moreWhat the Future Holds
06
Jan 2020
Hume's problem of induction is that there’s no logical basis for drawing conclusions about what will happen in the future on the basis of what’s happened in the past. Doing so rests on an assumption that’s at best a leap of faith, and at worst an example of intellectual laziness.
Read moreKen’s Unfinished Project
27
Dec 2019
One Sunday in the spring of 2007, John and I walked into the back room of KALW to find Ken singing. Back then I was both Ken’s PhD student and the director of research for Philosophy Talk, so it was always a treat to catch my advisor and boss being playful. He was coming up with different lyrics for Sinatra’s classic “Love and Marriage.”
Read more2019: The Examined Year
23
Dec 2019
If you think 2019 went by fast, it's nothing compared to the speed of Ian Shoales' lightning fast recap of the year. From streaming services to superheroes, from Ukraine and Russia to North Korea, from incels to your mom smoking dope. Not even Santa can cover this much ground so quickly!
Read moreHow Much Thought Is Inactive?
19
Dec 2019
How much of your mental life is intentional action? And how much of it consists of inaction, not doing anything at all? To answer that, we need to get clear on what we mean by “intentional action” and “inaction.”
Read moreHuman, Subhuman, or Both?
13
Dec 2019
Some scholars are skeptical of the claim that people dehumanize others by conceiving of them as less-than-human beings—in a literal rather than a figurative sense. However, there is evidence that those who dehumanize others conceive of them as both human and subhuman at the same time.
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