Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Philosophy discussions on science and weirdness of reality • mind, consciousness, perception • ethics and moral dilemmas • women philosophers and feminism • politics, liberalism, inequality • technology, AI, robots, VR • art, myth, religion
This podcast is a philosophy call-in and interview program that uses contemporary scholarship to “question everything,” ranging from foundational puzzles about reality to practical debates about how we should live together. Across the episodes, the hosts pair big, often counterintuitive questions with expert guests from philosophy and adjacent fields such as psychology, history, physics, economics, literature, and technology studies.
A recurring theme is metaphysics and the philosophy of science: how to interpret quantum strangeness, what counts as a law of nature, and how cosmology—from the Big Bang and dark matter to space-time and multiverse hypotheses—intersects with classic philosophical questions about explanation and existence. Alongside this runs sustained attention to the mind: consciousness, how we understand other people’s thoughts, the role of perception and language (including lesser-discussed senses like smell), and what cognitive biases imply about human rationality and knowledge.
Ethics and political philosophy are equally central. The show repeatedly returns to moral responsibility, rights, and difficult tradeoffs, using thought experiments and real-world cases such as abortion, euthanasia, war, online discourse, markets that people find morally objectionable, foreign aid, and the design of fair institutions. Episodes also probe liberalism’s historical entanglements with empire, the persistence and evolution of antisemitism, and uncertainties about democracy’s future.
Another prominent strand is philosophy through culture and intellectual history. The podcast examines how plays, myths, architecture, and art can illuminate questions of identity, exclusion, crisis, and social meaning. It also highlights influential thinkers—especially women philosophers and activists across periods and traditions—showing how their ideas engage enduring debates in ethics, mind, politics, and religion, including mysticism and faith.
Finally, the show tracks emerging technologies and their philosophical stakes: robots and artificial personhood, socially assistive machines, virtual reality, and autonomous vehicles, with a focus on empathy, accountability, and the reshaping of human experience.
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Episodes:
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This Week: Civil Disobedience
2026-Jan-18
50 minutes
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This Week: Mind Sharing
2025-Dec-21
51 minutes
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Shakespeare's Outsiders
2025-Dec-13
51 minutes
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Im Yunjidang
2025-Dec-06
51 minutes
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Margaret Cavendish
2025-Nov-15
51 minutes
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Mary Astell
2025-Oct-25
51 minutes
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Elisabeth of Bohemia
2025-Oct-04
51 minutes
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Hildegard von Bingen
2025-Sep-13
51 minutes
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Hypatia of Alexandria
2025-Aug-16
51 minutes
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Philippa Foot
2025-Jun-05
51 minutes
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Mary Midgley
2025-May-08
51 minutes
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Iris Murdoch
2025-Apr-11
51 minutes
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Judith Jarvis Thomson
2025-Mar-08
51 minutes
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Elizabeth Anscombe
2024-Dec-19
51 minutes
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Crisis and Creativity in Mayan Mythology
2024-Dec-14
51 minutes
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Emma Goldman
2024-Nov-13
52 minutes
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American Futures (Ken Taylor Memorial Episode)
2024-Nov-02
56 minutes
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Simone Weil
2024-Oct-20
51 minutes
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Anna Julia Cooper
2024-Oct-06
52 minutes
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Nísia Floresta
2024-Jun-11
51 minutes
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Mary Wollstonecraft
2024-May-06
52 minutes
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Could Robot Be Persons?
2024-Apr-11
54 minutes
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20th Anniversary Quiz Show
2024-Jan-20
60 minutes
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Can Architecture Be Political?
2023-Oct-12
51 minutes
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Can Art Save Us?
2023-Jun-09
51 minutes
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The Philosophy of Smell
2023-Mar-20
51 minutes
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Liberty and Justice For Who?
2022-Oct-21
51 minutes
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The Changing Face of Antisemitism
2022-Jun-18
51 minutes
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What Can Virtual Reality (Actually) Do?
2021-Dec-12
51 minutes
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The Social Lives of Robots
2021-Nov-13
51 minutes
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Time for Summer Reading
2020-Jun-14
51 minutes
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Ken Taylor Tribute
2019-Dec-29
52 minutes
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Foreign Aid – or Injury?
2018-Dec-16
50 minutes
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Does Science Over-reach?
2018-Jul-17
50 minutes
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Radical Markets: Solutions for a Gilded Age?
2018-Jul-15
50 minutes
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Repugnant Markets: Should Everything Be For Sale?
2018-Jun-03
50 minutes
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Faith and Humility
2018-Apr-23
50 minutes
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Are We Alone?
2018-Apr-20
50 minutes
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Trolling, Bullying, and Flame Wars: Humility and Online Discourse
2018-Apr-12
50 minutes
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How To Humbly Disagree
2018-Mar-04
50 minutes
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Could the Laws of Physics Ever Change?
2017-Aug-08
50 minutes
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Driverless Cars at the Moral Crossroads
2017-Jul-30
50 minutes
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Cognitive Bias
2017-Jul-09
51 minutes
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Knowing What We Know (And What We Don't)
2017-Mar-07
51 minutes
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The Space-Time Continuum
2017-Feb-21
51 minutes
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The Mystery of the Multiverse
2016-Sep-29
51 minutes
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Matter and Energy: The Dark Side
2016-Sep-27
50 minutes
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The Big Bang: Before and After
2016-Jul-26
52 minutes
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Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
2016-Mar-21
51 minutes
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The Ancient Cosmos: When the Earth Stood Still
2016-Mar-04
51 minutes
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Living On Through Others
2015-Oct-28
50 minutes
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The Technology of Immortality
2015-Sep-15
51 minutes
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Reincarnation: Past Lives, Future Selves
2015-Apr-27
49 minutes
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What's Next? Death and the Afterlife
2015-Jan-09
50 minutes
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The Lure of Immortality
2014-Dec-05
49 minutes
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Life as a Work of Art
2013-Aug-18
50 minutes
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Finding Meaning in a Material World
2013-Aug-04
51 minutes
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Freedom and Free Enterprise
2013-Jul-20
50 minutes
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Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times
2013-Jul-07
51 minutes
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Physics, Philosophy, and Theology
2013-Jun-08
50 minutes
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Faith, Reason, and the Art of Living
2013-May-19
50 minutes
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Good, Evil, and the Divine Plan
2013-May-04
50 minutes
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The Demands of Morality
2013-Apr-28
49 minutes
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God and the Fine-Tuned Universe
2013-Mar-16
50 minutes
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The Self
2013-Feb-23
49 minutes
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Unconditional Love
2012-Dec-06
50 minutes
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Freedom, Blame, and Resentment
2012-May-12
49 minutes
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Pantheism
2012-Feb-25
50 minutes
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Forgive and Forget
2011-Dec-10
50 minutes
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Miracles
2011-Nov-05
50 minutes
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Wisdom
2011-Sep-24
48 minutes
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Time, Space, and Quantum Mechanics
2011-Aug-13
50 minutes
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The Mind and the World
2009-Jun-07
50 minutes
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Worship
2009-May-09
49 minutes
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Challenges To Free Will
2009-Mar-07
49 minutes
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Creativity
2009-Jan-24
49 minutes
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Dualism
2008-Aug-08
50 minutes
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Altruism
2008-Jun-29
49 minutes
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The Problem of Evil
2008-Jun-06
49 minutes
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Saint Augustine
2008-Jan-27
49 minutes
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The Concept of God
2007-Dec-09
50 minutes
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Faith, Reason, and Science
2007-Oct-13
49 minutes
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