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Join us each month as we engage in philosophical discussions about the most common-place topics with host Jack Russell Weinstein, professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Dakota. He is the director of The Institute for Philosophy in Public Life.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Everyday philosophy • ethics and moral psychology • denial, self-deception • privacy, forgetting • ordinary evil, responsibility • political/civic challenges, censorship, AI • Indigenous thought • Marx/Plato relevance • peace, violence • love, dignity, emotionsThis podcast brings academic philosophy into conversation with ordinary experience and urgent public questions. Hosted by philosopher Jack Russell Weinstein, it features interview-based discussions with scholars, authors, and activists who use philosophical tools to examine how people make sense of their lives and responsibilities.
Across the episodes, recurring themes include how we assign value and meaning—whether to heirlooms and what we preserve for the future, to ideals like dignity, or to relationships such as love. Several conversations probe the psychology and ethics of belief, focusing on denial, self-deception, and the narratives people use to protect identity or avoid uncomfortable truths. The show also explores what it means to live well under modern conditions, including debates about privacy in an age of exposure, the moral role of memory and forgetting, and the possibility that negative emotions can contribute to growth rather than merely hinder it.
There is a strong current of social and political philosophy. Guests discuss how ordinary people can participate in great harms, how philosophy responds to censorship and shifting educational and technological landscapes, and how traditions like Marxist ethics and Indigenous philosophy challenge dominant Western frameworks. The podcast also takes up applied ethical questions around peace and nonviolence, espionage, and contemporary conflicts.
In addition, it considers how emerging technologies and culture reshape reality and self-understanding, from virtual reality and consciousness to the philosophical significance of fashion, touch, and the human connection to nature.
