Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Philosophy discussions on ethics and well-being • women philosophers and feminist thought • political theory, liberalism, empire, inequality • art, architecture, literature, mythology • technology ethics: AI, robots, VR, driverless cars • epistemology, humility, cognitive bias • philosophy of science and cosmology
This podcast offers conversational explorations of philosophy as it intersects with public life, culture, and the sciences. Across the episodes, the hosts use big questions—about knowledge, morality, politics, and meaning—as a way to clarify what’s at stake in contemporary debates and in longstanding intellectual traditions. Discussions often take the form of guided inquiry with academic guests, moving from everyday intuitions to more careful distinctions and arguments.
A major theme is ethical and political philosophy applied to real institutions and crises: how economic policy relates to well-being, what justice and liberty require in societies shaped by empire and inequality, and how democracies respond to polarization and threats of authoritarianism. The show also repeatedly returns to social identity and exclusion, drawing on literature and history to examine race, gender, class, disability, and religious prejudice, and to ask who is recognized as fully included in civic and moral communities.
Another recurring strand is the “Wise Women” focus on influential women thinkers across eras and regions, highlighting their contributions to moral theory, metaphysics, action theory, education, and social critique, and situating their ideas within the constraints they faced.
The podcast also engages philosophy of mind and psychology—topics like social cognition, communication, bias, and disagreement—alongside philosophy of technology, including debates about artificial intelligence, robot sociality, virtual reality, and autonomous vehicles. Finally, it regularly connects philosophy with physics and cosmology, using questions about space-time, laws of nature, the multiverse, and cosmic origins to probe the boundary between scientific explanation and metaphysical speculation.
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Episodes:
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"Select Episodes" is ending
2026-Mar-01
less than a minute
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Can Money Buy Well-being?
2026-Feb-14
51 minutes
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Anna Julia Cooper
2026-Jan-30
52 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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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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